1. United States
2. Utah
3. Letter

As a physician and researcher, I and my staff depend on funding from the federal government to advance learnings on how to improve health. Today, cuts to indirects were proposed to “save money”. The proposal mentions that universities have huge endowments. This is not true for our state schools who depend on these funds to advance research important to our local populations and improve the health of all Utahs. The indirects fund not “administrative bloat” but important staff who monitor research to make sure it’s safe and accurate and who help free up the time of scientists so they can focus on the science. The loss of indirects would be devastating economically—leading to job loss of likely lower paid staff first. These are people who may have hard times finding jobs elsewhere. I worry for my staff the most. I will always be able to be a physician. I don’t know what they will do. That said I spent years working on important science to improve quality of healthcare to make it safer and improve outcomes for my patients. Reducing funding for that now means lost momentum and brain drain that could make the US no longer be the worldwide leader it currently is. Please work to oppose the indirect cost rate drop. Utahs economy and the health of our people depends on it.