A budget proposal released last week by the Trump administration seeks to cut $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The cuts listed in President Donald Trump's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget are part of a $15.8 billion overall reduction the administration is seeking for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH. The document from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says the budget reductions will be achieved through reforms and elimination of several NIH centers, including the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which OMB said is "replete with DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] expenditures."

"NIH broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health," OMB said.

Other agencies slated for budget cuts the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (-$129 million), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR, -$356 million). OMB said ASPR had been overextended by the COVID-19 pandemic and had moved away from its mission of coordinating the federal emergency response.

The budget also suggests a planned reorganization of several agencies under a proposed Administration for a Healthy America will save an estimated $5 billion by eliminating and consolidating programs that "duplicate other Federal spending, promote radicalized DEI ideologies, or use taxpayer funds to support radical nonprofits that are not aligned with Administration policies."

The budget is the second released by the administration with deep cuts to health and science. Congress rejected many of the proposed 2026 cuts earlier this year. Critics say the proposed cuts represent a threat to public health.

“Donald Trump’s budget plan is a roadmap to smashing virtually every public health safeguard and inviting deadly preventable diseases like measles to run wild," Kayla Hancock of Protect Our Care's Public Health Project said in a statement. "Trump’s proposed cuts to the NIH alone will end up costing working people more than double that in lost economic activity, while the potential cost to our public health in lost scientific research and innovation is off the charts."

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• Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is continuing to spread later into spring than usual, prompting 48 states to extend the window for vaccination of infants and toddlers through the end of April rather than March, per the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) and the Association of Immunization Managers. As of March 28, 6.9% of tests for respiratory illness were positive for RSV, up from 3.8% during the same period last year. One dose of the monoclonal antibody preventive nirsevimab is recommended for infants born during the RSV season to mothers who didn’t receive the maternal RSV vaccine. The remainder of babies born to unvaccinated mothers should receive a dose before the next season starts.
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