27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 5/31/26

Written By Anna

Hi NIH Vigilers and 27 UNIHTED Community,

This was a doozy of a week.  Take a deep breath, remember we are here for each other, and study up because there’s a 5-alarm fire brewing, and we’ve got what you need to know this week.

Vigil “Auntie” News 

- The Good -

More fact-checks from 27 UNIHTED.

In this continuing series, 27U fills in the blanks on the context and accuracy of NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya’s testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee in March.  Fact Check Part 3 highlights discriminatory censorship of research through grant screening and describes how the Director has promised support for minority health and health disparities research while overseeing systems that undermine them.  Part 4 focuses on Dr. Bhattacharya’s pattern of enabling political interference at NIH, including speaking at partisan political conventions, despite swearing to Congress that he is not political.

Stronger together: NIH workers stand up for displaced NIAID leaders.

“Kelly, Your Impact Will Last.”  “Dan, Thank You for Leading with Integrity and Purpose.”  In a heartwarming and spontaneous gesture of gratitude, friends and co-workers of some of the leading scientists recently pushed out of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) posted lawn signs of appreciation at the Bethesda NIH campus.

Federal small business funding is finally back in action.

The “Reauthorize SBIR/STTR” campaign was near and dear to our hearts at 27 UNIHTED.  The fruits of that labor are now beginning to emerge.  This week, NIH released its first SBIR/STTR notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) announcements since authority for the program lapsed last October.  NSF has also relaunched its program with a $250 million investment.  The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs were only reauthorized by Congress in April but will now continue to provide research and development grants for innovators who aim to turn promising ideas into commercial products.

Emmy-nominated true story of federal workers pushing back is now streaming.

History unfolds in real time in HEIST, a film about “federal workers challenging the Trump Administration while it dismantles federal agencies and purges the federal workforce.”  While it just missed an Emmy win for Outstanding Short Documentary, you can now watch on YouTube the story that birthed movements like 27 UNIHTED, NIH Vigils, and The Bethesda Declaration.  Learn more about the filmmakers and why this work matters at heistthedocumentary.film.

- The Bad -

Ongoing impacts of probationary firings on federal workers’ lives, careers, and the local economy.  Data from 27 UNIHTED’s fired probationary worker survey has inspired a slew of media coverage documenting the aftermath of the “February Massacre” in which >25,000 federal workers were terminated at the beginning of the second Trump administration in the Spring of 2025.  Famously, or infamously, a Federal judge later ruled these firings were illegal but did not order them re-instated on the belief that the fired workers had already moved on.  The questionable accuracy of this statement a year later was the subject of reporting by Federal News Network and Government Executive, which highlighted ongoing mental health challenges and high rates of unemployment or reduced pay among the 300 self-selected survey respondents.  The irrecoverable loss of institutional knowledge at federal agencies was also a standout.  Capital News Service has published a 4-part series investigating the negative effects of federal downsizing on Maryland, where many of these workers reside.

NIH accelerates multi-year funding, shrinking the funding pool for new awards.

The forward or multi-year funding (MYF) model gives grant recipients all their award money upfront instead of providing funding on a yearly basis.  As NIH scrambles to spend its appropriated budget within the 2026 fiscal year, more of this allocation is being spent on MYF R01 awards earlier in the cycle than in fiscal year 2025, according to a new report from AAMC.  The MYF transition period shrinks the number of awards made with the available pool of annual funding and raises the bar on award competitiveness.  This shift is hurting new applications the most, disproportionately impacting early career researchers, the source of revolutionary innovations and the next generation of scientists.  Congress capped NIH’s use of MYF last year but the President’s FY27 budget proposal erases that cap as it “proposes to provide upfront funding for all competing research project grant (RPG) awards to facilitate efficient management of resources across multiple years” (emphasis added).

NSF secretly froze new grants to select research universities.

The Trump administration has been working hard to keep funding away from certain research institutes that have made its black list.  Despite a judge invalidating funding cuts to Harvard based on pretextual claims of anti-semitism, Nature has uncovered a new behind-the-scenes scandal in which NSF’s internal database had flagged Duke, Princeton, Yale, and Harvard with the April 9th note “Future Awards to Organization on Hold” and stalled 33 research proposals from those universities. While the White House has since said that it remains in compliance with federal law on grant review, the note was removed from NSF records and some funding was released only following media inquiries last week. 

- The Ugly -

Immigration restrictions would further diminish US attractiveness to foreign talent.

Shock, anger, and panic erupted last week when US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that green card applicants in the US would be denied “adjustment of status,” which permits applicants to remain in the US while applying for permanent residency, except in “extraordinary circumstances.”  The apparent change would have reversed 50+ years of policy by requiring most of the ~600,000 green card hopefuls who apply from the US each year to return to their home countries to do so instead.  For those from countries with US travel bans or pauses on visa processing, their ability to return afterwards seems unlikely.  The administration has since tried to walk this announcement back, claiming the memo was a reminder to USCIS officers of their pre-existing discretion to require applicants to apply from their home countries. However, immigration lawyers are reporting that interviewees are being questioned about the necessity of applying from within the US.  Increased uncertainty in granting “adjustment of status” will likely hit the research community hard.  For example, 60% of NIH’s postdoctoral researchers are visiting fellows from other countries, many of whom have hoped to gain legal residency in the US and continue contributing their scientific skills and training to this country’s success.

New rule proposal calls for non-disclosure agreements for all federal employees.

They are coming for our free speech!  The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has published a new rule proposal in the Federal Register that would allow federal agencies to require all employees to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). While purportedly an attempt to prevent confidential information being leaked to the press, critics are concerned about the potential threat to First Amendment rights and whistleblower protections.  The new rules would prohibit current employees from disclosing “nonpublic, confidential or proprietary” information.  Current laws already exist that prohibit these disclosures, but the new rules would require even former workers to attain written permission to speak to journalists on any topics the administration chose to label as sensitive.  This has led some to question whether NDAs would be used to purge, punish, or intimidate federal workers deemed insufficiently loyal or whose personal ideology does not align with the administration’s preferences.  Submit your comments on this proposal to the Federal Register by June 26.

New rules proposal on research grants sidelines scientific needs and expertise.

Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has introduced a 108-page triple-column rules proposal to the Federal Register under the innocuous sounding title of  “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” that proposes to muzzle scientists and give political appointees unprecedented control over who can see, learn, talk about, and conduct research.  A lot has already been written as people try to absorb the potential ramifications if these rules go into effect.  For a clear summary, we recommend Liz Ginexi’s Substack on the major changes and a follow-up on what you can do about it.  Some of the most alarming items include: 

  • Giving political appointees supervisory control and final say over grant approvals (demoting scientists with decades of training and experience to a non-binding advisory role)

  • Converting all active grant funding to at-will status that would allow termination of an award at any time for any reason

  • Prohibiting grant awards to people or institutions that associate with certain topics or groups

  • Requiring pre-approval for conference attendance and professional memberships 

  • Dis-allowing support for publication fees 

  • Severely restricting public communication including a ban on barely defined “issue advocacy”  

Aptly put by Ars Technica’s John Timmer, “If you wanted to cripple science research and were disappointed that Congress continued to fund it, this is the sort of document you would produce.”  This is an all-hands-on-deck catastrophe in the making.  Submit your comments to the Federal Register by July 13.

Science Interrupted

What We’ve Lost: Research on How to Combat Misinformation

The following quotes are excerpted from The Tennessean, “I researched misinformation, until the government stopped me,” May 7, 2026.

On April 18, 2025, my National Science Foundation (NSF) grant “How False Beliefs Form and How to Correct Them” was terminated, effective immediately.  Our research focused on how repetition increases belief that a statement is true, along with ways professional fact-checkers can improve their efforts to correct false beliefs…. By the end of the month, over 50 misinformation grants supported by NSF were cancelled….

And yet, despite these attacks, misinformation research has never been more important.  We are currently seeing a dramatic rise in AI-generated misinformation. Fake doctors created using generative AI are hawking supplements and e-books on Instagram, online footage from the war in Iran is a confusing mix of real and AI-generated imagery and it is generally becoming more and more difficult to determine whether online information is coming from actual humans.

Even the current federal government is slowly rediscovering the importance of studying misinformation.  After dismantling much of the U.S.’s ability to detect and combat foreign disinformation campaigns, the government recently ordered American embassies to push back against anti-American propaganda….

The problem of misinformation is not going away, even if the U.S. government now refuses to fund research aimed at studying the problem.

Our research continues at a smaller scale.  Since the grant termination, my lab has examined how repetition can increase belief in conspiracy theories.  Other ongoing research focuses on why people turn to conspiratorial explanations for events and how to reduce belief in prominent health myths.

— Lisa Fazio, Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. 

Reflection from the Community

“I am an immigrant. I ‘followed the rules,’ 15 years of paperwork and faith in the system. Now this administration is telling people like me, people who built their lives here, who are in the middle of legal processes, who have US citizen children, to leave and apply for green cards from abroad. That is not a process. That is a sentence without due process. 

“Almost 15% of Americans are foreign-born. At NIH, foreign-born scientists make up the majority of the postdoctoral workforce. When you dismantle legal immigration you are not defending this country, you are dismantling the people, the scientists, the engineers, the exact people who built it.”

— Rui Sa, PhD, Program Officer at NIH (in his personal capacity)

Leadership Watch

There are currently many vacancies on NIH’s advisory councils, which are legally mandated as the second-level review of all grants and cooperative agreements.  A few of these positions are finally starting to be filled.  As appointees are seated, a pattern of nepotism and political ideology over scientific and topic expertise is beginning to emerge.  Last month the wife of the acting Attorney General was appointed.  This month, the administration has nominated two skeptics of antidepressant medication to serve on the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) advisory council.  Both Laura Delano and David Cohen come from a nonprofit that advocates against “medicalized responses to human suffering.”  These appointments would bring the number of NIMH council members to 5 (out of the standard roster of 18 members). 

Speaking of Attorneys General, Trump has appointed former AG Pam Bondi to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), where her firing from the Department of Justice apparently qualifies her for advising the White House on regulatory matters and liaising with tech executives.

Calls To Action

*New* Protect free speech for federal workers by June 26. 

Comment on the proposed new non-disclosure agreement form for federal employees by June 26. Federal Register OPM-2026-0100. 

*New* Stop the political takeover of research and let scientists follow the science, by July 13.

This is a 5-alarm fire!  Comment on the proposed Federal Financial Assistance rule, individually and with specific detail.  Former NIH Program Officer Liz Ginexi has drafted guidance on how to make your comments more effective.  Federal Register OMB-2026-0034.

Sign on for Scientific Integrity. 

With the rise of politicization in the federal workplace, something must be done to protect scientific independence.  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.

Stand up for the National Science Board.

On April 25, the Trump administration dismissed all sitting members of the National Science Board, an independent advisory group for the National Science Foundation.  Fight back by signing this open letter to Congress from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine, asking for the reinstatement of fired members and appointments for all vacant positions.  27 UNIHTED has added its organizational endorsement.

Add your name (or anonymous voice) on the petition to urge Congress to impeach OMB DirectorRussell Vought for unlawfully dismantling government services Americans rely on.  The Impeach Vought campaign has over 1,800 of its desired 2,000 signatures!  Share the link with friends.

Urge the NIH Assembly of Scientists to support open dialogue. 

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya’s new “Scientific Freedom Lecture” series opened with a discussion on the origins of COVID-19, hosted by Matt Ridley (a vocal proponent of the controversial lab leak hypothesis), but with no balancing voice in opposition. We urge the NIH Assembly of Scientists to engage in Dr. Bhattacharya’s public commitment to open dialogue by hosting a scientist who supports the animal origin theory of COVID-19.

Reach out to your members of Congressabout 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. 

Upcoming Events

27 UNIHTED Events

Community Events

  • 6/2 - Stand Up for Science Emergency Meeting. Organize to fight back against the new OMB rule proposal. Register at standupforscience.net. 4:00 pm ET, virtual.

  • 6/2 - The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will give its third annual State of the Science address.  This will be the last address presented by outgoing NAS president Marcia McNutt.  3:00 pm at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, DC.  Register at nationacademies.org

  • 6/3 - Webinar: Funding Under Pressure: Political Influence, Censorship, and the Future of U.S. Research.  Former NIGMS Director Jeremy Berg will present emerging evidence of grant terminations, project disruptions, and changes to grant language.  Vigils rally speaker Michael Green will also speak.  Learn more at defendresearch.org.  June 3, 11:00 am, virtual.  Register through this form.

  • 6/9-10 - For those with an interest in public health policy and advocacy, The American Public Health Association will hold their Policy Action Institute June 9–10 in Arlington, VA and online with an optional Hill Day on June 11.  Discounts available for federal agency members and students. Registration required. 

  • 6/13 - Non-cooperation has been used by movements across history to leverage social change. Learn how and why at Free DC’s Non-Cooperation Theory + Practice workshop. Saturday, June 13, 12:00 PM. Washington DC. Free DC’s “Campaign Orientation” training is a required pre-requisite. 

Wellness Weekly

Our somewhat serious community recommendations for self care are:

  • Say hello to a dog or cat

  • Lie under a tree and look up into its branches

  • Wear sunscreen, because revenge against UV radiation is self-care

  • Check out our new merch shop

  • Donate to your favorite non-profit supporting biomedical research, public health, and the federal scientific workforce

In solidarity,

27 UNIHTED and NIH Vigils

Anna
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27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 5/24/26