Trump's DOGE cuts are a disaster
Clinical trials are important to run correctly
THE EFFECTS OF THE Trump/Musk cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have had a chilling effect on any progress regarding research on an untold number of clinical trials. According to the New York Times article printed on 3/24/2025 and written by Gina Kolta:
Seven senior investigators working in different parts of the National Institutes of Health described rules put in place on orders from the Department of Government Efficiency that risk hampering and undermining American medical science. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their jobs for speaking publicly.
One said that DOGE had begun a reign of “chaos and confusion.” The scientists warned that it had the potential to seriously weaken the N.I.H. — the crown jewel of American science, with a vast network of thousands of researchers in 27 centers dedicated to treating disease, improving health and funding medical research.
This is not a trivial matter. Scientists have devoted years to research, and millions of patients in the USA and across the world are relying on these people to be able to continue their work, as they wait for much needed treatments and even cures.
Since Congress is constitutionally provided the “power of the purse,” the Trump administration had no authority to stop these trials. Neither Trump, Musk, or anyone in the Trump administration is qualified to determine whether any waste or fraud is taking place under the auspices of the NIH. It is outrageous that they were allowed to stop progress, yet that is what happened. Not only were clinical trials halted, but apparently scientists and their supporting staffs were unable to travel, even to give pre-planned speeches, nor was anyone able to order supplies and other basic tasks.
The NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the WORLD. Stopping clinical trials abruptly doesn’t allow for proper treatment of the volunteer patients enrolled in such trials. They could be taking a drug that requires tapering off a medication to avoid adverse consequences. People in trials involving implanted devices seem to be at a very high risk to me, having once had an implanted device (not part of a clinical trial) for about five years. That device was a pump that sent medication directly to my spinal cord (called “intrathecal”), proven to be a far more effective delivery of the medication than taking it orally. However, there was a caveat: the pump could not be allowed to run out of medication. If a pump does run dry, the muscles of the recipient’s body no longer are receiving the medication, which can lead to withdrawal symptoms and even death. Some withdrawal symptoms that can occur as a result of the pump running dry are high fever, multisystem organ failure, seizures, and coma. There are other implanted devices in use today, such as pacemakers. I have no way of knowing whether there were any clinical trials in progress involving implanted devices, or drugs for which suddenly stopping could cause death. But I do know that the Trump administration behaved in a foolhardy way when it cut off many clinical trials without knowing the consequences. It’s high time for our irresponsible president and his unelected sidekick to get out of the “fraud and waste” business.