HHS lawyers advised against cutting off funding to 900 NIH grants that had been canceled and then restored under a June court order. The Supreme Court vacated that June order but left intact a lower-court finding that NIH directives used to terminate grants were unlawful. HHS legal counsel recommended pausing efforts to reinstate grants that had not yet been restored. The legal guidance warned that re-terminating grants already reinstated could be treated as reapplication of vacated directives. The dispute affects roughly $783 million in grant funding and raises questions about future funding priorities.
The National Institutes of Health shouldn't cut off funding to 900 grants that the agency previously canceled and then had to restore thanks to a June court order, lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services said last week. The Supreme Court recently overturned that court order, paving the way for NIH to once again cut off funding to the grants. However, the justices also kept in place a lower court order that found that NIH's directives for the grant terminations were unlawful.
Science reported that lawyers from the Office of General Counsel at HHS advised the agency to stop work on reinstating grants that hadn't been restored yet. The court decision affects about $783 million in grants. "For those grants reinstated by NIH in response to the June judgements, we would strongly recommend against re-terminating such grants, because it will likely be viewed as a reapplication of the now-vacated challenged directives," wrote NIH legal adviser David Lankford.
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