Did the NIH or NCI experience budget rescissions or reprogramming that affected cancer research under Trump?
Executive summary
The available reporting shows the Trump administration proposed and in some cases enacted policies that paused, terminated or reprogrammed NIH funding, with large proposed cuts to NIH overall and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) specifically — including proposals to cut NIH by about $18 billion (≈37–40%) and to reduce NCI funding by amounts reported between ~$1 billion (earlier proposal) and roughly $2.7 billion in 2026 plans [1] [2] [3]. Multiple outlets document grant terminations, freezes and reprogramming that affected cancer research and clinical-trial activity [4] [5] [6].
1. Budget shock: White House proposals and figures
The Trump White House floated sweeping reductions that would have cut NIH’s discretionary budget by roughly $17.9–$18 billion — about 37–40% of the agency’s funding — and proposed consolidating institutes, a plan that explicitly targeted program lines across NIH, including NCI [7] [8] [9]. Stat and Science reporting showed the administration’s 2026 request would reduce NCI’s budget from roughly $7.2 billion to about $4.5 billion if enacted [2]. The Guardian and other outlets used similar figures, reporting a near $2.7 billion decline in a 2026 proposal for NCI [3].
2. Beyond the topline: pauses, terminations and reprogramming of grants
Journalistic and analytic outlets documented that the administration did more than propose cuts: it paused new grant awards, terminated or froze hundreds to thousands of existing projects, and implemented policy changes that had effects akin to budget cuts. Nature found nearly 800 NIH projects terminated in a short period, ScienceNews reported more than 3,800 NIH and NSF grants froze or ended in 2025, and other outlets traced targeted cancellations that included cancer-related grants [4] [6] [10]. STAT reported downstream effects at the NCI — hotlines, cancer.gov services, advisory panels and trial recruitment were affected [5].
3. Policy tools used: indirect-cost caps and multiyear funding changes
Two administrative levers repeatedly appear in reporting. First, the administration sought a 15% cap on indirect (overhead) costs for NIH grants — a measure that Democrats and research institutions said would strip billions from universities and research centers and thus indirectly shrink cancer research capacity [11] [12]. Second, reporters described a shift to multiyear grant-funding policies and other internal rules that reduced the number of awards without a congressional appropriation change — an effective reprogramming of how money was allocated across projects [13] [14].
4. Political and legal pushback: Congress, courts and advocacy groups
Congress did not uniformly accept the White House’s proposals: several outlets noted that “Congress has so far refused steep cuts” and that budget battles and legal fights accompanied the administration’s moves [15] [16]. Congressional Democrats and research advocates publicly condemned the actions; House and Senate Democrats framed the moves as dismantling cancer research efforts and warned of statutory violations regarding indirect-cost changes [11]. Reports also note legal challenges and, in some instances, court activity around grant policies [14] [17].
5. Impact on cancer research and institutions
Reporting shows concrete harms: clinical-trial recruitment was disrupted, patient-facing services and communications were scaled back, and major cancer hubs lost large grants or saw funding frozen — for example, a high-dollar NIH grant tied to Northwestern’s Lurie Cancer Center was cited among the largest affected awards [5] [6]. Commentators and scientists warned that interruptions could set back long-running programs and drug-development pipelines that rely on predictable federal support [18] [10].
6. Disagreements and limitations in the record
Coverage diverges on scale and permanence. Some outlets frame the actions as proposals not fully enacted; others document terminations and pauses that already occurred. For instance, the White House budget proposal figures are clear (≈$18B cut) but Congress “so far” refused some cuts, leaving room for differing outcomes [8] [15]. Estimates of total dollars affected by terminations vary: a Senate minority report cited $2.7 billion cut through March in one accounting, while other outlets cite different tallies and numbers of grants frozen [19] [6]. Available sources do not mention a single unified government tally reconciling every figure across outlets.
7. What to watch next
Congressional appropriations, court rulings on indirect-cost and grant-policy changes, and NCI/NIH public accounting will determine how many proposed reductions become permanent. Reporting emphasizes that administrative rules (multiyear funding, indirect-cost caps) can reshape research funding even without appropriations votes, so follow-up coverage of grant management memos and agency notices will be decisive [13] [12].
Sources cited in this briefing include Science, STAT, Nature, The Guardian, Nature/SciNews compilations and congressional statements documenting both proposals and on-the-ground grant interruptions [1] [2] [4] [5] [3] [8] [7] [13] [6] [11] [19]. Limitations: reporting contains differing dollar totals and counts of grants affected; available sources do not present a single reconciled federal accounting of every rescission or reprogramming action.