On Monday, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and 21 other states’ attorneys general filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health. In their suit, the plaintiffs argued that the lack of NIH funding “will devastate critical public health research at universities and research institutions.”
A Massachusetts federal district court judge temporarily blocked the order Monday night. Judge Angel Kelley granted the plaintiffs’ motion to issue a temporary restraining order, preventing the NIH from “taking any steps to implement, apply, or enforce” the funding cuts.
On Feb. 7, the NIH issued a notice saying they would limit indirect costs in grants to 15%, which includes building, operation and maintenance expenses.
“The United States should have the best medical research in the world,” the notice reads. “It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”
But the plaintiffs argued that administrative costs support research institutions “as a whole, and help make research possible without being attributable to any specific grant or project.”
“Brown and other Rhode Island institutions rely on federal funding to conduct important research,” Neronha said in a press release. “This reduction in funding would seriously threaten the future of this research.”
He added that “these funding cuts would lead to Rhode Islanders losing their jobs, thereby negatively impacting their lives and our state economy.”
“There would be serious implications for jobs at Brown that support our research enterprises and facilities,” President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 and Provost Francis Doyle wrote in a community-wide email. “Brown’s full cost of research is already significantly more than what is covered by sponsored direct costs and indirect cost recovery.”
Brown’s Vice President for Research Greg Hirth ScM’87 PhD’91 submitted a declaration on Sunday in support of Neronha’s filing.
If the 15% cap on indirect cost rates was implemented in fiscal year 2024, “the University would have experienced a loss of approximately $27 million,” Hirth estimated in his declaration. “For year-to-date FY25 research expenditures, the University would have experienced a loss of approximately $16 million.” The University is currently facing a $46 million structural deficit.
Many of the University’s current research projects and clinical trials would “cease abruptly,” if the cap were to be implemented, Hirth wrote. Brown’s plans to construct the Danoff Laboratories — a seven-story life sciences research building — in the Jewelry District “would no longer be feasible,” Paxson and Doyle added.
The plaintiffs also alleged that the notice is in violation of the Department of Health and Human Services’s regulations which prohibit the “NIH from requiring such categorial, indiscriminate changes to indirect cost rates.”
“In issuing the (notice), the NIH has also acted beyond its statutory authority,” they added.
On Monday, Brown, alongside 12 other universities and several education groups, filed a separate lawsuit against the NIH over the funding cut, The Herald previously reported.
Neronha did not provide additional comments. The NIH deferred comment to HHS, which did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment. The White House also did not respond.
Avani Ghosh is a Metro editor covering city and state politics. She is a junior from Ohio studying Health and Human Biology and International and Public Affairs. She is an avid earl grey enthusiast and can be found making tea in her free time.
