Society to Join More Than 400 Other Organizations in This Year’s Rally for Research
By Mila Becker, Chief Policy Officer
The political climate for funding biomedical research is challenging, to say the least.
Since January, the White House has called for freezing all National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and capping the indirect costs of existing NIH-funded programs at arbitrarily low levels. These and other actions , including the cancelation of NIH funding to groups outside of the United States, are hindering vital endocrine research.
These actions put at risk the development of future life-saving medicines, as well as the livelihoods of many dedicated biomedical researchers, including those who are Society members. We take these threats seriously and aim to do everything we can to reverse current trends.
That’s why we’re proud to join more than 400 other science, medical, patient organizations in this year’s Rally for Research event taking place on Capitol Hill on September 18.
Our key message to lawmakers will focus on the need to protect funding for NIH in fiscal year 2026.
This rally comes on the heels of the President’s proposed FY 2026 budget, which calls for slashing the NIH budget by 40 percent. Fortunately, the Senate appropriations committee and the House appropriations subcommittee on health-education-and-labor rejected this drastic cut. But the final appropriations bills have not yet been agreed to in each chamber, and so we must continue to strongly urge Congress to provide NIH with increased funding for the next fiscal year.
We also will urge lawmakers to protect NIH from current threats.
More than $2 billion in grants have been canceled outright since January. The cuts have jeopardized lifesaving medical research, caused layoffs, suspended clinical trials, and disrupted ongoing research and laboratory support programs.
Many congressional offices are not aware of how these cuts are affecting their states, including the hit to overall economic activity.
We’re confident our face-to-face meetings will convince lawmakers of just how important continued NIH funding is for the betterment of their constituents, their health outcomes, each state’s economy, and the country as a whole.
While some Endocrine Society members will be on Capitol Hill, we encourage the endocrine research community at large to join our online advocacy campaign to urge lawmakers to fund NIH. We also encourage Society members to share their stories on how canceled or delayed federal research funding has impacted your work.
These are challenging times for biomedical research. But I’ve seen firsthand how advocacy can affect positive change. Below are a few numbers from the past 12 months that demonstrate the scope of the Society’s efforts and our wins.
We will continue to keep fighting for policies, programs, legislation, funding, and more that will advance our field and our members’ work. I invite you to learn more at endocrine.org/advocacy.
