The Department of Health and Human Services has released a detailed summary of President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget request, revealing substantial changes to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The proposal seeks to reduce the NIH's discretionary budget from $47 billion to $27.5 billion, representing an $18 billion, or nearly 40%, cut from previous funding levels.
The plan includes a major reorganization of the NIH, consolidating its 27 institutes and centers into just eight. Only three current institutes—the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and National Institute of Aging (NIA)—would remain intact, though their budgets would also be reduced. Under the proposal, the NCI's budget would drop from $7.2 billion to $4.5 billion, NIAID from $6.6 billion to $4.2 billion, and NIA from $4.4 billion to $2.7 billion.
Additional details from the released documents indicate that the NIH workforce would be cut to 16,297 employees, a level comparable to 2019. Indirect costs would be capped at 15%. The Trump administration has justified these cuts by labeling the NIH as a bureaucracy that has been 'weaponized' and emphasizing a desire to direct funding toward research and away from what it describes as waste, fraud, and abuse.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has stated that the administration is not ruling out the use of executive tools, such as rescissions or impoundment, to achieve its budgetary goals, and that future rescission bills may not require congressional approval.
.@WHOMB Director @RussVought47 fact checks CNN on cancer research funding: "We want it to go to the research that people think that they have been funding through their tax dollars. We don't want it to go to waste, fraud, and abuse."
