The US is by far the world’s leading funder of biomedical research. But the Trump administration reportedly plans to ask Congress to cut the budget of the National Institutes of Health from $47 billion to $27 billion as part of its effort to rein in out-of-control federal spending.
Not unexpectedly, grant recipients and their support communities are up in arms. They claim that the proposed cuts would deprive researchers of the funding they need to find cures. They say the US will lose its global dominance in the field, along with enormous profits.
But the critical questions are: “What does NIH-funded research actually accomplish?” and “Are the accomplishments worth the money?” The answers, at least according to NIH itself, seem to be shockingly little for the vast sums spent.
On its website, NIH divides its accomplishments for 2024 under three headings: (1) “Human Health Advances”; (2) “Promising Medical Findings” and (3) “Basic Research Insights.” Under each heading are five NIH-touted accomplishments.
The first item listed under “Human Health Advances,” a category that represents the latest and greatest from NIH research, is “Accurate blood test for Alzheimer’s disease.” After listening to a leftist talking head attack President Trump and Elon Musk for “setting back Alzheimer’s research 20 years” with funding cuts, I looked into the Alzheimer’s advance that NIH had touted at the top of its list of accomplishments.
The advance referred to a July 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reporting on a new blood test that had, with 90 percent accuracy, correctly diagnosed Alzheimer’s among 1,213 Swedish Alzheimer’s patients.
While that may sound impressive, the study authors qualified their results with two key caveats: (1) More testing was needed in other cohorts of patients to confirm their results; and (2) “Future studies should evaluate how the use of blood tests for these biomarkers influences clinical care.” Far from being a “Human Health Advance”, the researchers admitted that they still needed confirmation of their results and that they’re not sure the blood test will have any usefulness even if the results are confirmed.
As to NIH taking credit for the “advance,” such as it is, NIH was just one of 20 different funders of the research. It awarded a total of $993,478 to two Swedish researchers. The other 14 Swedish researchers on the study were apparently funded by the other 19 or so Swedish funders.
The study is really only noteworthy because NIH anointed it as the top “advance” for 2024. But what does that say about the other $36.8 billion NIH spent on 60,000 other grants? A not-ready-for-prime-time Alzheimer’s blood test is its pride and joy among all that funding?
A recent Washington Post op-ed entitled “Science needs more shrimp on treadmills” opined that “the National Institutes of Health isn’t funding too much silly science. It’s not funding enough.” The author tried to credit NIH with the development of weight loss drugs like Ozempic. In 1984, an itinerant NIH researcher published a study on Gila monster venom. After four decades of research elsewhere, others used the finding to develop the now blockbuster GLP-1 drugs. In some ways, that’s an amazing story. On the other hand, it’s not evidence that NIH’s huge spending is producing results for taxpayers.
President Nixon launched the “War on Cancer” in 1971, Every President since has tried to make his mark in that effort, but breakthroughs have limited. In 1986, all-star biostatistician John Bailar observed that cancer remained undefeated. In 2018, cancer researchers reported in the British Medical Journal that the expensive drugs recommended by US cancer treatment guidelines were based on “weak evidence.” President Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” has produced essentially zero.
NIH mentioned no cancer progress under “Human Health Advances” or “Promising Medical Findings” for 2024. The sole mention of cancer comes in “Basic Research Insights” under “Mapping how cancers form and spread.” Fifty-four years after the War on Cancer was launched, that is where we are.
None of this is to say that NIH shouldn’t fund medical research. But if NIH continues spending taxpayer money, there must be some auditing of expenditures and reconciling of accomplishments. We are $36 trillion in debt and cannot afford to spent never-ending billions of dollars on non-productive research in hopes that something will eventually turn up.
And no, there is no need to worry about foreign competition. We spend about 18 times more than the UK, our nearest competitor with respect to medical research. It may be that the rest of the world is free-riding on the backs of US taxpayers. It may also be that the rest of world has realized that there are more productive ways to spend their taxpayer dollars.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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