The future of four large research networks that test vaccines and treatments for H.I.V., tuberculosis and emerging infectious diseases is in limbo after weeks of delays from the Trump administration in launching the process to renew their funding. Scientists are worried that the delays could foreshadow the end of the networks, at least in their current form. H.I.V. researchers grew more concerned on Friday when they received word from the National Institutes of Health that they should temporarily hold off on launching new studies that had not yet enrolled participants and that would not be complete by Nov. 30, 2027, when their current funding is set to expire.
Delays to medical research spending have become a chronic issue during the second Trump administration, and funding for the networks may yet be renewed. But some scientists warned that any delays could jeopardize the safety of participants in clinical trials, derail time-sensitive studies and disrupt staffing and resources. “Just the loss of momentum that will happen when you don’t have funding is enormous,” said Dr. Emily Erbelding, who led an infectious disease division at the N.I.H. before she was ousted from the agency in 2025.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been heavily critical of the hunt for a vaccine, writing in a 2021 book about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s “vain obsession to develop an H.I.V. vaccine” and testifying before a House panel last year that federal spending on the goal “accomplishes nothing.” The current funding delay affects Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally, the H.I.V. Prevention Trials Network, the H.I.V. Vaccine Trials Network and the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network. Together, they total more than $300 million each year.
Funding for the networks and their research sites is renewed every seven years. But questions over their future have grown since the Trump administration delayed publishing so-called notices of funding opportunities, a formal signal to scientists that the renewal process would begin.
Source: New York Times Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing