Senator Murray: “There are patients today in clinical trials that are praying for a breakthrough… and they’re seeing the best hope for a cure cut off by the richest two people in the world.
ICYMI: Murray Presses NIH Nominee on Mass Firings, Trump Attempts to Cut Billions from Biomedical Research, Unprecedented Halt on NIH Advisory Council Meetings
*** VIDEO of Senator Murray’s Q&A with former NIH Director HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chairof the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined a Senate forum hosted by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Peter Welch (D-VT), calling out how President Trump and Elon Musk’s attacks on the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—from gutting critical funding and freezing grants, to halting advisory committee meetings and clinical trials, to senselessly mass firing thousands of staff, and other attempts to hobble biomedical research—will have generational impacts on finding cures and treatments for serious illnesses that affect millions of Americans each year.
At the forum today, Senator Murray and her colleagues heard from Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, M.D., former Director of the NIH; Dr. Sterling Johnson, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor and Associate Director of Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center; Dr. Whitney Wharton, PhD, Emory University Associate Professor and Alzheimer’s Disease researcher; Mr. Jessy Ybarra, a veteran living with ALS and Board of Trustees member for the ALS Association; and Dr. Larry Saltzman, M.D., a retired physician living with leukemia and former Executive Research Director for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Senator Murray began by emphasizing how the NIH is currently in a state of crisis, with Trump and Elon Musk’s wide-ranging attacks on biomedical research and NIH’s mission: “We have DOGE freezing research grants mid-study. There is mass firing of researchers who are on the cutting edge of discovery. They’re slashing funds for our world-class institutions, and they’re setting back work—work on childhood cancers, on Alzheimer’s disease, on improving women’s health. There are patients today in clinical trials that are praying for a breakthrough… and they’re seeing the best hope for a cure cut off by the richest two people in the world. This is just crazy,” Murray said at the forum today.
“I have four NIH grants in my home state of Washington that have been canceled so far, including one that was focused on improving vaccine delivery for hospitalized children. There’s countless other awards that are being held up. They’re threatening the lifesaving research work that every single one of us either depend on today, or may depend on, or know somebody who depends on. I just can’t express how outrageous this is.”
“We know that in the first four weeks of this administration, NIH funding to research institutions was an astonishing 1 billion—that is a ‘b’—less than the same period last year. That is outrageous,” Murray continued. “From your time as NIH Director, is it normal at this point in this year—we’re almost the end of March—for so little grant funding to have gone out the door at NIH? And what is the impact on researchers, universities, and people?
“It’s not at all normal,” Dr. Bertagnolli, who served as the 17th Director of the NIH from November 9th, 2023 to January 17th, 2025, replied. “The fundamental research that we all need, the understanding the biology that our drug companies need to make drugs, or that our device makers need to be able to diagnose better diagnosis—that’s funded by the NIH, overwhelmingly. That’s not funded by any other sector. So, without NIH, we don’t have any of these kinds of progress. That’s what’s not getting out the door.”
“The confusion is rampant,” Dr. Bertagnolli continued. “At this time, we would have had fully a third of the total budget out the door, already funding very high-level research… and I believe we are so far behind that right now.”
“We are far behind,” Murray echoed. “And my understanding is, 14 NIH grants focused on cancer have been terminated so far this year, and at least six of those focused on cancers impacting women. Dr. Bertagnolli, you’re a surgical oncologist—how is this going to impact women?”
Dr. Bertagnolli responded, “We identified that women’s health was a high priority area for us at NIH over the last year, and so, launched many new programs to really begin to address the deficiencies that we’ve had in women’s health.”
“So… now the direction from the Trump administration is, we don’t take care of women?” Murray asked.
Dr. Bertagnolli said, “Well, nothing new is going forward that I can see. Nothing new… University of Utah, my alma mater, just had a Clinical and Translational Research Award canceled in its second of seven years —just terminated, CTSA Award. This award, the aims are: genetic testing to improve treatment and diagnosis of critically ill newborns, skin cancer reduction programs throughout rural communities, support young adults with heart disease to be able to live lives and be better connected to their doctors if they live in rural locations, and to identify genetic causes of bipolar disorder—canceled in its second year. So that’s what we’re seeing.”
Murray concluded by emphasizing, “I mean, this is outrageous. I would just have a word for Elon Musk and President Trump: women are a part of your life too, and without them, you won’t be where you are. So, you better focus on their health and get this research funding back in place.”
Senator Murray was a leading voice opposing Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s nomination to lead NIH, and at his nomination hearing earlier this month, Murray pressed him on Elon Musk’s unprecedented influence at the agency and the massive, indiscriminate firings of skilled scientists and researchers. The Trump administration recently attempted to illegally cap indirect cost rates at 15 percent—a move Senator Murray immediately and forcefully condemned, led the entire Senate Democratic caucus in a letter decrying the proposed change, and introduced amendments to Senate Republicans’ budget resolution to reverse it, which Republicans blocked.
As a longtime appropriator and former Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, Murray has long fought to boost biomedical research, strengthen public health infrastructure, and make health care more affordable and accessible. Over her years as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, she has secured billions of dollars in increases for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, and during her time as Chair of the HELP Committee, she established the new ARPA-H research agency as part of her PREVENT Pandemics Act to advance some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. Senator Murray was also the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which delivered a major federal investment to boost NIH research, among many other investments.
Video of the entire NIH forum is available HERE.
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