Anonymous Scientist

Yah agreed even Jeremy Berg has said forward funding is not illegal. Which is part of what makes it so incredibly devious

Also the appropriations bill passed in senate subcommittee did not have language saying NIH needed to go back and re-award the MYF grants from 2025. It just prohibited MYF from exceeding the 2024 level. Many IC’s especially NIA have converted R01’s to RF1’s in the past but it was not common

I would hope that NIH would go back and try to revisit the high percentile grants that go unfunded this summer, but I have not heard reporting specifically on that hypothetical

FYI I don’t work at NIH, just follow things closely.

Forward funding is not illegal as currently being employed for FY 2025.

If a bill or CR is passed that prohibits forward funding, it would apply to FY 2026 and so would not make this retroactive actions illegal.

FYI on Reddit they are saying MYF is still proceeding for FY2025

Memoli is just the worst. Absolute garbage human being. Constantly throwing program officers under the bus, always portraying himself as correcting those “dumb PO’s”.

Another interpretation is that this is who he was the entire time. His entire prior professional career was thus just a cynical ploy in getting funded, he saw a fundable pathway through disparities research, but it was just about careerism

Big picture, Vought/OPM are evil geniuses and I am sure they have other devious ploys up their sleeves to try to destroy NIH. Our working assumption should be that they will put down many more land mines to getting funded.

If a new budget or CR is passed that limits MYF for FY2026, one would hope NCI and other IC’s would revisit high percentile but unfunded grants from this summer to make everyone whole, so to speak. That would be the most fair thing.

This is the key question. I assume the 50% MYF requirement is still in place for FY2025 though I have not seen that confirmed.

Today’s vote was just subcommittee and I doubt any payline revisions, should they happen, would occur until a FY2026 CR or new appropriations bill is passed.

Yah that’s what I was wondering about. Does that change your interpretation of things?

Yes I take him at his word too. You may not have followed the NIH drama that was reported by WSJ this week. But my conclusion is that Vought tried to initiate first step in pocket rescissions process with NIH and was quickly slapped down (unclear by whom). So there are some constraints on him

I am confused by this discussion as there is an adopted amendment by Baldwin that specifically prohibits MYF. It is not just an expression of concern, no?

www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

Jim, OPM has reportedly authorized release of all NIH spending for the remainder of fiscal year. So I don’t see how they try the pocket rescissions ploy.

@metabodave.bsky.social have you seen anything about MYF policy currently? It is not clear to me how this will get handled by IC’s, specifically what happens to low percentile grants that get screwed by MYF in FY2025?

Presumable there will be enough $ to smooth things over the 2 fiscal years

It’s not hard to imagine OPM gaming this by trying to get numerous small grants awarded (eg R03’s or something like that)

Was there a discussion about multi year?

Contact your Congressional representatives. It is best to show up in person. Explain and tell them to oppose this forward funding mandate. Share this article if it helps! Tell them to protect NIH funding. For researchers: Make noise within your institution. Ask your research office what they’re doing to push back. Talk to your program officers. Demand transparency. Tell your local press that Trump is destroying US medical research, and find local activist groups to reach out to. There are many engaged citizens across the country affected by cancer, or Alzheimer's, that want more information from scientists to help them advocate to their elected officials and to the press. Offer to talk to them, and help them do that.

What can you do? Contact members of Congress to flag this issue. Focusing on members on the appropriations committee is especially relevant right now. Senate appropriations is doing markup on NIH *this week*
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/alert-the-...

If you've ever *benefitted* from NIH research (big population), CALL YOUR SENATOR now to let them know.

⏰ Tmrw morning, Senate appropriators will mark up NIH's FY26 budget.

Personal examples help.

My own case: decades of *sustained* investment in NIH-funded cancer research saved my life.

Even historically the government Twitter accounts were still wide open to the public web. You could see everything without logging on.

But now under X you have to sign up to an Elon Musk social media company to know how your tax dollars are working. It’s not right.

The other thing that we should be skeptical about is having governments use walled off private social media platforms to disseminate messages. It doesn’t seem right to me that you need to sign up to a X or Instagram/Facebook to learn what NIH is doing, which I have had to do previously.

Does this immediate reversal signal that Vought does not have as much power as we'd thought? In other words, who is giving orders to Vought?

You gotta wonder if the funding hold is all theater so people get distracted from the MYF ploy, which is really the killer move and that gets much less press

Everyone we must call our senators about the multi year funding plan!!!

Why would the WSJ frame it like this? As though the OMB was some self sufficient island in the government completely independent from the White House?

Just really weird. It makes you wonder how much of all of this is psychological warfare in NIH.

We shouldn’t be taking victory laps this morning if the multiyear funding policy is still in place.

We need to keep up the pressure on Vought and OMB.

The level of outrage is astonishingly low given the extent of the catastrophic changes. I have not even received an institutional email about this.

Also, even if it’s just a continuing resolution, could they add this language? In other words, do they need an entirely new appropriations bill?

thank you this is so important. I continue to be frustrated and disappointed that academic institutions do not respond quickly to these policy changes, instead we have to rely on people like you in blue sky. Thank you.

I hope you are right but politically it doesn’t seem very sellable. Too complex and hard to explain.