Filling Gaps From Potential NIH Budget Cut “Almost Impossible”

Although a judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order cutting funds for indirect research costs, researchers have concerns about the long-term impact of this order.

The National Institutes of Health recently announced that indirect costs would be capped at about 15% across all NIH grants for indirect costs in lieu of a separately negotiated rate for indirect costs.

Aaron J. Kowalski, Ph.D., CEO of Breakthrough T1D, spoke with Managed Healthcare Executive, saying the move will disrupt critical medical advances, impacting the NIH’s Special Diabetes program and type 1 diabetes research.

“We’re talking about $5 billion - that is a massive, massive blow,” Kowalski said. “I can tell you that were in very close communication with other medical research organizations and foundations to really make sure that the community locks arms and medical research continues with full force.”

The NIH Special Diabetes Program is a special funding program for research on the prevention and cure of type 1 diabetes that began in 1998. This program has enabled the creation of several collaborative research programs for type 1 diabetes. These include:

• Clinical Islet Transplantation Consortium,
• Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry,
• Diabetes Research in Children Network,
• Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network
• Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications
• Genetics of Kidneys in Diabetes
• Search for Diabetes in Youth
• The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young
• Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium
• Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases administers the Special Diabetes program.

Kowalski said this won’t just impact diabetes research but research in many areas as well, including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.