Scribble

David Rind

00:00:04

'Remember the measles outbreak in West Texas? Well, that situation has not improved. In fact, it's getting worse. At least three people have died, including two children. And experts say most of the cases in the U.S. now are among unvaccinated people. And since the outbreak began, the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., stopped short of urging people to get vaccinated, only saying that it's the best way to stop measles from spreading, which is true. Well, in an interview with CBS on Tuesday, Kennedy, who is a long-time vaccine skeptic, finally said what the health community overall has been saying all along. Yes, you should get the shot.

Jon LaPook

00:00:45

What's the position philosophically of the federal government in terms of health care? The federal government's position.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

00:00:48

The federal government's position, my position, is people should get the measles vaccine, but if the government should not be mandating this. Understand.

David Rind

00:00:59

yet just a few days later.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

00:01:01

September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic.

David Rind

00:01:06

Kennedy told President Donald Trump in a cabinet meeting that a massive research effort will get to the bottom of why autism cases are rising. Kennedy has long linked autism and vaccines, despite strong evidence that the two are not connected. Baseless speculation Trump himself later echoed.

President Donald J. Trump

00:01:23

If you can come up with that answer where you stop taking something, you stop eating something or maybe it's a shot, but something's causing it.

David Rind

00:01:33

Health experts say, yes, autism cases are taking up for a number of reasons, but vaccines are definitively not one of them. But Kennedy and his unorthodox views are just one part of a much larger overhaul underway at America's health agencies.

Meg Tirrell

00:01:52

Where those cuts are coming from is 3,500 people at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health.

David Rind

00:02:02

'HHS says its workforce could be reduced by some 20,000 people. Key divisions devoted to maternal health, quitting smoking, and infectious diseases have been greatly reduced or eliminated completely. COVID-era funding for state and local health departments has been pulled back. And then there's the money for research. The Trump administration has axed hundreds of grants awarded to researchers and scientists across the country by the National Institutes of Health. Now, some of these funds fuel long-term studies into new life-saving care or prevention methods, many of which have been suddenly stopped in their tracks by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, leaving participants and researchers in limbo. So what happens to all that progress, and what's at stake if the funding doesn't get turned back on? Today, we talked to one researcher who says this is about way more than money. There are lives hanging in the balance. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

David Rind

00:03:15

I'm not steeped in the scientific research community. I don't think a ton of our listeners are either. So can you explain the process for how someone applies for a grant, gets the funding? Like, how does that whole process work?

Katie Edwards

00:03:26

Sure, it's a very involved and lengthy process.

David Rind

00:03:32

This is Katie Edwards.

Katie Edwards

00:03:34

I am a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan, where I also direct the Interpersonal Violence Research Laboratory.

David Rind

00:03:42

Her lab has been running a number of clinical trials focused on LGBTQ plus populations and how to prevent and respond to sexual violence. The funding for those trials comes from grants paid for by the National Institutes of Health. And she says that application process can take years.

Katie Edwards

00:04:01

So you're doing a lot of background information, and then once you have an idea, you have to write very much detailed steps of everything that you're going to do. You have to talk also about how you're gonna protect human subjects. You also have to include a budget. And then there's a lot other supplemental paperwork that go in there, like letters of support. And then you submit them to the NIH, and the NIH then basically first make sure to thank me. of a compliance criteria so that you didn't actually go over by a sentence or two, or you don't have something out of the page ranges. And then from there, it will go to peer review, which is a group of external reviewers who are experts. And then it goes through a number of other stages after that for internal review. So it's really, it's a big process, that's it in a nutshell.

David Rind

00:04:50

Good lord, I mean that's just, that's a ton of work and that's before you've done anything on the actual study.

Katie Edwards

00:04:57

Yes, and the funding rate is less. It varies by institute, but the vast majority of grants are funded.

David Rind

00:05:05

So most people that apply, they're not getting accepted. Correct. Edwards went through this process multiple times and eventually was awarded six grants worth close to $12 million. Three of them had advanced to clinical trials when suddenly last month, she got the news that those grants would be canceled.

Katie Edwards

00:05:27

So our first termination came on March 12th. And I was coming out of an eye doctor appointment and looked at my phone and saw the message. And I think it was something that we knew could happen, but we're hoping wouldn't happen. And it was devastating. I mean, I at first was just kind of in shock and just sat in the car. Then I went home. and started to make phone calls and took a few breaks to cry from those phone calls. And then from there, they just kept coming. And so I have six NIH terminations at this point in a matter of a few weeks.

David Rind

00:06:09

Six. What did the letter say?

Katie Edwards

00:06:12

Um, you know, there's their standard language, but then the main reasons that they're terminated per the letters are related to, in short, gender ideology and DEI.

David Rind

00:06:28

Because your studies focus on marginalized groups, LGBTQ people, that is connected to why the funding has been pulled.

Katie Edwards

00:06:37

'Yes, yes, yes. I mean, the letters say that, they'll use the phrase gender ideology and that research on gender ideology doesn't benefit most Americans or the American public and that researchers instead look at biological realities. That's the most common one, but the language varies to some extent across the letters but we're inferring that it's because of the executive orders. that are anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ+.

David Rind

00:07:07

Well, so what happens from that moment then, with the research that's been accumulated, with the people that have been participating, like what happens?

Katie Edwards

00:07:17

'It's been, quite frankly, it's been really chaotic. I mean, I think we've been doing our best to manage this in the most ethical way, putting participant safety, being our top priority. This is unprecedented and so no amount of training in your PhD or institutional resources are prepared for this onslaught of determinations. And so, the first thing is what do we do to safely wind down studies while at the same time I'm trying to fight to- keep our grants. So for example, in one of our grants, it's a mentoring project for trans and gender diversity. If we were about to start giving the final cohort the program, and it would be really unethical to tell them, hey, we told you you'd get this program after you took some surveys, and now we're not gonna give it to you, especially when they've been really excited about it and looking forward to it. This is also a study to prevent depression, anxiety, and suicidality among a highly vulnerable population. And it really flies in the face of Research Ethics 101.

David Rind

00:08:19

When you say like safely wind down, is it because if you're providing this mentoring, like just cutting it off and then these people don't have access to a service like that, is that a danger?

Katie Edwards

00:08:33

'Yes, it's dangerous. You know, and it's ironic because when you're writing your research grants, you have to write an entire section of your application on protecting human subjects. I mean, the analogy I can think of is, you know, if you have someone on an operating table and mid-surgery, you just say, okay, we're gonna leave, and you just leave them there. I mean it's really dangerous, you now, especially when you are working with groups of people who you know are experiencing disproportionate burdens of violence, suicidality, mental health problems. completely stopped. So in terms of conversations with participants, it's been directly communicating to them, we're gonna finish the intervention, but there won't be any more surveys. Also moving participants who were originally in the control group immediately into the intervention so they can at least get the intervention. So it's costing a lot in terms of just resources to scramble, to figure out how to do this in a way that's not gonna cost lives.

David Rind

00:09:27

Do you have to throw out the results that you've been gathering thus far? Or how does that work?

Katie Edwards

00:09:35

'So I mean, for the grants that are terminated, we have no funds to conduct analyzes. So that presents an issue, which again, for some of our studies that have multi-year, I'm thinking of one of our cities, for example, we have over 3000 sexual minority young adult men in our study and they have, we've been following some of them for close to two years. Now we have, it's the largest study that's ever been done on sexual assault among sexual minority men. got almost a perfect score, and it's such a shame that we're gonna have all this data and unless we get the grant back, we won't be able to analyze any of that data.

David Rind

00:10:18

Edwards is part of a class action lawsuit that was filed in Massachusetts federal court by the groups Protect Democracy and the ACLU. It alleges the Department of Health and Human Services did not follow proper procedures when canceling grants. An HHS spokesperson told us that it does not comment on ongoing litigation. We'll be right back. I wanna ask about how the Trump administration is messaging around these cuts because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an interview to CBS the other day. He was asked specifically about your university, the University of Michigan, and a $750,000 grant for research into adolescent diabetes, which was eliminated. Secretary Kennedy said he hadn't even heard of it. He went on to say, they're not looking to reduce any level of scientific research that is important. What do you make of a response like that?

Katie Edwards

00:11:20

That's a hard one to comment on. I mean, I think it speaks to the broader misunderstanding of the work that we do. I think that a lot of people don't understand the importance of public health research. They may not understand its impact. And some of that is on us as scientists to do a better job communicating to the public about our work, the importance of public research, and especially why we focus on specific groups. I think sometimes people think. Well, if you're only going to focus on LGBTQ plus youth, it means that you're prioritizing them or that you are trying to make people LGBTQ plus one. That's not what we're doing. We know that health in this country isn't equal. And what we want to do is to study different groups and by studying different groups, that helps to make health in the country equal.

David Rind

00:12:09

Is there an argument to be made, though, that this funding was never guaranteed, the government has wide latitude to decide how to spend its money, and that maybe this isn't about abandoning science altogether, but rather an attempt to make federal investments into research more efficient?

Katie Edwards

00:12:25

Sure. So, I mean, I would defer to, you know, the attorneys on the legalities of terminations. I think the part that I find really confusing and baffling is that I never saw an email going out that the NIH was dramatically changing its priorities. I never saw any email going out from the NIH that its priorities have changed. I never any memo going out, that expectations about participant safety were changing, and so Can agency priorities change? Absolutely, but the way in which these were changed and the harm that they're causing, to me is really problematic.

David Rind

00:13:04

'Like, you don't necessarily object to an idea that maybe the grant process that you described, this long, arduous, time-consuming application process could be improved, but you need some heads-up and some consideration for the projects that are ongoing.

Katie Edwards

00:13:20

Sure, I'm all about streamlining cost effectiveness efficiency. I think it does need to go through rigorous review because that's helping ensure that we're doing public health. It's worth taxpayer money, but I don't agree with pulling grants on reasons that are unscientific and that don't align with agency priorities.

David Rind

00:13:37

What has the response been from your university leadership?

Katie Edwards

00:13:41

So I think, like many universities, trying to understand what's going on, trying to the understand the scope of impact. They've been really supportive of me during working on thinking through the appeals process. I'm participating in the lawsuit, not as part of my official role at Michigan. But they know of it and they were supportive of me doing it outside of my normal job activities. I think like many universities, they're trying to figure this out. There's not a roadmap. I think they're doing their best to support faculty in all the ways that they can.

David Rind

00:14:12

'Because I'm thinking at this moment where the Trump administration is threatening funding from certain universities, one, if they don't properly deal with anti-Semitism, including the University of Michigan, and these broader funding cuts targeting programs that maybe they don t necessarily like. Like, for example, Princeton had $4 million in funding for climate research canceled this week after the administration said the study fostered, quote, climate anxiety and produce results that don't align with administration priorities. When you take all that together, do you feel like you're at a place where you can properly do the job you're clearly very passionate about?

Katie Edwards

00:14:50

I mean, I do think that science is under attack and that people who know very little about public health research and science are making really, really big decisions about it that are very harmful to the American public. I say, even if I lose every grand dollar, even if lose all my staff, like I'm gonna keep doing the work I do. I don't quite know how I'm going to do it or where I'm go to do. but I'm never gonna stop doing it because I don't know what else to do. And I think that there's a couple solutions, I don' know about solutions, but ways that I thought about navigating that. I mean, first is appeals and lawsuits. I think like many other people looking at foundations, my lab is pretty much starting, we're learning about how to fundraise. We're literally learning how do you fundraise for research and programming.

David Rind

00:15:37

That's interesting, because the NIH is like the largest provider of medical funding, basically anywhere, but now you guys think you need to take it on yourselves to come up with the money if that bucket is not going to be there for you.

Katie Edwards

00:15:49

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're, you know, we are certainly looking at foundations, philanthropic organizations, but so are many other researchers. But yeah, we we're starting to fundraise now because we have data showing that our our programs work to prevent violence in some of the most violent communities in this country. And I want to keep my staff employed and I want keep kids safe. And so we're trying everything we can to scramble for funds to not shut down.

David Rind

00:16:15

You sent me some quotes from people who had participated in the study about what motivated them to sign up and what they got out of it. I don't know if you have it handy. Do you mind reading me a few of them?

Katie Edwards

00:16:26

Sure. Let me pull it open really quick. These are trans and gender diverse youth from who's completed the program. One that you said, my mentors encouragement and support helped me feel seen, comforted, and like I'm not alone, which is something I've been needing for a while. So it was very positive. Another teen said, I loved, loved, loved, love talking to my mentor. They're so amazing and I genuinely look up to them as a person and they make me feel so safe. Another youth said, we also touched on the joy of being gender diverse, particularly how helpful it is for me to see transgender adults leading happy lives and helping others. And finally another you said, I love meeting new people and I feel like I've grown as a person and in my identity through this group. It's hard to read those without getting emotional.

David Rind

00:17:27

Yeah, I was gonna say, but what goes through your mind when you hear stuff like that?

Katie Edwards

00:17:33

First and foremost about how these kids must be feeling right now, seeing what's happening in the world around them. And I think about how we could be doing so much good through our research that's giving kids hope, that's helping them stay positive about their future to make healthy decisions and quite frankly keeping many of them alive and safe, to think that for some reason that doesn't fit a public health priority and that's not seen as legitimate research. minutes. It's heartbreaking and it makes me emotional because I've devoted my life to trying to help kids who often don't have a voice and who are really experiencing some of the most adverse situations and knowing that our interventions are working and to see that they can just overnight be taken away is it's really hard to bear because you feel really powerless. It's like I am doing everything I can possibly humanly do to try to fix this and I alone can't do that.

David Rind

00:18:35

'Well, Katie, thanks so much for sharing your story and those quotes, wishing you luck going forward. Thanks for the conversation. We should say the Trump administration has repeatedly said it believes it has the legal authority to make these funding changes, and in response to a CNN question, a White House official defended the cuts, saying the Trump Administration is not anti-science.

David Rind

00:19:13

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin, Faiz Jamil, and Haley Thomas. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage. We'll be back on Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.

CNN One Thing