A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the funding pause to journalists. US Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, estimated that the amount of funding being frozen was roughly $15 billion.
But, later Tuesday, amid uproar around the funding freeze, the decision was reportedly reversed. The Wall Street Journal reported that the reversal occurred after senior White House officials intervened.
On social media, the communications director for the OMB said that funding was merely “undergoing a programmatic review while we were waiting for more information from NIH and is being released.” But Sen. Murray noted that the OMB did not provide any evidence that the funds are being released.
In a statement, Murray lamented the damage the Trump administration has already done to the scientific and medical community, including already holding up $5 billion in funding while “lying about waste, fraud, and abuse” at the NIH. She accused Trump and Vought of working to “decimate lifesaving research in this country.”
“We can’t immediately undo the massive brain drain, the shuttered clinical trials, and the damage this administration is causing,” she said. “Medical miracles don’t happen overnight, and you can’t turn lifesaving research on and off at the drop of a dime. This administration is doing irreparable harm to our efforts to cure cancer, Alzheimer’s, and so much more. But this administration can—and must—stem the bleeding by ending its attacks on medical research and getting this funding out the door.”
