Earlier this year, the Trump administration made substantial cuts to federal funding for biomedical research, leading to the sudden cancellation of 383 ongoing clinical trials. As a result, more than 74,000 participants lost access to experimental treatments, monitoring, or follow-ups, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
This study, conducted by Harvard researchers, specifically examines the Trump administration's impact on clinical trial funding. It underlines the inefficiency and ethical concerns generated by these funding cuts, as noted by the editors of JAMA Internal Medicine in an accompanying editor’s note.
In March, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the Trump administration, announced a cancellation of $1.8 billion in grant funding that did not align with the administration's priorities. Anupam Jena, a healthcare policy expert leading the Harvard research team, utilized an NIH database and a federal accountability tool to identify clinical trial grants that were active as of February 28 but had been terminated by August 15.
During this period, 11,008 trials were at various stages of funding. Of these, 383 trials were terminated. The study found that 14 percent of the canceled trials were still early phases before recruiting participants, 34.5 percent were in the process of recruiting participants, 3.4 percent were enrolling participants by invitation, and 36 percent were completed. Furthermore, about 11 percent (43 trials) were in progress but no longer recruiting, with participants receiving interventions at this stage. In these 43 trials, there were a total of 74,311 participants.
Among the 383 canceled trials, 31 percent (118 trials) were focused on cancers, 25 percent (97 trials) were concerned with infectious diseases, 12.5 percent (48 trials) addressed reproductive health, and 12 percent (47 trials) focused on mental health.