President Donald Trump is moving to tighten control over federal medical research through a new executive order that would establish a vetting board for National Institutes of Health grant funding. According to reports from the Washington Post and Politico, the move follows internal meetings where senior administration officials criticized the NIH for supporting what they termed woke initiatives. This proposal suggests creating an external committee capable of vetoing biomedical research awards that do not align with the president’s specific political priorities.
The proposed board would likely include Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, alongside NIH director Jay Bhattacharya. Under the suggested framework, the group would need to reach unanimous decisions on whether certain grants should proceed. While Vought has pushed for a fundamental reshaping of how federal money is spent, sources indicate that Bhattacharya has shown some resistance to drastic spending cuts and has previously defended the existing grant making processes at the agency.
This shift represents a significant departure from the traditional model of awarding grants based primarily on scientific merit rather than ideological alignment. Critics argue that introducing political oversight into laboratory research threatens the independence of American science. The timing is particularly tense as the NIH currently faces a class action lawsuit from researchers who claim the administration is using its financial leverage to censor viewpoints that clash with presidential agendas, alleging these actions violate First Amendment protections regarding free speech.
Tensions have already escalated since Trump began his second term, with billions of dollars in grants across health, nutrition, and environmental sectors being frozen or slashed altogether. Administration officials have reportedly flagged projects containing keywords such as equity, gender, climate change, and racist to stall their funding. Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services provided immediate comments on the planned changes to the funding structure.
