@AmitaGuptaMD has spent more than a decade on a $70m trial to study a new TB drug, enrolling 6,000 participants in 13 countries. It might all have been for nothing. That's because an NIH policy has abruptly cut off billions to trials abroad. For @Nature.

This story was made possible thanks to NIH staff who reached out. I'm always looking for more sources, message me on Signal (mkozlov.01). If you hit a paywall, making a free account will open the full story.

Picking new members takes time: NIH staff spend years vetting candidates, getting approval, doing background/ ethics checks. Some staff are now screening candidates’ social media for anything negative about the Trump administration or if they've been involved with DEI efforts.

These researchers were all nominated under Biden's NIH. The move will leave councils at most NIH institutes seriously understaffed: One only has 3 of its 18 slots filled and will be down to only 1 in November.

NEW: The NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take roles on panels that make final decisions on grant funding. NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and to expect placements by political appointees.

We've updated our headline to say Trump team "says it's" axing contracts — because at this point, we're not keen on taking agency spokespeople at their word, as evidenced by the double flip flop at HHS.

Update: HHS walked back its statement saying it was cancelling contracts to Springer Nature. Now, HHS says NIH staff have continued access to all journals. Unclear if this applies to FDA/CMS. And USDA, DOE, NASA have allegedly cut all SN contracts.

"I never expected to go on Medicaid. I grew up in a comfortable household, had worked since high school, and was a generally healthy 24y/o public policy graduate student. I also never expected the stubborn lump above my collarbone would be Hodgkin’s lymphoma.". My brave friend.

The flip flopping continues: NIH director Jay Bhattacharya posted today that all agency staff will have full access to scientific journals including Springer Nature's. That's not HHS's spokesperson told me last week. I've gone back to the agencies for comment.

Someone else that banned Nature: Nazi Germany. Articles in Nature contain "outrageous and vile attacks on German science and the national socialist state. The journal must therefore be excluded from general use in the scientific libraries.".

These cuts come as top US officials criticize some journals as ‘woke’ and ‘corrupt’. In May, RFK Jr threatened to bar govt scientists from publishing in top journals. And DOJ sent threatening letters to a few journals alleging political bias in the research they publish.

Minutes after the story published, the USDA confirms that it too has cut all its contracts and subscriptions with the company:. "The journal is exorbitantly expensive and is not a good use of taxpayer funds," a spokesperson tells me.

Springer Nature’s journals are not the only source of biomedical information that the NIH’s staff members might be losing. This week, employees were told that the agency’s subscription to the health-news outlet STAT would be ending on 1 July.

Several NIH employees told me the move will directly impact their jobs. An NIH scientist says the move “suppresses our scientific freedom, to pursue information where it is present” and criticizes the agency for not seeking feedback from researchers first.

“When they say, ‘junk science’, it’s not clear what they mean,” says @ivanoransky. “I’m having a hard time taking at face value that this is not political”. It'd be unprecedented for a prominent subscriber to make a “sweeping move like this for political reasons”, he says.

Trump team axes contracts with publishing giant Springer Nature. At first, NIH told me its contracts with SN were active and that they help “advance scientific discovery”. Hours later, HHS said the opposite: "Precious taxpayer dollars should not be used on unused subscriptions.

RT @maxdkozlov: SCOOP: NIH appears to be disregarding last week's court order to stop screening grants using a process a judge ruled illega….

To NIH's credit, it's started to comply with the court’s orders. It's begun to reinstate about 900 projects, and it's directed staff to stop further cuts. A top NIH official told staff these actions are “part of the first phase of our compliance with the court’s judgment”.

@sbagen, who was HHS's top lawyer under Biden, told me his office sent guidance on how to comply with court orders—often within hours. “This is not the way things normally go,” he says. “You would not want to leave the people responsible for complying hanging out in the wind.”.

Until Weds, NIH leadership hadn't even acknowledged the judge’s ruling. It’s “as if the court ruling never happened”, a staffer says. Some have written to their bosses saying they're uncomfortable screening when the judge “found the whole process unlawful”, another says.

SCOOP: NIH appears to be disregarding last week's court order to stop screening grants using a process a judge ruled illegal. This has many NIH staffers confused and worried about the legality of their actions.