On Monday, March 10, news broke that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) intended to terminate or scale back over 40 grants funding research on understanding vaccine hesitancy and promoting vaccine uptake. Both The Washington Post and Science reported that Michelle Bulls, Director of the NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research, emailed staff that morning to notify them of the “required terminations.” The email included a list of awards to be canceled and instructions to send termination letters to grant recipients by the end of the day. This email followed an earlier notice from Acting Director Matthew Memoli asking each institute and center (IC) to provide a list of current and future grants involving vaccine hesitancy.
The termination letter informed investigators that their research “no longer effectuates agency priorities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focus on gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment.”
Terminated grants included 14 funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which studied vaccines for mpox, HPV, and chickenpox, to name just a few of the diseases examined. Bullis’ email also flagged grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) were in.
The news has raised serious concerns among public health experts, especially in light of the ongoing measles outbreak, primarily in Texas, which has already led to two fatalities, the first U.S measles deaths in a decade. Measles vaccination rates among children have been on the decline since 2019 and experts believe that low vaccination rates are at the root of the current outbreak. As such, this is a critical time to be studying vaccine hesitancy and uptake, not abandoning this area of research.
At this time, it is unclear if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), was involved in the decision to cancel these grants. Kennedy has long been known as a vaccine skeptic and his views played a key role in his Senate confirmation hearing last month, with Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) only agreeing to vote “Yes” once he had assurances from Kennedy that he was committed to “protecting the public health benefit of vaccination.” Even if not directly ordered by Kennedy, this move by NIH is yet another sign that he will not keep that promise.
This guidance from HHS came within a week of the Senate confirmation hearing for nominee Jay Bhattacharya (see FABBS article).
FABBS will continue to monitor actions taken by NIH leadership under the current administration. If you have any information about terminated federal grants, including your own, please reach out to us at info@fabbs.org.
