The judge definitively prohibits NIH from limiting the financing of medical research

On Friday, a federal judge permanently prohibited the Trump administration from limiting the funding of the National Institutes of Health which supports research in universities and university medical centers, by restoring billions of dollars in grants but by organizing an almost certain appeal.

The decision of judge Angel Kelley, of the Federal District Court of Massachusetts, made a previous temporary order by his permanent and was one of the first final decisions in the prosecution dam against the Trump administration. But that occurred in an unusual way: the government asked the court to conclude this verdict earlier on Friday so that it can go ahead with a call.

The decision was nevertheless an initial victory for a diversified assortment of institutions that carry out medical research. After the Trump administration announced the change of policy in February, dozens of research and university hospitals issued disastrous warnings that the proposal threatened to lower American scientific prowess and innovation, believing that the change could force these institutions to cover a deficit of almost $ 4 billion.

As part of the Trump Administration Plan, the National Institutes of Health could cap the funding it provides to cover the “indirect costs” of research – for things such as buildings, public services and support staff – at 15% of the subsidies it distributes. Historically, when the agency granted subsidies, it could allocate almost 50% in some cases to cover the indirect costs associated with a given study.

The Trump administration said that it had designed politics as a way to release more federal dollars to directly pay for research – covering the wages of scientists or purchase of necessary equipment – as opposed to the many tangential costs that hospitals and laboratories engage to maintain their installations and other general costs.

But criticisms have described that reasoning as dishonest, as the changes that the administration had proposed had proposed paradoxically, would require the institutions to cover the bill, and have most likely lost personnel and reduce research projects in the process.