AG Brown applauds judge’s ruling blocking Trump cuts to medical and public health research

SEATTLE — A federal judge Monday overturned Trump administration directives that defunded National Institutes of Health grants supporting vital biomedical research in America. The judge said the move was “arbitrary and capricious” and called out “a darker aspect” to the cases – that they are a clear attempt at “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LBGTQ community.”

The case is co-led by Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown and includes a coalition of 16 attorneys general suing Trump to free up the grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Attorney General Brown said the ruling will allow for important research to restart at the University of Washington. The funding supports research into Alzheimer’s, ovarian cancer, training of the next generation of researchers, and studying how anti-LGBTQ policies impact health care for sexual minorities.

“Lives will be saved by the judge’s action,” Brown said. “I’m heartened that this judge saw the clear intent to discriminate. The Trump administration tried to stop legitimate research simply because it may have included words or phrases not supported by the president’s limited world view.”

The lawsuit, filed on April 4, alleges NIH adopted directives blacklisting topics such as “DEI,” “transgender issues,” and “vaccine hesitancy.” In doing so, the agency terminated large swaths of grants for projects that are currently underway based on the projects’ perceived connection to topics disfavored by the current administration. In boilerplate letters issued to the grants’ recipients, NIH claimed that each cancelled project “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

“I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this,” said U.S. District Judge William Young of Massachusetts. Young, appointed to the bench in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan, said he had “never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable.”

Even the temporary cancelation of the funding can impact scientific inquiry, Mari Ostendorf, vice-provost of research at UW said in a declaration filed in the case.

“Some of these studies involve clinical trials for life-saving medications or procedures, and their closure would endanger the lives of patients. … NIH's actions have fundamentally undermined UW's mission to pursue scientific research. In many cases, there is no way to recover the lost time, research continuity, or training value once disrupted.”

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