Concern washed over the scientific research community in Rhode Island after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paused all external communications on Jan. 22.
When researchers from across the country began sharing news about sudden cancellations of so-called “study sections”, grant review panels coordinated through the National Institutes of Health, the worry only grew.
“It’s concerning that the major Institute in the United States has really ceased communication with us researchers and medical scientists,” said Dr. Philip Chan, associate professor at Brown University and Chief Medical Officer at Open Door Health, a clinic in Providence.
When the Trump Administration froze federal grant and loan funding on Tuesday, only to backtrack on Wednesday, it left recipients of federal aid all over the country confused. And in Rhode Island, it further compounded what Abdullah Shihipar, a research associate at Brown University, called “widespread panic.”
“All of these actions in tandem are concerning about the federal government’s ability not just to fund research but to fund critical programs across the country,” Shihipar said.
Chan said he had “not seen anything like this before” and that it “saddens” him to see research-based clinical and public health institutions “undermined and chipped away at.”
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.
