Exclusive: Trump administration defunds autism research in DEI and 'gender ideology' purge [View all]
Source: Reuters
May 16, 2025 5:32 PM EDT Updated 12 hours ago
NEW YORK, NY, May 16 (Reuters) - Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has vowed to address rising U.S. autism rates as a top health priority for the Trump administration.
Last month, he pledged $50 million to help identify environmental causes of autism, to be issued as grants by the National Institutes of Health, and has announced plans to create a national “autism registry.”
Yet during the first four months of 2025, the NIH has reduced funding for autism-related research by an estimated $31 million to $116 million from $147 million in the same period in 2024, according to a Reuters analysis of NIH data. The spending is 26% lower than the prior four-year average for that period, the analysis found.
In some cases, the NIH has canceled projects because they involved diverse populations, studied differences in gender or took place at research universities currently under scrutiny by the Trump Administration. For others, funding for autism projects has simply halted or money for new projects has not been approved.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-cut-autism-related-research-by-26-so-far-2025-2025-05-16/
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