Hundreds of Cancer, Infectious Disease Trials Disrupted by NIH Cuts

More than 380 clinical trials and tens of thousands of participants were disrupted by cuts to grant funding from the National Institutes of Health this year, according to a research analysis published Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine. 

The authors examined 11,008 clinical trials funded between Feb. 28 and Aug. 15 by active NIH grants and found that 383 of them—or 3.5 percent—had lost grant funding by Aug. 15. About 36 percent of those trials were completed, 34 percent were recruiting participants, 13.7 percent were not yet recruiting participants and 11 percent were active and no longer recruiting. That last group consisted of 43 trials that enrolled 74,311 participants combined.

The affected trials most often focused on infectious diseases (14.4 percent), respiratory diseases (5.8 percent) and cardiovascular diseases (5 percent). More than 4,400 of the NIH-funded trials focused on cancer, and 118 of them—2.7 percent—had their grants canceled. Trials held in the Northeast or outside the U.S. were also disproportionately affected.

“Because trials require sustained financial support to ensure operations and participant safety, unanticipated funding disruptions raise concerns about avoidable waste, data quality, and compromised ethical obligations to participants,” the authors wrote.