It looks like this has been a good year for cancer. Meaning the disease cancer and not patients with cancer now and in the future. The same may be said about diabetes, arthritis, mental health issues, aging problems, infectious diseases and whole host of other medical problems.
That’s because the National Institutes of Health awarded 22% fewer grants this year under the Trump administration than it has in typical previous year. Yep, only 12,588 NIH grants versus the average of 16,099 per year from 2015 through 2024, according to an analysis by Aatish Bhatia, Amy Fan, Jonah Smith and Irena Hwang for The New York Times. And fewer such research grants now likely means fewer new ways of preventing and treating medical conditions in the future. Break open those bottles of champagne, diseases.
The NIH Funded Fewer Grants In All Areas Of Science And Medicine In 2025
Pick a disease, any disease, and you’ll probably find that fewer grants were awarded in that area. With cancer, the drop was 24% from 1,942 down to 1,473. Mental health 43% down from 902 to 516. Diabetes 30% down from 1,114 to 783. Neurological disorders and stroke had a stroke of luck with a 26% fall from 1,293 down to 951. Arthritis down 24%, 404 to 309. Deafness down 14%, 304 to 261. Heart, lung and blood issues down 12%, 1,576 to 1,392. Allergy and infectious diseases down 8%, 1,869 to 1,714. Well, you get the picture. Disease of all kinds can simply say, “Winning.”
For the analysis, the New York Times team searched the NIH Reporter database for grants that have been awarded this year and over the previous decade and interviewed NIH employees—ones that have remained after 14% of the NIH work force has been cut, pushed to retire and otherwise depleted in various ways this year. You can search for awarded grants yourself because all of this is public data, at least for now.
The NIH Also Froze Or Canceled Over 5,000 Grants In 2025
Diseases can also celebrate the Trump administration’s delaying, freezing and canceling of many other grants that had already been awarded. I’ve already written about such situations in Forbes due to Executive Orders from U.S. President Donald Trump and the Trump administration threatening universities to comply with various demands, with most of the demands being completely unrelated to science and medicine. It’s been hard to follow all of the good news for diseases, because things have been so chaotic for scientists and patients in America since January 20, 2025. But the website Grant Witness has estimated the tally of frozen or canceled NIH grants to be 5,415 so far this year. Legal action and various negotiations have restored about half of these but who knows how much damage the resulting effort and delays have done to science and medicine.
The NIH Will Likely Issue Fewer Grants Each Year Going Forward
The drop—or perhaps plummet would be a better word—in grants awarded this year is likely to become the norm for future years, at least under the Trump administration. The Trump administration has already made some permanent policy changes to ensure that. I’ve already described in Forbes this new multiyear funding policy that means the NIH will be awarding all future years of funding for a grant during the first year of the grant, greatly reducing the total number of grants that an NIH institute, center or office can award in a given year. Another kicker—meaning a kick to the groin of researchers—is that the NIH will be cutting the amount of time each grant awardee will have to complete his or her project. This includes cutting length of no cost extensions to the grant from two possible years to just one.
All of this will reduce the number of NIH grant awards for 2026 even if Congress votes to ignore the Trump administration’s proposal to slash NIH funding by around 40% in fiscal year 2026. In other words, the Trump administration is hard wiring in grant funding cuts in ways that may override what Congress wants. Boy, those disease must have great lobbyists—agains the diseases themselves and not advocates for preventing and treating the diseases.
The NIH Cuts May Convince Science Talent To Leave Medical Research
Diseases have an even bigger, longer-term reason to rejoice. Who knows how many scientists will leave or abandon medical research because getting funding has gotten that much tougher in 2025. It’s not as if medical research has been like the social media or finance industries over the two past decades. NIH has barely kept up with inflation since the 1990s even though research has gotten a lot more complex and thus more expensive. That’s probably already convinced a lot of would-be scientists to pursue much easier careers like dropping heavy objects on their feet for likes and money on TikTok. All the cuts to the NIH this year could spur an even greater exodus of talent from medical research because those that can leave may do a Twisted Sister and sing, “We’re not going to take it anymore.” That’s certainly going to hurt America’s competitiveness globally and could help make diseases grow again.
