Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
NIH To Cut The Number Of Research Grants It Awards Due To Trump Policy
The National Institutes of Health plans to shrink the share of grant applications it will award for the remaining two months of the fiscal year due to a new Trump administration policy — in some cases, by more than half compared to the previous year. (Chen, Molteni and Oza, 7/29)
House Republican appropriators plan to disregard the White House’s proposed 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health budget for fiscal 2026, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. Instead, the funding levels being discussed are similar to what’s currently appropriated, they said. (Cohen, 7/28)
Cuts to the National Institutes of Health’s budget would have sweeping implications for the broader economic and biomedical ecosystems, MIT and Harvard researchers argue. To reach that conclusion, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, the researchers analyzed potential NIH budget cuts and 37 studies and reports on NIH funding, biomedical innovation and economic impacts, as well as news coverage from January to April 16, 2025, to show the cuts’ effects. They used that data to develop a causal loop diagram, which illustrates how variables in a system are interconnected, to show the effects. (Schumaker, 7/28)
Federal budget cuts are affecting mental health resources —
As public school districts prepare for a new school year, there are concerns about dwindling resources stemming from federal funding cuts, with many states sounding the alarm about grants for mental health counselors and social workers.  Andrea Tarsi, one of 19 mental health staffers serving 6,500 students in a rural northwest Connecticut district, may soon be out of a job. "Without that support staff in the building, students are unable to get the mental health services that they need," said Tarsi, who has been working in the district for the last three years. (Hanson, Sherman and Zalani, 7/28)
A program that monitors public and private psychiatric institutions, hospitals and nursing facilities for abuse, punishment, or seclusion of patients with mental illness could see a drastic reduction in its national budget next year. (Thorp, 7/28)
