‘A bomb thrown into the middle of science’: Trump cuts hurt Australian medical research

Australian medical research institutes are suspending projects on malaria, tuberculosis and women’s health, as well as laying off staff, as they reel from the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar science cuts.

The situation has drawn condemnation from Australian scientists.

Burnet Institute director Professor Brendan Crabb likened the cuts to “having a bomb thrown into the middle of science”.

Medical research institutes are grappling with significant cuts to their research grants as a result of US changes. Credit: Louie Douvis

“The world of science and research in all its forms … is undergoing a global seismic shift as a result of what the US is doing,” he said. “I can’t think of another circumstance since the end of World War II where things have been upended so profoundly.”

Preliminary estimates from the Burnet Institute show that the US cuts have left a $1.2 million funding shortfall across the organisation’s global health programs and collaborations. A spokeswoman said this had led to the suspension until 2030 of research projects involving malaria, harm reduction, tuberculosis and women’s and children’s health.

Professor James Beeson, a world-renowned malaria researcher from the Burnet Institute, said the cuts would put millions of lives at risk.

Beeson pointed to research by the Malaria Atlas Project, which estimates that a complete freeze in US funding would lead to 15 million additional cases of malaria every year and 107,000 deaths.

Maternal deaths, stillbirths, tuberculosis and HIV rates throughout the Asia-Pacific region and parts of Africa would also increase substantially over the next few years unless the funding cuts were reversed or replaced by other funding sources, he said.

Beeson is also concerned that the cuts – which have involved US agency the National Institutes of Health terminating billions of dollars in funding for research organisations outside the US – will wreak havoc on the way researchers from around the world work together to solve health issues.

“If you take out or reduce a major source of funding, and you introduce this huge uncertainty for US researchers and others funded by the US, it has a massive impact on the multinational, collaborative approach to research and development.”

US government funding for Australian research institutes totalled about $386 million last year, according to the Australian Academy of Science. In comparison, the Australian government, through the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund, spends about $1.5 billion annually on health and medical research.

The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes has recently received reports of staff lay-offs at Australian organisations as a result of the US cuts.

“It’s heartbreaking,” the association’s national chief executive, Saraid Billiards, said. “Some are having to terminate research projects entirely because they just don’t have the funds to be able to do that research.”

Billiards said Victoria’s independent medical research institutes were already in financial crisis before the US cuts, with a report commissioned by the association finding that most would be financially unviable by 2028 without urgent investment from the Victorian and federal governments.

“No one could have predicted what was going to happen in the US,” she said. “It has really shone a light on the weakness of our sector. Australia needs to really think hard about how we protect our own research.”

The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute was recently informed that an international study it was involved in, which was collecting longitudinal data to underpin clinical trials into a rare inherited muscle disease, had lost the Australian component of its US funding.

The institute’s director, Professor Kathryn North, said US cuts would also affect many organisations conducting vaccination research and providing vaccines and essential medicines to improve the survival of children in low- and middle-income countries.

“There will be new epidemics of well-known diseases like measles and influenza because of lack of access to vaccines,” she said. “It is hard to predict the scale of the impact – but none of this is looking good.”

Like many researchers, North is also concerned about the impact the cuts will have on international collaboration.

“US organisations with strong international ties are not going to be able to contribute to research partnerships because they will find it increasingly difficult to cover their own costs,” she said, referring to the threatened cuts to infrastructure funding through the National Institutes of Health.

Professor Grant McArthur, chief executive of the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance, said there was one silver lining: the US changes had presented opportunities to attract new researchers to Australia.

“Our thoughts are with our US colleagues, who have been adversely impacted the most,” he said. “We’re already seeing interest in Australian jobs expressed by US scientists and researchers – and we welcome that.”

A federal Department of Health spokesman said it had no jurisdiction over the policy decisions and regulations put in place by the US or any international funders.

The spokesman said that as of March 24, the Medical Research Future Fund had not engaged in any co-funding arrangements with US government funding agencies.

In May last year, federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced the development of a new health and medical research strategy. It is due to be finalised late this year.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.