NIH Research Policy

Sen. James Lankford, R‑Okla., has released his 9th annual "Federal Fumbles" report, highlighting what he calls wasteful and unethical federal spending, including roughly $240 million in National Institutes of Health grants for transgender‑related animal experiments on mice, rats and monkeys that he says were held over from the Biden administration but later terminated by Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency. The report also flags about $53 million in 2024 NIH grants for research using human fetal tissue from elective abortions, noting that 17 of those grants remained active into last year until watchdogs exposed them and NIH canceled the awards, after which the Trump administration moved to end all federal research involving aborted fetal tissue. Lankford argues Congress must now codify those restrictions so a future 'pro‑abortion administration' cannot restart the work, and he criticizes NIH for sending at least $124,000 to a Chinese lab to test drugs on beagles even after public backlash over U.S.‑funded animal experiments abroad. He frames the report as evidence that, even after a year of Trump’s second term and a Republican Congress claiming to have saved billions, 'the work is far from over' on rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. The document adds fuel to ongoing partisan battles on Capitol Hill over NIH’s research portfolio, animal testing, fetal‑tissue policy and whether congressionally mandated bans—not internal agency policy—should govern sensitive lines of biomedical research.