​The National Institutes of Health has lost thousands of workers since President Donald Trump began his second term.. Among them: scientists who pioneered cancer treatments, researched tick-borne diseases, or worked to prevent tobacco use.. We spoke to a half dozen scientists who said they left the agency because of the tumult of 2025 and talked about the work they left behind. They say the exodus from the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research will harm the nation’s ability to respond to illness.. “People are going to get hurt,” said Sylvia Chou, a scientist who worked at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, for over 15 years before she left in January. “There’s going to be a lot more health challenges and even deaths, because we need science in order to help people get healthy.”. Email Sign-Up. Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free weekly newsletter, “The Week in Brief.”. Your Email Address Sign Up. The NIH consists of 27 institutes and centers, each with a different focus. Major research areas include cancer; infectious diseases; aging-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s; heart, lung, and blood diseases; and general medicine.. Over decades, the value of the NIH may be the one thing everyone in Washington has agreed on. Lawmakers have routinely boosted its funding — even for this fiscal year, in defiance of the White House, which had proposed cutting the agency’s funding by 40%.. Our reporting showed that, nonetheless, the Trump administration’s actions to curb certain research and push out scientists perceived as disloyal are having far-reaching repercussions. The NIH workforce stands at about 17,100 people — its lowest level in at least two decades.. Scientists across specializations outlined challenges that made them decide to leave. They included delays in accessing research equipment and supplies, the termination of funds for topics the Trump administration deemed off-limits, and delayed or denied travel authorizations.. Even research aligned with the Trump administration’s stated priorities has suffered, they said. They questioned whether the NIH could continue to fulfill its mission to “enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness.”. “It’s clear when someone comes out with a drug and now you’ve just cured a disease. But you never know which ones could have been cured,” said Daniel Dulebohn, a researcher who spent nearly two decades at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. “We don’t know what we’ve lost.”. Dulebohn left the NIH’s infectious disease and allergy institute in September and is considering leaving the scientific field altogether.. Six Federal Scientists Run Out by Trump Talk About the Work Left Undone. Cancer treatments, disease outbreaks, addiction science: Scientists say an exodus from the National Institutes of Health will harm the nation’s ability to respond to illness.. Read More. Rachana Pradhan: rpradhan@kff.org, @rachanadprad  

​BATON ROUGE, La. — The ambitious liver doctor would go just about anywhere in his home state to give people the hepatitis B vaccine.. This story also ran on Verite News. It can be republished for free.. Bill Cassidy offered jabs to thousands of inmates at Louisiana’s maximum-security prison in the early 2000s. A decade before that, he set up vaccine clinics in middle schools, a model hailed nationally as a success.. “He got that whole generation immunized in East Baton Rouge,” said Holley Galland, a retired doctor who worked with Cassidy vaccinating schoolchildren.. About the same time, a lawyer and environmental activist with a famous last name was starting to build the loyal anti-vaccine coalition that, two decades later, would move President Donald Trump to nominate him as the nation’s top health official.. Today, a year after now-Sen. Cassidy warily cast the vote that ensured Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascension to that role, the Louisiana Republican’s life’s work — in medicine and in politics — is unraveling.. Newborn hepatitis B vaccination rates in the U.S. had plunged to 73% as of August, down 10 percentage points since a February 2023 high, according to research published in JAMA last month. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices — remade by Kennedy — voted to revoke a two-decade-old recommendation that all newborns get the shot.. The next month, Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, a Cassidy challenger in what’s shaping up to be a competitive Republican Senate primary. Letlow’s foray into politics began in 2021 when she took the seat won by her husband, left vacant after he died from covid.. KFF Health News made multiple requests for comment from Cassidy over three months. His staff declined to make him available for an interview or provide comment. Letlow’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.. Email Sign-Up. Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free weekly newsletter, “The Week in Brief.”. Your Email Address Sign Up. Rise of the Skeptics. As the May primary nears, some Louisiana doctors are worried they’ve begun a long trek down a dark road when it comes to vaccine-preventable diseases.. Last year, on the day Kennedy was sworn in a thousand miles away in Washington, Louisiana’s health department stopped promoting vaccines, halting its clinics and advertising. Its communications about an ongoing whooping cough outbreak in the state have nearly ceased. It took months for the state to announce last year that two infants had died from the illness. A Louisiana child’s death from the flu was confirmed this January, and a couple of cases of measles were reported last year.. Spokespeople for the Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to questions.. “It’s so hard to see children get sick from illnesses that they should have never gotten in the first place,” said Mikki Bouquet, a pediatrician in Baton Rouge. “You want  

​MINNEAPOLIS. — Gabi tiene grandes ojos color café, trenzas y una afección genética que hace que sus huesos sean frágiles. Se fracturan con facilidad, lo que le provoca a la niña de 2 años tanto dolor que su madre dejó su trabajo limpiando oficinas para quedarse en casa y cargarla por el apartamento de una habitación que comparten con seis familiares.. Sobre Noticias En Español. Noticias en español es una sección de KFF Health News que contiene traducciones de artículos de gran interés para la comunidad hispanohablante, y contenido original enfocado en la población hispana que vive en los Estados Unidos.. Use Nuestro Contenido. Este contenido puede usarse de manera gratuita.. Detalles. Hablemos de Salud. Forma parte del grupo de Facebook de KFF Health News en español KFF Health News-Hablemos de Salud”.. KFF Health News – Hablemos de Salud. Cuando agentes federales de inmigración llegaron a su ciudad, deportaron primero al padre de Gabi y luego a su tía.. Gabi nació en Estados Unidos y es ciudadana estadounidense. Su mejor oportunidad de algún día pararse, o incluso caminar, es una cirugía compleja en las piernas y los pies que estaba programada para enero.. Pero su madre, quien está tan asustada que ni siquiera se anima a sacar la basura, y mucho menos a atravesar la ciudad hasta el hospital, canceló el procedimiento. (En este artículo, KFF Health News y NPR acordaron identificar solo parcialmente a los pacientes y a sus familias porque temen convertirse en blanco de la ofensiva migratoria del presidente Donald Trump).. “Quiero más que nada, mi deseo, es que mi bebé empiece a caminar”, dijo su madre, mientras Gabi se movía en sus brazos, con una sonda de alimentación que salía de su estómago conectada a un soporte de suero intravenoso. “Pero con la situación que está pasando, cancelé la cita de cirugía porque le van a hacer cirugía en sus piernas y todas las citas de terapia física; lo cancelé todo. Porque tengo miedo de salir”.. El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) declaró el fin de lo que llamó Operation Metro Surge (Operación Metro Surge), llevada a cabo por agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés) y de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP, por sus siglas en inglés). Aun así, trabajadores de salud dicen que los agentes de inmigración siguen apostados en los estacionamientos de hospitales. Y drones sobrevuelan zonas agrícolas en las afueras de Minneapolis, donde inmigrantes somalíes y latinos se han establecido en los últimos años.. La ofensiva en Minnesota mostró el alcance del sistema de vigilancia y detención que la administración Trump está utilizando para desarraigar a comunidades inmigrantes del país y su fuerte impacto en el sistema de salud.. Crisis de salud similares surgieron dondequiera que se concentraron oficiales de inmigración en el último año.. En Dallas, clínicas  

​Tighter regulations and an influx of federal money in recent years have helped communities across the U.S. initiate efforts to clean up lead contamination in soil, drinking water, and older homes. But Congress and the Trump administration have partially rolled back those rules and resources, potentially making it more challenging for cash-strapped cities and towns to undertake sweeping lead remediation programs.. This story also ran on Verite News. It can be republished for free.. That’s the case in New Orleans, where an investigation by Verite News found high lead levels in about half of the playgrounds on city property and found detectable levels of the toxic metal in most homes that tested their drinking water in a voluntary program.. No level of lead exposure is safe, according to federal environmental officials, but undertaking a comprehensive cleanup can be financially prohibitive. New Orleans is facing a $220 million budget deficit that has led to city employee furloughs and layoffs.. Congress allocated $15 billion over five years to lead pipe replacement under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a Biden-era measure set to expire at the end of this year. In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency also tightened the standards for lead-contaminated soil for the first time in 30 years and mandated that water systems replace all lead service lines by late 2037.. But a spending package passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in January redirected $125 million of that lead remediation money to wildfire prevention. And since October, the EPA has partially rolled back protections against soil contamination, raising the federal hazard level in urban areas and the threshold for removing contaminated soil.. Tom Neltner, the national director of the nonprofit advocacy group Unleaded Kids, said it was the first time an administration had loosened the limits on lead in soil.. “ We’ve seen the Trump administration say positive things about its commitment to lead but then take actions that undermine that,” Neltner said.. But, he added, progress is still being made in some communities.. EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the changes made under the Trump administration have reduced confusion and uncertainty that could hamper cleanup efforts.. “The Trump EPA’s record on protecting Americans — especially American children — from lead is unmatched,” Hirsch said in an emailed statement. “In just the last year, the Trump EPA backed up its commitment to reducing lead exposure in children with BILLIONS of dollars and historic action.”. She cited a November EPA announcement of $3 billion available to pay for water pipe replacement. That money is from the 2021 infrastructure law passed during the Biden administration.. Verite News spoke with people in Michigan, Indiana, and Rhode Island to learn how they addressed their lead pollution, with the aim of finding options that could be applied in New Orleans and other cities..  

​KFF Health News Southern California correspondent Claudia Boyd-Barrett discussed how family members and lawyers of those in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are struggling to find them in California hospitals on CapRadio’s Insight With Vicki Gonzalez on Feb. 25.. Click here to hear Boyd-Barrett on Insight With Vicki Gonzalez.. Read Boyd-Barrett’s “‘I Can’t Tell You’: Attorneys, Relatives Struggle To Find Hospitalized ICE Detainees.”. Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the neurodegenerative disease ALS on CBS News’ CBS Mornings on Feb. 20.. Click here to watch Gounder on CBS Mornings.. KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed Elyse Stevens, a New Orleans doctor who faced investigation because of her patient-centered approach to substance use disorders, on The Lens’ Behind The Lens podcast on Feb. 20.. Click here to hear Pattani on Behind The Lens.. Read Pattani’s “Inside the Battle for the Future of Addiction Medicine.”. KFF Health News chief rural correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed major cuts to Medicaid on WBUR’s Here & Now on Feb. 19. Tribble also discussed Alabama’s plan for robotic ultrasounds on The Daily Yonder’s The Yonder Report on Feb. 19.. Click here to hear Tribble on Here & Now.. Click here to hear Tribble on The Yonder Report.. Read Tribble’s “Alabama’s ‘Pretty Cool’ Plan for Robots in Maternity Care Sparks Debate.”. Related Topics. Medicaid. Public Health. States. Alabama. Doctors. Hospitals. Immigrants. Mississippi. Pregnancy. Trump Administration. Contact Us Submit a Story Tip