Latest reports suggest that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will no longer fund new research on how climate change affects people’s health.
According to records reviewed by ProPublica, the new directive was shared internally with staff last week. It follows other action to stop NIH support for studies related to gender identity, LGBTQ+ health, vaccine hesitancy and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
While it’s unclear if current climate-health studies will lose their funding, the guidance appears to block any new research opportunities on the issue.
Dr. Lisa Patel, executive director of The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, called the move “catastrophic” and said its impact on needed research would be “devastating,” according to the ProPublica report.
“This is an administration where industry voices rule and prevail,” Patel said. “This is an agenda item for the fossil fuel industry, and this administration is doing what the fossil fuel industry wants.”
As extreme weather events—from hurricanes and heat waves to wildfires and floods—have become more frequent, the NIH has funded hundreds of projects looking at the effects of climate on health.
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The agency launched a Climate Change and Health Initiative in 2021, which received $40 million in funding in both 2023 and 2024. That program and two others focused on climate and health were quietly shuttered last month. The new guidance halts all future climate-health research funding across NIH, regardless of its link to previous programs.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said the agency is cutting research that doesn’t align with its new priorities.
“At HHS, we are dedicated to restoring our agencies to their tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science,” the spokesperson said. “As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans. We will leave no stone unturned in identifying the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic as part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”
Former NIH scientist Linda Birnbaum said this isn’t the first time politics has shaped science funding. During Trump’s first term, researchers removed the term “climate change,” referring instead to “climate and health.”
“If NIH doesn’t study the health impacts of climate, we are not going to be able to prevent some of those health impacts, and we aren’t going to be able to find ways to deal with them,” Birnbaum said.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
