A federal judge might have paused President Donald Trump’s attempt to slash about $4 billion for biomedical research funding through the National Institutes of Health, but the uncertainty created by the administration is already taking an immense toll on science.

Many schools and institutions have preemptively implemented cost-cutting measures in anticipation of losing funding down the line. This will, of course, curtail all sorts of crucial research happening now on disease treatments and preventions. But it will also have reverberations for years to come — potentially affecting an entire generation of future scientists.

A number of colleges — including the University of California at San Diego, Vanderbilt University, University of Washington, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — have cut enrollment in their graduate programs, according to reporting from the New York Times and STAT. Boston University has ordered across-the-board hiring freezes, including for student workers and postdoctoral trainees. The University of Pennsylvania and the University of South California have not only issued guidance to reduce the number of incoming PhD students but also to renege offers already made.

Meanwhile, NIH announced this month that it would cancel its prestigious internship program that had given more than 1,000 college students the opportunity to work at the agency every summer. The National Science Foundation has also said it would downsize its research program for undergraduates, which for nearly 40 years has helped students whose home institutions can’t provide opportunities to engage in science, technology, engineering and math research.

These pipeline programs are essential to developing scientists and physicians, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I know this firsthand. I started college at California State University at Los Angeles in 1996. Because of my experience with chronic illness as a child, I aspired to become a physician, but I didn’t think it was a realistic goal. My parents and I had emigrated from China less than six years before. I had no mentors and no connections to any doctors. I had heard that good grades at my little-known state school wouldn’t be enough and that I needed to have research experience, but I had no clue how to acquire it. Plus, I couldn’t afford college unless I worked, so how would I have time to work in a lab?

The turning point was when I saw a poster for an undergraduate research program in which students would get experience doing research in a lab under the mentorship of a professor and more senior students. Crucially, they would be paid for their work.

I applied and was accepted to work in a chemistry lab. My four years working with the principal investigator, Donald Paulson, and the program director, Raymond Garcia, determined the trajectory of my entire academic and professional career. I learned how to apply the scientific method to complex research questions. I discovered that I had an aptitude for scientific writing and enjoyed translating technical concepts to general audiences. I benefited from the mentorship and guidance of exceptional professors who helped me apply for and eventually enter medical school. I was then accepted to a graduate scientific research program that partially covered the costs of my medical training.

Countless other doctors and scientists owe their careers to these development opportunities. It breaks my heart to see that such pipeline programs are early casualties of anticipated cuts. The value of students conducting research goes beyond their contribution to the specific project at hand; these programs also cultivate tomorrow’s leaders in biomedical innovation.

Trump’s nominee to lead NIH, Jayanta Bhattacharya, is himself an Indian-born American who has benefited from research training programs as an early career trainee and then as a supervisor of young scientists. Among his many priorities should be restoring funding to institutions so that research training programs do not become collateral damage in the purge of federal spending. We need more training programs for young scientists, not fewer.

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Submit your question and I may answer it in a future edition of this newsletter.

“I was born in 1956. I know I did not have measles as a child. Should I get a measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine?” — Susan from Alaska

Studies have indicated that 95 percent to 98 percent of people born before 1957 have immunity as a result of having had the illness. If you are certain you did not have measles, you should get at least one dose of the MMR vaccine, in consultation with your health-care provider.

“I am 70 years old and remember well the “pre-vaccine” reality and the “post-vaccine” reality. But I also remember that there were two kinds of “measles”: I think folks back then did not distinguish well between rubella (so-called German measles) and rubeola (real measles). I think many people who cavalierly toss off “I had measles and it was no big thing” might actually have had rubella and not the much more serious rubeola.” — Ann from New York

Ann makes a very good point. Rubella (also called German measles or three-day measles) is a viral illness that is also characterized by fever and rash. While most patients recover, the disease can cause severe complications, especially in pregnant women. If an unvaccinated woman is infected with rubella during pregnancy, she could have a miscarriage or give birth to a baby with serious birth defects including heart problems and intellectual disability.

This is a distinct illness from rubeola (measles). Both can be prevented with the MMR vaccine.

“In your newsletter last week on bird flu in cats, [you cited Kristen K. Coleman, who said] she is not giving her cats canned food as it might contain unpasteurized milk. Canned cat food is typically cooked at a higher temperature than pasteurization temperatures for milk. So why wouldn’t canned food be safe from the bird flu even if it contained milk?” — Lynette from Vermont

I reached back out to Coleman, a University of Maryland infectious diseases professor, for her guidance. She told me that Lynette is correct that most commercial canned pet food should be safe, but some niche products sold in cans are advertised as “raw” or “gently cooked.” “The sterilization method used for these products is unclear,” Coleman told me. “Personally, I’ve opted for an easy and perhaps draconian approach by feeding my cats a dry kibble diet.”

She adds that her cats are young and accustomed to a crunch-only diet but acknowledges this might not be as easy to manage for others. Because commercial pet food safety regulations are “not exactly straightforward,” she suggests that concerned pet owners who want to keep feeding their cats wet and gently cooked food reach out to companies directly and ask what they are doing to ensure their products do not contain bird flu.

What I’m reading

Overdose deaths continue to trend downward, new provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. From October 2023 to September 2024, there were approximately 87,000 drug overdose deaths, down from around 114,000 the previous year. Deaths related to synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, also dropped in this period. This is encouraging news, as it follows the past year’s decline in overdose mortality.

An interesting study in JAMA Network Open examined whether youths with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder were more likely to use tobacco and other nicotine-based products. Of the more than 13,000 youths included in the analysis, nearly 1,881 were diagnosed with ADHD. Adolescents with asymptomatic ADHD were no more likely to use tobacco compared with those without ADHD. But those with three or more ADHD symptoms had significantly higher odds of using e-cigarettes, cigarettes and other tobacco products. “These findings highlight the importance of early diagnosis and effective treatment of ADHD to mitigate symptoms and reduce the risk of later nicotine and tobacco use,” the authors wrote.

Research in Nature Medicine suggests there are many effective ways to deliver psychotherapy to women with perinatal depression and anxiety. The study compared specialist versus nonspecialist providers and in-person treatment versus telemedicine for pregnant and postpartum patients. There was no significant difference in anxiety or depressive symptoms in patients who received the different forms of care. Given that access to behavioral health is so limited, these results encourage alternative methods for mental health services.

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