NIH scientists sign open letter criticizing Trump administration's grant cancellations, firings

More than 300 scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) signed an open letter on Monday morning to director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, criticizing the Trump administration over recent moves.

The letter, including 92 signed names and 250 anonymous but verified signatories, shares concerns that research is being politicized, global collaboration is being interrupted and that budget and staff cuts have hindered the ability of NIH to do important research.

"[W]e dissent to Administration policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe," the letter reads. "We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources."

Some of the NIH scientists who signed the letter, speaking in their personal capacity and not on behalf of the agency, told ABC News they and their colleagues have tried to raise concerns internally -- and repeatedly -- but to no avail.

They said there is now an urgency to speak up, especially as Bhattacharya is set to testify on Tuesday at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the proposed NIH budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

"There is a lot of risk to speaking up, and I am very scared still, even after it's already done, even after it's already said," Jenna Norton, a program officer at the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and one of the lead organizers of the letter, told ABC News. "I think a lot of people are focused on the risk of speaking up, but we also need to think about the risk of not speaking up."

The letter, called the Bethesda Declaration -- NIH is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland -- is modeled after the Great Barrington Declaration, of which Bhattacharya was a co-author.

Published in October 2020 and named after the Massachusetts town in which it was drafted, the Great Barrington Declaration called for COVID-19 lockdowns to be avoided and a new plan for handling the pandemic by protecting the most vulnerable individuals but allowing most to resume normal activities, achieving herd immunity naturally.

At the time, it was widely criticized by public health professionals, including Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, who said allowing a virus "we don't fully understand to run free is simply unethical." During testimony before Congress in March 2023, Bhattacharya said the declaration was targeted for "suppression" by federal health officials.

"We modeled the Bethesda Declaration after the Great Barrington Declaration … because we wanted him to see himself in our action," Norton said. "He's spoken a lot about his commitment to academic freedom and to dissent. If Jay Bhattacharya is the person he very publicly claims to be, and if he is actually in charge at NIH, our hope is that this will move him to action. And if he's not the person he says to be or he's not in charge at NIH, I think the public and Congress should be aware of that."

The letter called on Bhattacharya to reverse grants that have been delayed or terminated for "political reasons" and to allow work with foreign collaborators.

The signatories also asked Bhattacharya to reverse a policy capping indirect costs for research at 15% and to reinstate essential staff who were fired at NIH.

"The Bethesda Declaration has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months, including the continuing support of the NIH for international collaboration," Bhattacharya said in a statement to ABC News. "Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive. We all want the NIH to succeed."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health & Human Services told ABC News that the agency has not halted "legitimate" collaborations with international partners. Additionally, the spokesperson said other funders, like the Gates Foundation, cap indirect costs at 15% and that each case of termination is being reviewed.

Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral researcher at the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences whose work focused on antimicrobial resistance, told ABC News seeing the changes at the agency has been a "traumatic experience."

He said when the Trump administration came into office, he was prevented from doing research in his lab because he couldn't purchase essential items and he was not allowed to attend a conference in February to speak with potential collaborators. He also saw many of his coworkers get accidentally terminated and then reinstated.

"It's just really traumatic and really disruptive for researchers at the NIH," Morgan, who signed the letter, said. "We get into this not because we're trying to make money, not because of our own benefit. We're getting into this because we want to serve the public. We want to do life-saving research."

Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute (NCI) who also signed the letter, said prior to the new administration, she worked with researchers interested either in receiving funds from NCI or who had funds already and were requesting assistance from NCI.

However, with more than 2,100 research grants totaling around $9.5 billion terminated at NIH -- according to the letter -- she said some of her daily tasks have changed.

"I spend my time on the phone now talking with people who've just learned that their projects have been cut and have been given false, pseudo-scientific reasons to say their work is not valuable, not important for public health for America, and it's just not true," Kobrin told ABC News.

The NIH researchers told ABC News there is a public letter that people can sign to express their support or they can contact their congressional representatives to express their concerns.

Morgan, the antimicrobial researcher, said he doesn't want the letter to just be about detailing all the changes that occurred at NIH since Trump took office.

"It is us standing up and showing that that not everything is lost, and certainly there's been irreparable damage, but we still have time to right the ship and take it in the right direction," he said. "I need to leave people with that message of hope because, otherwise, they can feel there's nothing that they can do, and that we're powerless, but we are all powerful."

The Trump administration didn't immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.