Murray on Trump Admin Scrapping Plans for Executive Order to Empower Russ Vought to Kill NIH Research

ICYMI: Senator Murray on Trump’s Latest Plan to Politicize Lifesaving NIH Research

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on news breaking today that plans to issue an executive order to establish an external review committee empowered to veto National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards are being scrapped.

“It shouldn’t take public outcry to prevent President Trump and Russ Vought from laying waste to the NIH and defunding lifesaving research because they think it’s ‘woke’ or want to extort a university. This president is on a mission to shred patients and families’ hopes for new treatments and cures.

“While this specific scheme may now be on ice, make no mistake: President Trump and Russ Vought are already playing politics with lifesaving NIH funding and will continue to do so, with or without a new Executive Order. What’s sorely needed are more protections in law to actually put an end to that—to stop funding and staffing cuts, prevent political appointees from meddling in decisions about lifesaving research, and ensure grantmaking is guided only by what gives us the best chance at the next medical breakthrough. I’ve been pushing to do much more in our spending laws, but we need Republicans to finally agree to put real checks on President Trump and Russ Vought.”

Senator Murray has raised alarms and fought back against this administration’s nonstop efforts to politicize, cut, and defund all manner of lifesaving medical research—including by pushing for new guardrails in the HHS spending law. She and her Democratic colleagues in Congress also successfully fought to secure language in the recently enacted continuing resolution (CR) to block the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) attempt to politicize every aspect of the federal grantmaking process.

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