Cuts to NIH funding would gut American science and medicine
America became the world’s greatest engine of innovation and inventor of medicines because of federal investments in science, technology and medicine.
Ken Dill, Sue Mallonee and Joe Mallonee
The Trump administration wants to cut 43% from the budget of NIH (National Institutes of Health, the U.S. agency responsible for medicine and biomedical research) and 57% from NSF (National Science Foundation, funder of general basic science). We three can say unequivocally ― from our more than 100 years combined experience at high levels of U.S. medicine and research ― that these proposed cuts have nothing to do with waste, fraud and abuse, or of finding efficiencies. They would simply gut American science and medicine.
That would be a very bad idea. America rose to prominence after World War II ― becoming the world’s richest country, most prosperous, most educated, most attractive to immigrant talent. We became the world’s greatest engine of innovation an inventor of medicines and creator of 100-billion-dollar-a-year industries such as computers, lasers, pharmaceuticals and biotech, microchips, telecommunications, internet, search engines and advanced weapons. And we landed a man on the moon.
What was America’s special sauce? Plenty of countries have smart people, good colleges and innovative companies. Historians have said that it was America’s federal investment in science, technology and medicine, largely through our agencies like NIH and NSF. For 80 years, this has been why both Republicans and Democrats have supported these agencies through federal taxes.
Why should funding come from U.S. tax dollars? Why shouldn’t research be done by companies and free enterprise? It’s simple. Companies need to make a buck: They need markets; they need products; they need predictable payoffs; they need them quickly; they need to pursue things they already know will work. Government funding is needed to solve harder problems, having slower payoffs, like solving large jigsaw puzzles where you may not even know yet the shapes of the pieces. Why did it take 150 years to go from the invention of the telephone to the mobile phone? Why don’t we have cures yet for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? Why are some cancers still unsolved problems? You can’t start a company based on what you don’t know.
America became great by being the first country to figure this out. But now other countries are outcompeting us: China (solar power, AI, EVs, lithium batteries), Taiwan (GPU chips), Holland (deep UV lithography), Denmark (Ozempic-like drugs).
We three were raised up through Oklahoma public schools at a time (“Sputnik era”) when this country grew its investments in research, investments that paid back Oklahoma and U.S. taxpayers many times over. Joe and Sue rose to leadership positions at the Oklahoma State Department of Health over their 35-year careers. Ken is a professor whose research, through NIH and NSF support, contributes to the computer-aided discovery of new medicines, and whose hundred former students are now leaders in biopharmaceutical companies and professors in universities (including one at OSU). NIH spends more than $120 million for research at OU, OSU and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Why does this administration want to kill the goose that lays our golden eggs? Why do it right now, when it is more important than ever that the U.S. compete on the world stage? Our grandparents paid taxes that support our prosperity today. It’s critical that we step up for our kids and their kids.
Ken Dill
Ken Dill, Ph.D., a professor and founding director of the Laufer Center, whose research, through NIH and NSF support, contributes to the computer-aided discovery of new medicines, and whose hundred former students are now leaders in biopharmaceutical companies and professors in universities (including one at OSU). NIH spends more than $120 million for research at OU, OSU and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Why does this administration want to kill the goose that lays our golden eggs? Why do it right now, when it is more important than ever that the U.S. compete on the world stage? Our grandparents paid taxes that support our prosperity today. It’s critical that we step up for our kids and their kids. Within a single 2-day period this week, 9,000 scientists signed on to the Bethesda Declaration supporting NIH. Please contact Sens. James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin and your congressperson if you don’t want to cut America’s basic research engine.
Featured in Oklahoman: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2025/06/11/trump-nih-us-medicine-science-oklahoma-mullin-lankford/84135442007/
Featured in USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2025/06/11/trump-nih-us-medicine-science-oklahoma-mullin-lankford/84135442007/
