NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — You've seen the commercials that tug at your heart strings – the stories of children saved by the groundbreaking work inside St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in West Tennessee.
That on-going research – much of it funded by the federal government – is also part of the story of lives being saved at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Middle Tennessee and the University of Tennessee Medical Center in East Tennessee.
Now, the people on the forefront of medical research across the Volunteer State are sounding the alarm, warning that their efforts to find cures will be devastated by the Trump administration’s plan to slash funding provided by the National Institutes of Health.
"Put simply, this new policy would devastate biomedical research across the United States, including the significant presence we have built in Tennessee,” they warn in a three-page letter sent Tuesday to every elected member of Congress from Tennessee.
Those impacts, they warn, will affect research into everything from cancer to deadly childhood diseases to Alzheimer's and traumatic brain injuries.
The new policy, they say, "will reduce research, limit clinical trials, close labs, cut jobs for established and early-career researchers, limit training opportunities for future scientists and risk America's leadership in biomedical science."
That letter was first obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
Signing the letter were: Jeffrey R. Balser, president and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Randy Boyd, president of the University of Tennessee; Daniel Diermeier, chancellor of Vanderbilt University; James R. Downing, president and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; and James E.K. Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College.
Last fiscal year, according to federal contracting data, Tennessee researchers secured $818 million in NIH funding, including money for "indirect expenses" – the overhead cost of conducting advanced medical research.
Until now, NIH negotiated those indirect payments with each institution based on the kind of work they were doing and the cost of doing business.
On average, that resulted in an extra 30 percent add-on for each medical research grant – although the NIH says those reimbursements exceeded 60 percent in some cases.
The Trump administration wants to cut those reimbursements to a flat 15 percent, regardless of the overhead costs incurred by those medical institutions.
Right now, the Trump administration's plans have been put on hold by a federal judge – because there's a law on the books that protects these reimbursements.
Still, the Trump administration hopes to eventually implement that policy to save $4 billion annually.
"Our institutions invest hundreds of millions annually to cover research costs not fully funded by federal grants," the letter added. "We cannot replace lost federal support and sustain the same level of research."
According to an analysis by the New York Times, if that policy had been in place last year, here is how much it would have cost Tennessee institutions:
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center, $71 million
- St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, $22 million
- Vanderbilt University, $19 million
- University of Tennessee Health Science Center, $9 million
- University of Tennessee-Knoxville, $2 million
- East Tennessee State University, $1 million
- Meharry Medical College, $761,000
“Scaling back our research capacity will slow scientific progress and have severe consequences for our global competitiveness,” the letter continued.
“As countries like China expand investments in biomedical research, cutting billions from NIH surrenders U.S. competitive edge, eliminates jobs, slows economic growth and hinders progress in American medical, scientific and technological innovation.
“In short, this move will cede our leadership in biomedical research to China.”
In a separate statement, St. Jude explained the necessity for medical researchers to be reimbursed for those indirect expenses.
“Our cutting-edge research requires everything from buildings and laboratories to high-performance computing,” the statement read.
“It also requires the people who wash glassware, repair equipment, schedule meetings and ensure patients are kept safe on clinical trials so that scientists can focus on doing the research."
The statement added, “These cuts likely mean fewer new treatments will be developed for children and, therefore, fewer children will be saved.”