Federal cuts to medical research funding have finally hit CUNY. On March 11, the National Institute of Health abruptly cancelled a $3.3 million research project that aimed to see whether short digital messages could encourage adults with mental health conditions to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
The study tested three one-minute videos designed to appeal to the emotions of participants and build their resistance to vaccine misinformation.
While the project didn’t end up increasing vaccine uptake, Denis Nash, a professor of epidemiology at the CUNY School of Public Health, said the findings still offered valuable insight.
CUNY should be allowed to continue building upon their research, not shut down prematurely.
Instead, this funding cut is a huge misstep, as research has shown that people with mental health issues like anxiety and depression are more vulnerable to misinformation around vaccines.
Terminating these types of projects does nothing but leave already at-risk communities more exposed to falsehoods and conspiracy theories about life-saving vaccines.
This was just one of 61 research grants effectively killed in one fell swoop — making it extremely difficult for CUNY professors and staff to support graduate students due to the severely limited options for research across campuses.
As CUNY already lacks funding, this loss will further damage CUNY’s ability to sustain meaningful medical research for its passionate student body.
According to a spokesperson for the NIH, the institution “is taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities, [and is] dedicated to restoring [the] agency to its tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
This is a word-for-word regurgitation of President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again Commission” executive order issued on Feb. 13.
The order called for the NIH and other agencies to prioritize research into the so-called “root causes of why Americans are getting sick.”
If the Trump Administration truly cared about public health as it claims, it wouldn’t be getting rid of vital research funding that directly targets misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.
Cutting funding in half — or entirely — completely misses the point by undermining the administration’s own supposed goals.
Defunding critical medical research is not just bad policy; it’s extremely dangerous and leaves the public even more vulnerable to misinformation.
A November 2024 report from the Pew Research Center explains that public trust in science has increased, yet it is still lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funding cuts may turn back the clock on real progress.
Once again, the Trump administration’s health policies are doing more harm than good and New Yorkers, especially CUNY students and faculty, are paying the price.
