The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it will stop funding research on the health effects of climate change. This was a blow to researchers who had hoped to enrich themselves while engaged in activism aligned with partisan research. The following is what the New York Times reported:
With frequent and severe disasters repeatedly underscoring the dangers of climate change, scientists across the country have been working to understand the consequences for our hearts, lungs, brains and more — and how to best mitigate them.
The work has relied largely on hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. But since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took charge of H.H.S., the Trump administration has indicated that it will stop funding research on the health effects of climate change.
The N.I.H. said in an internal document obtained by The New York Times that it was the agency’s new policy “not to prioritize” research related to climate change. The document also described the organization’s intent not to fund research on gender identity, vaccine hesitancy or diversity, equity and inclusion. N.I.H. employees were instructed to tell researchers to “remove all” mention of the topics and resubmit their applications, even if the main focus was unrelated.
Can a warmer climate affect health? Of course. West Nile virus could become a threat in areas that were formerly too cold. Malaria could expand, along with other mosquito-borne diseases like Dengue fever. These are already areas of research and are unlikely to change.
The policy shift on climate change, first reported by ProPublica, stands to drastically limit U.S.-based research into its health effects, which tries to answer questions like whether events like wildfires and heat waves can affect cardiovascular health and pregnancy.
It is easy to assume the aforementioned areas of research are worthy, but evidence from hot and cold regions are already available from around the world. Parts of the globe are hotter than the United States. One must look no farther than people who live near the Equator. Parts of the U.S. are also hotter than others. Just compare health outcomes from the American Southwest with those around New England.
The NIH and HHS have indicated a new priority is to fund research that “directly affects the health of Americans.” It is hard to argue with that logic. Previous administrations sometimes viewed research funding as little more than patronage. Yet, funding politically driven research deprives more worthy research of funding and more worthy scientists of opportunities to make a difference.
Historically the NIH funded few studies on the health affects of global warming, but more research funding was distributed during the Biden Administration. This was partly prompted by California wildfires that burned areas of Los Angeles. Advocates also argue for the need for studies on extreme heat. They presumably have not talked to their counterparts in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere around the globe.
Dr. Farzan, the professor at the University of Southern California, feels similarly. If she loses the N.I.H. grant she currently has, she does not expect to be able to replace it.
“Our work isn’t driven by politics or ideology,” she said. “It’s driven by the idea that we can do things now to protect the future health of our children and make our communities places that will be more able to withstand the impacts of extreme events.”
Some of the research was driven by ideology, but part is arguable opportunistic, with researchers using political buzzwords to get research funding. The effects of climate change on health can be more efficiently performed using more specific targets, like malaria, West Nile and diseases directly tied to weather.