NIH funding cuts will hit red states, rural areas and underserved communities the hardest

The National Institutes of Health is the largest federal funder of medical research in the U.S. NIH funds drive research and innovation, leading to better understanding and treatment of diseases and improved health outcomes.

The NIH provided more than US$35 billion in grants to over 2,500 universities and other institutions in 2023 to support biomedical research. Thus, it came as a shock to these institutions when the NIH, based on a new Trump administration policy, announced on Feb. 7, 2025, that it intends to cut the funding used to support the grantee institutions by $5.5 billion annually.

On March 5, a U.S. district judge in Boston issued a nationwide injunctionblocking the administration from implementing the proposed cuts to NIH funding, arguing that the planned cuts were unlawful. However, the White House will almost certainly appeal.

We are a husband-and-wife team of immunologists who have been funded by the NIH for several decades. We believe our research has led to a better understanding of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. In addition, one of us (Prakash Nagarkatti) served as vice president for research at the University of South Carolina for over a decade, managing all NIH grants awarded to the university.

While we believe such cuts will be detrimental to the entire country, they will disproportionately hurt states that traditionally have received very low levels of NIH funding, the majority of which are red states that supported Trump’s election to a second term. This is because such states lack resources to develop advanced research infrastructure necessary to compete nationally for NIH funding.

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