Biomedical research takes a hit
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From my buddy:
Was told yesterday that the dean was reducing all researchers' salaries and that I was getting a 20% reduction as of July 1. Told them I couldn't afford to live in [city] on that salary and that I will retire instead. They didn't expect that. They asked me if I could still see patients and teach the residents. ("This is coming from the dean and we really don't want to lose you ...") Can you believe that they are giving me 3 months to finish everything and move?
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Johns Hopkins University said Thursday it is cutting more than 2,200 workers because of a loss of funding from USAID. Some employees are in Baltimore but most work in 44 other countries in support of the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and an affiliated nonprofit organization.
In February, the Trump administration announced deep cuts to National Institutes of Health grants for research institutions, a shift that could reduce the money going to some universities by over $100 million. Some schools already have shelved projects because of the cuts, which have been delayed temporarily by a court challenge.
Hopkins receives the most federal research funding of any college or university nationwide.
In total, 247 domestic jobs and 1,975 positions in 44 countries will be cut, and 29 international and 78 domestic employees will be furloughed, according to a Hopkins spokesperson. The job cuts affect the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the nonprofit Jhpiego.
“Johns Hopkins is immensely proud of the work done by our colleagues in Jhpiego, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine to care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” a Hopkins spokesperson said.
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The DEI Catch-22
Columbia researchers believe their grants are being cut because of diversity components that were imposed by the federal government.
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Columbia and Trump have a long history.
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
Indeed.
Why are other universities silent in condemning Trump’s attacks on Columbia?
Zephyr Teachout
If university leaders allow themselves to be bullied, how do we expect any other institutions to stand up?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/24/us-universities-trump-columbia
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
I think you'll see something if their current genuflection isn't viewed as sufficient. I can't say I blame them for capitulating thus far, even if they won a specific suit the administration could fuck with them in myriad ways, renegotiate their indirects, award far fewer grants, crawl up their ass over title VI stuff (which they're doing anyway).
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BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
@Piano-Dad said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
BTW, Columbia needs to grow a pair and fight back. Georgetown offers an example. These targeted budget cuts are illegal.
Harvard says nope to the demands.
Harvard University announced Monday that it won’t comply with a list of demands from the Trump administration as part of its campaign against antisemitism, which could put almost $9 billion in funding at risk.
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Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard
An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.
NYT reporting:
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Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard
An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.
NYT reporting:
“Mistake”.
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As a counterpoint, I have seen several studies that have received government funding that cannot possibly produce the stated result, primarily because the data they would need simply does not exist in any reliable and relatively complete form. There are a lot of people making a living off tax dollars generating exactly that sort of effort.
But once again, this chainsaw vs. scalpel approach is doing as much harm as good. Take the case of the Afghan Christians who received parole at the border and who now received letters from HHS telling them to self-deport by Good Friday. I do not see how this can be justified. There's a difference between controlling our borders and cruelty through a combination of zeal and sheer laziness.
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As a counterpoint, I have seen several studies that have received government funding that cannot possibly produce the stated result, primarily because the data they would need simply does not exist in any reliable and relatively complete form. There are a lot of people making a living off tax dollars generating exactly that sort of effort.
But once again, this chainsaw vs. scalpel approach is doing as much harm as good. Take the case of the Afghan Christians who received parole at the border and who now received letters from HHS telling them to self-deport by Good Friday. I do not see how this can be justified. There's a difference between controlling our borders and cruelty through a combination of zeal and sheer laziness.
@Mik said in Biomedical research takes a hit:
But once again, this chainsaw vs. scalpel approach is doing as much harm as good. Take the case of the Afghan Christians who received parole at the border and who now received letters from HHS telling them to self-deport by Good Friday. I do not see how this can be justified. There's a difference between controlling our borders and cruelty through a combination of zeal and sheer laziness.
Well said, and exactly where I'm at, and for me it goes well beyond just the approach to immigration and university funding. There's a lot of shock and awe going on everywhere but I don't know how we can possibly get good results from this approach. It just seems like a big act to impress or to frighten the masses (depending on who you are) rather than something substantive.
I am doubtful that we'll be better off overall at the end and fear that we will just be more broken, angry, and isolated, both individually and as a country.
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I asked my friend for an update on things at her university.
A number of people have gotten a letter saying that their projects no longer align with the interests of the government. The school has told them that this means that from the day the letter arrives, no other charges can be made against that grant. So, instant firings of techs, students left without pay and scrambling, and the school has to support the salaries of faculty until the end of their contracts. No word yet on the axing of the previously agreed upon indirect costs rate. We have an Institute for vaccine development within the med school, so I bet they were really hit. Oh, and the delay that the feds have instituted on grant reviews have also hit hard, but no one talks about them. I feel lucky to have only had a 20% cut, and if I stay on for an extra year it can't be cut much more because I am tenured and there are rules about how much the salaries of tenured faculty can be cut when they become deadwood
. But the chances of my work being funded in the near term, when clinical trials in important areas are being cut, are pretty slim. It would be unfair both to the university and to myself if I spent all of my time for the next 3 months writing a grant proposal that has no chance of being funded 9 months later.Spoke to a colleague from Harvard who had his salary cut by 50%. He's retiring not because of the salary cut, but because of the bureaucratic morass at the university that makes it so much harder to do anything anymore. I bet that is the one area that survives all this cutting! There is WAY too much administration!!!
So she's still moving forward with closing up shop at retiring at the end of the year.
