On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley ruled to impose a preliminary injunction on the National Institutes of Health, preventing the cuts on indirect medical research costs from taking effect nationwide.
The preliminary injunction addresses the concerns shared by 22 states as well as a number of institutions across the nation that a 15% indirect cost cap would cause “irreparable harm” to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs argued that without a preliminary injunction, significant amounts of funding would have to be cut because of the rate change notice. Universities and states would then have to decide what to cut, including current research and staff.
The three major areas of irreparable harm the plaintiffs identified included the “suspension of ongoing clinical trials and the resulting threat to patients’ lives,” the threats to non-human research subjects and the “potential loss of human capital and talent to virtually every Plaintiff.”
“Institutions across the country described the immediate suspension of research, and more specifically, clinical trials, should the Court fail to grant a preliminary injunction in this case,” Kelley wrote.
Kelley extended the temporary restraining order on the NIH at a hearing on Feb. 21 while she made a further decision. Read more about the case here.
