The Trump administration has cancelled at least 68 grants focused on the health of LGBTQ+ people, as it continues to target what it describes as “ideologically driven science”.
The US government terminated at least 68 grants to 46 institutions totalling nearly $40 million when awarded. While some of the grant money has already been spent, at least $1.36 million in future support was cancelled.
Most of the cancelled grants relate in some ways to sexual minorities, including research focused on HIV prevention. One cancelled project at Vanderbilt University had been following the overall health of more than 1,200 LGBTQ people aged 50 and older, which included work used to train doctors to provide better care to LGBTQ people, increasing the likelihood of cancer screenings and other preventive care.
Insights from minority populations can increase knowledge that affects everyone, said Simon Rosser, who studies cancer in gay and bisexual men at the University of Minnesota.
“We now no longer have anywhere studying LGBT cancer in the United States,” said Rosser, who saw his grants cancelled.
“When you decide to cancel all the grants on sexual minorities, you really slow down scientific discovery, for everyone,” Rosser said. Young researchers will lose their jobs, and the field as a whole will suffer, he added.
“It’s a loss of a whole generation of science,” Rosser said.
Termination letters seen by The Associated Press said research was “unscientific” or did “nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.”
