1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

Oppose Trump's reported executive order creating a political veto board over NIH grant funding. Putting Russell Vought and an ideologically selected committee in charge of approving biomedical research awards — with unanimous consent required — would effectively let the White House kill any science it dislikes. That is not oversight. It is censorship with a bureaucratic face. The NIH has funded life-saving research for decades by evaluating proposals on scientific merit. This order would replace that process with one that flags keywords like "equity," "climate change," and "gender" to screen out disfavored viewpoints. Researchers have already filed a class-action lawsuit arguing this violates the First Amendment, and they are right. The government cannot use its funding power to silence scientific inquiry it finds politically inconvenient. Stand against this order publicly and use every legislative tool available to block its implementation. Billions in health, nutrition, and environmental research have already been cut or frozen under this administration. The NIH is the world's largest public funder of biomedical research — letting it become a political instrument would set back American science for a generation.