Nih Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I also want to draw attention to the crisis surrounding medical research in this country, created entirely by this new Trump administration.

Ten years ago, I met with Dr. Francis Collins, then the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the world's premium biomedical research agency. I admired his work so much that I asked him what I could do to help.

He said:

If you can provide a 5-percent increase to NIH's medical research budget, year after year, we'll light up the scoreboard.

So I took that message and went back to Congress. With the help of colleagues on both sides of the aisle--Republican Senator Roy Blunt, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, and Democratic Senator Patty Murray--we increased NIH funding from $30 billion to $48 billion over the next 10 years, a 60-percent increase in research--a 60-percent increase in cures, hopes, and breakthroughs.

But what took us 10 years to build, President Donald Trump has all but dismantled in less than 11 months.

Recent reporting from the New York Times shed light on the dire consequences of President Trump's medical research cuts. The President and DOGE instituted a new set of rules at NIH that resulted in 3,500 fewer medical research grants, affecting virtually every area of medical study.

Funding for mental health was reduced 31 percent, brain diseases by 26 percent, and cancer research by 19 percent. All of these reductions are in real areas of opportunity, which we are walking away from under Trump. This is a fundamental blow to how America supports medical research and has real implications for the progress we made.

Instead of ushering in the next wave of medical breakthroughs, which could save you or your loved one from suffering, this administration has cut them off at the knees.

I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, rejected Trump's proposed cuts and actually provided an increase for next year. But if the administration ignores Congress's wish and continues to upend research funding, that could create irreparable harm.

As the father of a child born with a severe medical condition, I know personally that families across this country depend on the hope and promise that research holds. Cures and treatments that come from the National Institutes of Health funded the research behind 99 percent of the new drugs approved by the FDA in the last decade.

Oh, sure, you see the ads on television for all these new drugs that they say hold onto some promise. The pharmaceutical companies that are selling them and developing them have virtually all started with Federal research by the taxpayers of this country--the same research that has been cut off now by President Trump.

So when Donald Trump handicaps the NIH's work, he is telling patients: Your cure can wait.

Our communities will feel the pain of this change too. Our universities, not just in blue States but in every State--great research institutions in Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma--will be unable to pursue more cures. Our hospitals, already scaling back operations thanks to budget cuts and the President's so-called ``Big Beautiful Budget Bill,'' will be forced to diminish services even more.

The scientists and doctors of tomorrow may decide to forego their profession entirely or bring their talents to other countries.

As we fight to protect healthcare for millions of Americans, let us also not forget to fight for research that fuels that care. We cannot stand for this assault on medical research funding. We need to continue to work on a bipartisan basis to make sure that funding does continue.

It is not just a matter of national pride. It is a matter of finding cures and drugs that will help people all around the world and that has defined America for decades.

We can't let the Trump administration kill off medical research and kill off that dream that people keep alive every single day.

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