The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is abruptly terminating at least 33 research grants for projects studying why some people are hesitant to receive vaccines or evaluating strategies that could encourage vaccine uptake, Science has learned. An additional nine grants may be modified or cut back. Scientists who received these grants began to receive termination letters this evening.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation says NIH has also requested lists of projects involving messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, which some vaccine skeptics think are unsafe because they believe, without evidence, that the vaccines could modify DNA or cause various health issues. The agency is also seeking a list of collaborations between NIH researchers and international partners on any topic. The terminations appear to be part of the agency’s efforts to defund research that does not align with policies backed by President Donald Trump and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a noted vaccine skeptic.
Last week, on behalf of interim Director Matthew Memoli, NIH asked each of its institutes to supply a list of current and future grants involving vaccine hesitancy. This morning, officials at the institutes sent a list of grants to be terminated to program officers, along with a template letter notifying awardees their grant was being terminated as of 11 March.
The letter, which Science has seen, will inform investigators that their award “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.”
Like letters sent last week to dozens of researchers studying transgender health, the new termination letter says researchers should not try to alter their projects to conform to the new policy because “the premise of Project Number [INSERT] is incompatible with agency priorities, and no modification of the project could align the project with agency priorities.”
Fourteen of the awards are funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and involve vaccines for diseases such as mpox, human papillomavirus, chickenpox, and COVID-19. One involves a hypothetical gonorrhea vaccine. The project appeared on the list because one of its aims “is to evaluate health care worker’s [sic] and potential patient’s attitudes towards acceptance of a gonorrhea vaccine if one is developed.”
The list also names grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Many of these involve promoting vaccine uptake among racial minority groups or understanding why some parents are reluctant to accept childhood and adolescent vaccines. In several grants, which fund efforts to model disease outbreaks, “vaccine hesitancy” is just one of several variables driving a model. It’s unclear whether these grants will be terminated in their entirety or modified so they no longer consider vaccine hesitancy. Other grants, including one that studies HIV in adolescents, will not be cut in their entirety, but subprojects involving vaccine hesitancy will be terminated.
Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the City University of New York whose grant is on the list but who has not yet received a termination letter, says it will affect his work testing vaccine messaging strategies for people with mental health disorders and studying barriers such as misinformation and disinformation. “Ceasing to support research on the uptake of safe and effective vaccines does not eliminate the underlying challenges related to low vaccine uptake—it exacerbates them,” he says.
Another $548,002 project that has been terminated is analyzing electronic health records and infant developmental screening data to study whether the COVID-19 vaccine is safe in people who are pregnant or breastfeeding. The grant’s primary investigator, perinatal epidemiologist Kristin Palmsten at the HealthPartners Institute, says she was “stunned” by the 10 March termination notice. “The grant does not study vaccine hesitancy or uptake,” Palmsten says. “I originally wrote this grant because I was breastfeeding my daughter around the time of COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and there was no available human data on the safety of COVID-19 vaccination during breastfeeding.”
Palmsten says one reason for the project was to identify potential harms that would be important for patients’ decision-making. “I know how terrible it feels to have zero safety data available,” she says.
Thomas Carpino, an epidemiology graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, learned that the $48,974 training grant supporting his Ph.D. work on mpox among men who have sex with men is being canceled. Carpino had already defended his thesis and has a postdoc position lined up, but he will need alternative funding to finish his study. The grant was “to train the next generation of public health scientists,” he says. “They’re sending a very strong message to anyone who’s interested in pursuing these research topics.”
A second memo sent to the institutes on 6 March and seen by Science said Memoli “has requested information on NIH’s investment in mRNA vaccines research” including current or planned grants and contracts. A third asked the institutes to provide “information on each current substantive collaboration between your [Institute or Center] or [Intramural Research] program and international partners (nongovernmental organizations, research institutions, governments).” Collaboration could mean sharing data, providing technical assistance or training, or participating in working groups and advisory groups. NIH institutes and programs must respond by next week.