By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are drawing sharp criticism from scientists, civil rights advocates, and health equity researchers who warn that the reductions are disproportionately harming African Americans and other historically marginalized communities. The newly released Bethesda Declaration—signed by more than 2,300 NIH staff, Nobel laureates, and public health leaders—calls out politically motivated funding terminations and staff layoffs that have jeopardized decades of life-saving research. Signatories accuse NIH leadership of abandoning its core mission to enhance health and reduce illness in favor of partisan interference. “NIH has stigmatized and abruptly cut off funding for research mislabeled ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI),’” the declaration states. “Achieving your stated goal to ‘solve the American chronic disease crisis’ requires research addressing the social and structural drivers of health disparities.”

A particularly striking example came in May when NIH canceled a $9 million UCSF clinical trial studying the effects of guaranteed income on 300 low-income Black young adults in the Bay Area. The study had been offering $500 per month to participants to assess how economic stability could improve health and life outcomes. Its abrupt termination undermined both the research and the trust built with community participants, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle. Researchers and NIH employees decried the move. “Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million—it wastes $4 million,” the declaration warns. More importantly, they note, it leaves vulnerable populations without the benefit of critical scientific findings directly relevant to their lives. The effects extend far beyond California. An analysis by Stat News revealed that the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities suffered funding cuts of approximately 30%—a far deeper reduction than experienced by most NIH branches. The institute is responsible for investigating conditions disproportionately affecting African Americans and other communities of color, such as hypertension, diabetes, maternal mortality, and mental health disparities.

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“Broad participation in biomedical research is critical,” NIH staff wrote in the declaration. “Due to misunderstanding of its workforce diversity programs, NIH terminated top-scoring grants to scientists from underrepresented backgrounds, while maintaining poorer-scoring grants from standard pathways.” These actions have not only halted progress in understanding and addressing racial health disparities but also disrupted the careers of many researchers committed to equity-based science. The declaration outlines that since January 20, 2025, the NIH has canceled 2,100 grants totaling $9.5 billion and contracts worth an additional $2.6 billion. Many of these terminated programs focused on COVID-19 and long COVID—conditions that have disproportionately impacted Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities. Others addressed the health effects of climate change, gender identity, and sexual health—fields closely tied to the experiences of marginalized groups.

The signers also warn that NIH staffing and infrastructure cuts have slowed research, jeopardized clinical trials, and undermined public trust. Layoffs targeting essential personnel, they say, have made the agency less efficient, less transparent, and more politically vulnerable. Freeman Hrabowski, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and at least 21 Nobel laureates—including Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi—are among the high-profile backers of the Bethesda Declaration.

“Each day that NIH continues to disrupt research, your ability to deliver on this duty narrows,” the signers warn NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who has come under scrutiny for allowing political considerations to override peer review, academic freedom and ethical obligations to study participants. The harms of these policies are not theoretical; they are real. They are already unfolding—cutting short vital research on chronic illness, mental health, and economic justice, and widening disparities in communities that have long faced the worst outcomes and the least investment. “We, the undersigned, stand united with these courageous and selfless public servants,” the declaration concludes. “Together, we stand up for science.”

Stacy M. Brown

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