NIH may cut funding for vaccine reluctance research and may target mRNA research

Updated on March 12, 2025 at 6:52pm (East US)

The Trump administration has cut back on long-standing research areas funded by the National Institutes of Health, claiming that they no longer align with the agency's priorities.

The latest target?

A multi-million-dollar grant from the NIH to study vaccine hesitancy and study ways to improve vaccination levels. This is a particularly relevant task as the measles outbreak grasps the Southwest amid declining vaccination rates.

In recent weeks, scientists across the country have begun receiving letters indicating that existing grants (money already awarded in the competitive process) have been cut.

Initially, the cuts appeared to target primarily LGBTQ+ health research and other areas of research that were deemed to be inconsistent with gender and President Trump's executive orders on “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Currently, more than 40 grants related to vaccine hesitancy have been cancelled, raising concerns that research into mRNA vaccines could be next in the chopping block.

The NPR obtained information about the changes from two NIH staff members and one person familiar with the activities of the NIH who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak publicly. And NPR reviewed the emails and documents they provided.

“I want to emphasize more – how extraordinary this is,” a longtime NIH official told NPR. “This is not how we operate it.”

Emails circulated between NIH leadership this week included a list of grants to close and details of the specific languages ​​used in those notifications. “It is the NIH policy to not prioritize research activities that focus on gaining scientific knowledge about why individuals are hesitating vaccinations or exploring ways to improve vaccine interests and commitments,” the email said.

It is unclear exactly how many grants have been cancelled in total under the Trump administration. Neither the NIH nor its parent agency, the Ministry of Health and Human Services, responded to NPR's request for comment.

“It appears they have the power to destroy existing vaccine companies,” he says. Dr. Jonathan Temtea professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin, studying vaccine hesitancy. “Refunds for research on vaccine hesitancy are the latest example of this effort.”

mRNA studies may be at risk

Dr. Matthew Memory, acting director of the NIH, requested information last week on funding to support Merna vaccine research, mRNA vaccine research that supports the technology that underpins Covid-19 shots from Moderna and Pfizer-Biontech, according to an email reviewed by NPR. Similar data calls preceded the end of other vaccine grants.

“NIH staff are very concerned that mRNA grants will be fired in accordance with the outcome of vaccine reluctance grants,” according to one NIH employee who is not permitted to speak publicly. “There is widespread concern that this will limit our ability to combat the pandemic and halt promising life-saving cancer treatments.”

NPR reviewed 130 NIH lists of these awards issued by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or the NIAID that funds mRNA research. This includes efforts to develop vaccines for a variety of diseases, including Lyme disease, dengue fever and sometimes life-threatening gastrointestinal infections. Clostridium difficile.

Other parts of the NIH, such as the National Cancer Institute, are also funding this work. This is because mRNA technology holds promising for targeted cancer treatments.

“I'm constantly on the pin and needle.” Justin RichnerAssociate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “I'm really waiting for my shoes to fall in terms of looking for emails that the grant has been cancelled.”

Richner's $1 million, four-year NIH grant is on the agency's internal list. His lab is working on developing an mRNA vaccine to protect dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease that affects millions of people around the world and is spreading throughout the United States.

“This is an outrageous invasion about the way the NIH manages the money allocated by Congress,” says Dr. Harold BalmusHe is a Nobel Prize-winning professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, who ran NIH from 1993 to 1999.

Aaron SchellerUniversity of Iowa researchers studying vaccine hesitancy, say his grants have not been cancelled as far as he knows, but given what is going on, the NIH assumes it will not fund his future proposals “regardless of scientific and health benefits.”

Health disparities and LGBTQ+ research loses ground

Vaccine research is just the latest target in the Trump administration's expansion efforts to block NIH-funded researchers.

Last month, the first letter came out to researchers notifying them that their grants had been cancelled because they didn't meet President Trump's executive order.

A closing letter reviewed by the NPR state, “A project change cannot align projects with agency priorities,” but current NIH employees told NPR that the science staff at their institute, who are responsible for making the decision, will not be consulted. “They haven't checked us,” the person said. He added that these termination decisions have come virtually without notice.

According to an internal memo, NIH staff were instructed to separate awards into different categories, depending on, for example, “the sole purpose of the project is DEI-related,” or whether it is feasible even if it is changed.

The guidance also affects hundreds of awards in the coming months as many “funding opportunity notifications” have been removed and grants applied through those notifications will also not be able to obtain funding.

Brittany CharltonWhile leading the Harvard LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, she says she tallied two dozen awards that she finished among her colleagues for work that touched on issues such as HIV prevention and Alzheimer's disease.

Cuts have impacted not only on research into LGBTQ+ populations, but also on other vulnerable communities, she says.

“We're not studying the fringe problem. They're not ideological either,” says Charlton.

Is there any information you would like to share about the ongoing changes across the federal government? Please contact these authors via encrypted communication: Will Stone @wstonereports.95 and Rob Stein @Robstein.22.

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