Judge blocks Trump’s $4 billion cuts to biomedical research after lawsuit from 22 states

(CN) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked an expected $4 billion slash to funding for biomedical research after a group of states sued the Trump administration over the funding cuts earlier on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, a Joe Biden appointee in Massachusetts, wrote in a Monday ruling that she’d be issuing a temporary restraining order that keeps the administration from enforcing the cuts until at least Feb. 21, when the parties will meet in-person for oral arguments.

Kelley’s ruling comes just hours after a multi-state coalition of 22 attorneys general sued the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, accusing them of posing an “immediate threat to the nation’s research infrastructure” by lowering the cap on grant funding to universities and research institutions.

The NIH announced on Friday that it would cut grants for “indirect costs” of research like infrastructure and equipment. Currently, the average rate grants pay for those indirect research costs is 30%. The NIH is slashing that rate to 15%, which it says would save the agency billions.

But the new cap would also have “immediate and devastating” effects on the country’s research progress, the states claim in Monday’s lawsuit.

“Medical schools, universities, research institutions, and other grant recipients across the country have already budgeted for (and incurred obligations based on) the specific indirect cost rates that had been negotiated and formalized with the federal government through the designated statutory and regulatory legal process,” the coalition claims. “This agency action will result in layoffs, suspension of clinical trials, disruption of ongoing research programs, and laboratory closures.”

President Donald Trump proposed similar cuts during his first administration, when he made a budget proposal to cut the indirect research grant rate to 10% in 2017. But the states acknowledged that Congress “unequivocally responded to ward off” Trump’s efforts at the time.

The attorneys general of Massachusetts, Illinois and Michigan are co-leading the lawsuit. Also signing on are the attorney generals of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a Monday press conference that the grant cuts could impact lifesaving research on diseases like cancer, the emerging bird flu and “whatever might be the next Covid.”

“That research benefits all of us, and these dangerous proposed cuts are indiscriminate and without purpose,” Nessel told reporters. “They will cut thousands of jobs here in Michigan. They’ll disrupt tens of thousands of research projects here, many of which are already currently underway, and focus on improving health outcomes and preventing unnecessary deaths.”

Nessel estimated that, of the $1.13 billion Michigan receives in NIH grants, $226 million would be “immediately axed” under the new cap.

Panning the broader cost-cutting actions from Trump in recent weeks, Nessel criticized the administration for its “draconian, inexplicable edicts” that are affecting Americans from all walks of life.

“This administration leaves behind a web of chaos and confusion for everyone from Meals on Wheels recipients to Medicaid patients to essential emergency services for law enforcement, and now this: public health,” Nessel said. “Literally, no one is spared.”

Nessel and the other 21 state attorneys general are seeking an injunction that finds the NIH’s new cap rate unlawful.

It’s one of several lawsuits challenging the new cap rate. Two additional complaints were filed Monday, also in Massachusetts: one by a group of medical associations and another by a group of universities challenging the “flagrantly unlawful action” by the NIH.

The NIH directive is the latest controversial move from the Trump administration to be challenged in federal court. In January, another multi-state coalition sued over Trump’s broad order to freeze federal funds, which has left organizations around the country unsure of their future. That order is temporarily paused after a federal judge called the freeze “constitutionally flawed,” however.

The Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts — which are being co-led by billionaire Elon Musk, who is acting as an unofficial arm of the executive branch through the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency — have had a global impact.

Multiple reports have found that international participants in clinical health trials have been abandoned mid-trial after the Trump administration moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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