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The Federal Funding Freeze Will Cause Lasting Damage to Medical Research


Clinical trials may have to be scrapped, research applications will be pushed back, and unpaid researchers will quickly leave the sector—even if the Trump administration’s funding pause is only temporary.

From the polio vaccine, to decoding the first human chromosome, to the first heart bypass surgery, American research has originated a seemingly endless list of health care advances that are taken for granted. But when the Trump administration issued a memorandum Monday that paused all federal grants and loans —with the aim of ensuring that funding recipients are complying with the president’s raft of recent executive orders—US academia ground to a halt. While some are hopeful that the funding freeze for academia could end on February 1, when the pause on communications and therefore grant reviews is slated to lift, the individuals WIRED spoke with are largely skeptical that work will simply resume as before.

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