27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 9/13/26

Written By Cara AB

Hi NIH Vigilers and 27 UNIHTED Community,

How is our research ecosystem faring? Here are a few of this week’s highlights, including the announcement of a VERY SPECIAL NIH Vigil you won’t want to miss. Our September 26, 2026, gathering will feature Dr. Jeremy Berg, former Director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH. 

Vigil “Auntie” News 

- The Good -

Judge strikes down “loyalty test” in federal job applications

The Office of Personnel Management recently instituted questions in the USAJobs application process related to the implementation of partisan executive orders. Those applying to federal positions at a GS-5 or higher level have been asked “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” and to “Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” These questions have now been temporarily stayed by the court because they “likely violated jobseekers’ First Amendment rights.”  Because these questions ask for personal views on political topics, they are counter to the establishment of a non-partisan civil service chosen based on their ability to perform the job and not dependant on their allegiance to any one administration. 

More Good News: 

  • The Supreme Court ruled against softening vaccine mandates.  The Justices declined an emergency appeal from a New York mother seeking a religious exemption from her son's kindergarten vaccine requirement, even though the Catholic Church itself supports vaccine mandates and finds no theological basis for exemption.  Some justices said they would have ruled in the mother’s favor.

  • Two 27 UNIHTED community members are charting a path for U.S. research infrastructure.  Vigil Aunties Sylvia Chou and Vani Pariyadath, writing for the American Association of University Professors magazine Academe, lay out how to rebuild research governance after two years of political interference, reminding readers that private philanthropy can't replace NIH's $48.86 billion budget without a trillion-dollar endowment, and demanding real scientific independence and integrity over funding decisions.

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that as of Friday the recent outbreak of cyclosporiasis related to iceberg lettuce is over.  The outbreak affected more than 12,000 people, with more than 500 hospitalized and 2 deaths.

- The Bad -

U.S. academic science faces a crisis as many researchers question their future here. 

One source of “brain drain” is that prominently established U.S. researchers continue to find greener pastures abroad amid tightening budgets and an atmosphere of fear.  “Science is incredibly fragile,” says a University of Massachusetts researcher and entrepreneur who is moving his laboratory to Canada.  “A year or two gap in funding can spell the end of a research program,” resulting in the loss of new medicines that could improve peoples’ lives.  Meanwhile a new survey shows students are reconsidering science careers in the United States.  Funding disruptions and increased hurdles for international students in the spring of 2025 led to one-third of survey respondents changing their minds about U.S. academic careers.  A Harvard professor involved with the survey said it described shrinkage of a scientific workforce that the U.S. has traditionally invested in expanding.  “They’ve spent time here, they’ve learned here. You’ve shaped this talent and this talent is telling you, ‘I want out.’”  At the same time, many graduate students are reconsidering academia altogether.  Budding researchers have for decades identified problems and contradictions within the academic career path.  Now, as the current administration attacks academia and squeezes science funding, young researchers are asking, “Can a generation of scientists continue to devote their lives to institutions that no longer seem willing to invest in them? … It is a generation that has looked at the contract academia offers—sacrifice now, security never, values optional—and begun asking whether it is worth signing.  The current funding crisis has made that question urgent, but the question was already there.”

Executive orders banning reporting of race and ethnicity threaten public health

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has delayed required action plans for the implementation of modernized race and ethnicity reporting standards by one year and may be eliminating collection of race and ethnicity data entirely from the decennial census.  An editorial in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that race and ethnicity data are being removed from federal data sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-sponsored Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data, and other Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) public-use databases.  Such data help researchers to understand study populations, determine how general their results are, and conduct stratified analyses among subgroups.  Moreover, public trust in clinical findings may be enhanced when they are based on data from a diverse population.  The authors conclude that “transparent and consistent reporting of race and ethnicity is essential for continued scientific progress that benefits all of us.”  The Federation for the Advancement of Science (FAS) agrees, reporting that ending the collection and sharing of race data has extensive adverse implications for health.  HHS uses race/ethnicity to allocate resources to specific communities, such as American Indian and Alaska Native populations.  Census data provides the denominator to understand health disparities, which impact a wide variety of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, maternal mortality, substance use and overdose rates.  Race and ethnicity data is also imperative for determining whether responses to new therapies differ across diverse populations.  The loss of race and ethnicity data will blind researchers and public health departments to differences in the needs of diverse communities and will impact the ability to allocate public health resources to achieve optimal health for all. 

More Bad News: 

- The Ugly -

Questions surround plans to transfer funds from NIAID to DOD

The interagency agreement between NIH’s NIAID and the Department of Defense (DOD) was signed in early August without advance notification to Congress.  The agreement is now being reported as a partnership on a project-by-project basis for research within the scope of NIH’s mission, according to an official statement from NIH.  However, initial reports were that as much as $1.9 billion was requested by the Pentagon, or almost one third of NIAID’s entire budget.  It is still possible that hundreds of millions of dollars are involved.  Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya have defended the deal, separately describing it as a partnership aligned with NIH’s public health mission.  Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), however, called the deal an “outrageous”, “secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from NIH.” There remain unanswered questions about how the funds would be used.  While interagency agreements are legal, it would be inappropriate for these funds to go to anything other than their appropriated purpose, to support basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. 

Political interference in scientific publishing 

The American Institute of Physics reported on newly released records showing how in 2025 the then-interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, sent letters to a dozen scientific publications about their “partisan positions in scientific debates.”  These letters went to 12 prominent scientific journals including Science, Nature Medicine, and Pediatrics and demanded information about their editorial processes.  These new reports demonstrate a wider scale of political scrutiny of scientific publications than was previously reported.  First Amendment and scientific advocates argue that the Constitution protects free scientific speech, and House Representative and physicist Bill Foster (D-IL) called the letters “dangerous and intentional overreach by the federal government into scientific research.”

Removal of tax-exempt status for private schools that support DEI 

As part of the continuing Trump administration attack on universities, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposes to remove tax exempt status from any private school that “discriminates on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin.” While this might sound good, the administration has framed diversity, equity, and inclusion programming as discriminatory, making the proposed rule a threat to any private university continuing to proactively support and include students from diverse backgrounds.  Notably, this will also impact their student’s ability to accept scholarships designated for particular groups of students based on racial, ethnic, or national identity. “The Treasury Department and IRS estimate the proposed rule may affect approximately 18,000 private schools that currently qualify for tax-exempt status and roughly 750,000 students.”

More Ugly News:

  • The National Science Foundation (NSF) is complying in advance, changing funding priorities and modalities and shifting away from core programs focused on basic research.  Staff members speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation “say that the move to fund the frontier initiatives will probably shrink the agency’s core-science funding and divert large sums to White House priorities.”  Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY), author of the bipartisan Scientific Integrity Act, and 35 of his House colleagues have written a letter urging NSF to withdraw these changes.

  • The Administration doubles down on the Oracle contract to “modernize” the Veterans Affairs (VA) records system. According to stoptherollout.org, the cost of the Oracle contract to replace VA’s record has ballooned from $10 billion to nearly $27 billion.  The new system is blamed for more than 11,000 lost orders, vanished referrals, and has been implicated in at least one veteran’s cancer spreading undetected. These failures continue to show up at every new site the system is rolled out to.

- In Memoriam - 

Natalie Phelps fought for the research that could have saved her.  Enrolled in an NIH immunotherapy trial, she watched Trump-era layoffs stretch her cell-engineering therapy wait time and spent her final months testifying that the cuts “could cost them their life.”  She kept advocating until she died at 42, insisting cancer research funding was non-negotiable.  Carry her fight forward and join or give to the Seattle Walk to End Colon Cancer. 

Upcoming Events

27 UNIHTED / NIH community events

  • Weekly NIH Vigil every Saturday at 10:00 am.

    • Special Vigil, September 26:  Join us for the “SOS for Health” rally on September 26th. If you can, join one of many national SOS for Health events taking place on September 24.  Former NIGMS Director and activist, Jeremy Berg, will be speaking. More details to come!

    • No Kings Vigil, October 17:  Join us for a special Vigil as a part of the “No Kings Vote Early—America Belongs to the People” event!

  • Weekly peer empowerment call every Thursday at 6:00 pm.

Community Events

  • Federal Workforce Advocates will hold their next meetup for federal workers and contractors on September 15, 6–7 pm in the Programming room of the C. Burr Artz Library in downtown Frederick.  Come share your thoughts and experiences in a safe, supportive, and confidential space.  

  • The 2026 Rally for Medical Research Hill Day is September 17.  This is an opportunity to advocate for science. #RallyforMedicalResearch #FundNIH.

  • Dr. Kristian Andersen presents “On Viral Emergence and the Origins of Pandemics,” Tuesday, October 6, 2 pm, Building 40, NIH campus. Those without campus access who wish to attend, contact Lee Eiden for information on registering as a guest.

  • Crow’s Nest Baltimore is showing “22 Federal Workers”: a virtual exhibition of oil portraits by NIHer and artist “Paint Brains” honoring federal workers and their public-service contributions. On display online through October 10. 

Calls To Action

Wondering how to write a public comment for the Federal Register?  Find commenting guidance at Regulations.gov.

NEW Ask that your current institution or alma mater commit to America’s Compact for Higher Education. 

This is a declaration of academic freedom that commits to the pursuit of knowledge and the use of that knowledge for public good even in the face of political pressure to the contrary. 

NEW Submit a comment on proposed policy change on sharing summary results.

This new policy proposal would require summary level study results from NIH supported clinical research to be shared with participants of those studies.  NIH is seeking public input on the implementation of this policy.  Responses are due by October 26.

Send comments regarding NIAID reorganization

Very little information is available about the proposed changes, but comments can be sent to NIAIDExecutiveServices@mail.nih.gov between September 14 and September 18.  For more information on these concerning changes, see this letter to Congress from professional societies.

Submit a comment about proposed changes to NIH grant review reporting

NIH is seeking public input on the proposed change to report application categorization as “most competitive,” “competitive,” and “not discussed” in lieu of final overall impact score.  Comments due by October 13.

Other actions you can take:

  • Submit ideas for future NIH Common Fund priorities. NIH is seeking public input on cross-cutting biomedical and behavioral research challenges.  Direct inquiries to: Common Fund Office, Office of the Director, cf-ideas@mail.nih.gov.  Responses are due by September 19.

  • Comment on NIH’s sweeping new biosafety policy.  NIH is seeking public comment on a draft policy that would replace its nearly 50-year-old recombinant-DNA guidelines with a more general one covering laboratory biomedical research involving specified biohazards. Submit comments here by October 19.

  • Sign the letter urging USDA Secretary Rollins to stop the reorganization. USDA unions wrote an open letter outlining how the changes to their department will cut services including SNAP, rural infrastructure development, wildfire management, and research supporting agriculture and forestry. Sign as a named or anonymous individual or encourage your organization to sign on.

  • Send a comment to NIH about removing K99/KT1 eligibility for visa-holders.  It was reported that NIH plans to eliminate visa-hold eligibility for pathway to independence awards. Send anonymous or named comments to nihtrain@nih.mail.gov with your ZIP code, and forward them to Congress, your institution, and your societies. 

  • Impeach Vought.  Add your name (or anonymous voice) on the petition to urge Congress to impeach Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought.  Learn more at www.impeachvought.com.  Currently at 2,614 signatures.  Encourage your Representatives to sign on to House Resolution 1479: Impeaching Russell Thurlow Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

  • Sign on for scientific integrity.  The Union of Concerned Scientists has drafted a letter of support for the Scientific Integrity Act, which has been reintroduced to the Senate.  Let our leaders know that evidence-based decision-making is important to you by signing The Momentum for Scientific Integrity Action here.

Reach out to your members of Congress about issues that matter to you.

Some possible topics:

Help the NIH community:  Review a resume, host a job workshop, plan a happy hour, volunteer, and/or advocate with 27 UNIHTED.  Check out the links on our website to take action and volunteer. 

Wellness Weekly

Our somewhat serious community recommendations for self-care are:

  • Dance it out.

  • Plant a seed and watch it grow.

  • List the top 10 things you would rather be doing right now, then choose one and do it.

In solidarity,

27 UNIHTED and NIH Vigils

Cara AB
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27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 9/6/26