According to reports from The Washington Post, New York Times and Politico, the White House is drafting an executive order that would let OMB Director Russell Vought approve or reject every grant awarded by the NIH. The move follows a meeting in which NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya reportedly failed to stop the effort, marking the latest attempt by Vought to steer the agency's funding decisions after earlier attempts to cut its budget and impose political criteria on grants were blocked by Congress and the courts.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-21
A Nature editorial argues that the US National Institutes of Health should not adopt simplistic bibliometric measures, such as citation counts or journal impact factors, to judge the value of research it funds. It warns that basing funding or hiring decisions on these numbers risks distorting scientific priorities and rewarding easily counted output over genuinely important work.
nature.com
· 2026-09-15
The NIH and Department of Defense have quietly confirmed a signed agreement, disclosed the Friday before a US holiday, that redirects part of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases budget toward Pentagon research on pandemic flu, CBRN threats and emerging infectious diseases. The deal runs a decade, and while the exact dollar amount is unspecified, reports indicate the Pentagon sought roughly a third of relevant funding but was steered toward about 10 percent instead.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-08
A Microbiology Spectrum study found that lit Bunsen burners did not lower airborne bacterial contamination compared with unlit ones, and in some trials contamination near lit burners was even higher. Researchers seeded lab air with Gordonia rubripertincta bacteria and compared Petri dishes placed near lit versus unlit burners across several burner sizes, consistently finding no protective benefit from the flame.
nature.com
· 2026-09-07
Two NIH employees say the agency has signed an agreement with the Department of Defense to transfer research projects, currently valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, from its infectious-diseases institute to military biodefence programs. The NIH is reportedly still selecting which projects to hand over and hopes to finalize the deal before the fiscal year ends in September, when certain funds would otherwise expire. NIH officials describe the move as separating civilian public-health work from defense-related priorities, while a former top HHS lawyer questions whether simply redirecting funds between agencies in this way is legally permissible.
nature.com
· 2026-09-04
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