Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock took to X on March 31, 2026, to criticize President Donald Trump’s budget priorities, highlighting what he sees as detrimental cuts to vital domestic programs. Warnock stated, “We can’t lose sight of this. Our President cut healthcare, cancer research, and food for hungry families. And then turned around to spend billions on war.”
The senator’s comments about spending “billions on war” come after some latest reports that the Pentagon is asking Congress for over $200 billion in additional military funding. This massive sum is supposedly for ongoing operations in Iran, covering things like replenishing ammunition and supplies. It’s a huge request, especially since it piles on top of what’s already a record-high defense budget.
When Warnock talks about cuts to “health care, cancer research, and food for hungry families,” he’s touching on some pretty serious changes that have hit medical research particularly hard. According to Vox, new data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows a dramatic drop in the number of new research grants funded in 2025 compared to 2024.
This is a widespread reduction that impacts nearly every medical category you can think of
For instance, new grants for Alzheimer’s and aging research were slashed in half, dropping from 369 in 2024 to just 177 in 2025. That’s a huge blow, especially with the US population rapidly getting older. Mental health research grants also saw a significant fall, down by 47%. Even cancer research, which is more critical than ever with rising rates among younger generations, saw new grants fall by 23 percent.
Overall, the NIH went from funding about 5,000 new research grants in 2024 to a mere 3,900 in 2025. Jeremy Berg, who directed one of NIH’s largest institutes for years, didn’t mince words, saying, “This is the worst year I’ve ever seen, probably going back to the 1980s.”
It turns out a major policy change implemented by the White House Office of Management and Budget in July 2025 is a big part of the problem. They mandated that NIH start paying the full cost of approved grants upfront, rather than year by year, which had been the standard practice for a long time.
While the idea was to make grants less vulnerable to future cuts, it created an immediate cash crunch. Michael Lauer, who oversaw NIH’s grant-making for nearly a decade, explained it simply: “Instead of funding five grants, you now only fund one, and that means four other grants that would’ve been funded don’t get funded.” Berg estimates this single change wiped out roughly 1,000 new grants.
The Trump administration also terminated thousands of existing grants over the past year
Michael Lauer noted he’d only seen this happen twice in his 18-year career. The money from these terminated grants didn’t go back into NIH research; it went straight to the US Treasury. Berg estimates about $500 million left the system this way. On top of all this, 2025 saw about 12% more grant applications than 2024, all competing for a much smaller pool of funds.
The administration has been open about its desire for a smaller NIH, even proposing a 40% budget cut for 2026, though Congress hasn’t enacted that. Carrie Wolinetz, a former senior NIH official, commented, “I think it’s pretty easy to start to wonder if there is some connection between those two things.”
You might think that with fewer grants, at least the very best research is still getting funded, making the system more selective. But that’s actually not how it works. Economist Philippe Aghion, who won a Nobel Prize, found that too much competition can stifle innovation. When NIH can only fund the top 5 or 6% of proposals, what gets through is often good, but conservative, science — established labs extending already well-known research.
Berg pointed out, “The main thing you’re giving up there is new ideas.” Think about the groundbreaking discovery that a shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia, which came from a natural experiment. That kind of exploratory, outside-the-box research is exactly what would struggle to get funded now. Even Katalin Karikó, who won a Nobel for her mRNA work, had her grants rejected repeatedly long before these cuts.
The damage from these cuts could be long-lasting, too. When funding dries up, talented researchers leave the field, moving to other countries, the private sector, or entirely different careers. Joshua Weitz, a University of Maryland professor who tracks science funding, noted that “Researchers who leave the field or the country to work elsewhere are unlikely to return.”
It looks like 2026 could be even tougher for medical research, with the White House budget office delaying NIH from spending its approved funding, resulting in far fewer new awards than typical for this time of year. As Berg put it, “It’s much more like we set out across the ocean to see what we could discover and the voyage was canceled. There might be some beautiful island out there of incredibly important stuff, but we’re never going to know about it.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
