NIH sued over ‘ideological purge’ of DEI, Covid and vaccine research

A group of public health experts and major labor organizations are suing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over what they call an “ongoing ideological purge” of scientific research.

In a legal complaint filed on Wednesday, the American Public Health Association; the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); and other health experts say the NIH has abruptly canceled hundreds of grants since February 2025.

The complaint says the cuts have targeted research tied to topics like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, vaccine hesitancy and even work involving collaborators in other countries. These cancellations, they argue, provide a “window into the devastation to medical and scientific research playing out across the nation right now”.

The lawsuit claims that NIH broke from its usual science-based review process and started shutting down projects based on “vague” new priorities. It alleges that the organization often justified cancellations by saying the research “no longer effectuates agency priorities”.

Researchers affected by the cuts include those studying Alzheimer’s disease, pregnancy health disparities and HIV prevention. In total, about $17bn in grants have been revoked or frozen, including $7.5bn already spent on projects that are now shut down, the complaint says.

“Ending these NIH grants wastes taxpayer money and years of hard work to answer the world’s most pressing biomedical questions. This is an attack on scientific progress itself,” Brittany Charlton, a plaintiff and associate professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement.

“Important discoveries and treatments will be delayed, putting lives at risk. Health issues in one community affect everyone, so this concerns us all,” Charlton added.

The complaint also describes how, following a wave of executive orders from Donald Trump aimed at eliminating DEI programs and “gender ideology” from the federal government, NIH leadership began circulating internal memos instructing staff to identify and halt grants that mentioned those topics. But the suit alleges that the “purge of critical research projects” went beyond DEI.

The NIH’s “eradication of peer-reviewed science has not stopped at topics deemed to be related to gender or DEI”, the complaint states. “Defendants’ ideological purity Directives also seek to cancel research deemed related to ‘vaccine hesitancy,’ ‘COVID,’ and studies involving entities located in South Africa and China, among other things.”

The agency also reportedly blocked funding applications mid-review and scrubbed DEI-related language from its website.

If these cuts continue, “scientific advancement will be delayed, treatments will go undiscovered, human health will be compromised, and lives will be lost”, the lawsuit warns.

“This will have devastating consequences for those relying on government progress on HIV, Alzheimer’s, diabetes or other public health challenges, if not reversed by the courts,” said Peter G Lurie, a plaintiff and president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.