ASPN Talking Points for Grassroots Meetings

Introductions:

• Introduce yourself (where you live and/or practice or do your research, and your area of focus) and thank them for taking time to talk with you.
• The American Society of Pediatric Nephrology (ASPN) is a professional society composed of pediatric nephrologists whose goal is to promote optimal care for children with kidney disease and to disseminate advances in the clinical practice and scientific discovery of pediatric nephrology.
• Thank them for taking the time to meet and let them know you would like to talk about some issues of concern to our members and patients.

NIH’s FY 2025 Funding:

• Since the new administration took office, policies have been implemented to delay or prevent the release of appropriated funding for peer-reviewed grants, including for research that is consistent with the administration’s stated policy priorities. This is delaying potentially life-saving research, disrupting clinical trials and networks, causing loss of jobs, and forcing future and early-stage investigators to consider alternatives to biomedical research careers. This disruption has made the NIH – the world’s leader in biomedical research—ineffective and inefficient.
  • Share any impacts on your work if applicable.
  • Congress must intervene and ensure that NIH reestablishes effective processes for the review of grants and distribution of funds to support new and ongoing meritorious research proposals following a rigorous peer review process.
• We are extremely concerned that the administration will continue to withhold funding, creating a situation where NIH cannot deliver grant funds by the end of the fiscal year, resulting in an effective impoundment – we ask Congress to include language in appropriations bills to ensure that funds are spent as appropriators intend.
• Beginning in FY 2025, NIH has implemented a multi-year funding model, which means that new grant awards (R01s, R03s, and R21s) will be awarded in a lump sum rather than over a term of five years. The FY 2026 budget request for NIH also assumes use of the multi-year funding mechanism.
  • As a result of this policy, paylines across NIH have fallen to around 5%, meaning fewer grants are being awarded. NIH implemented this policy without a transition period, which is particularly disruptive for researchers who are applying for grants in FY 2025 and will apply for grants in FY 2026.
  • Conditions, like the rare conditions that drive pediatric kidney disease, are at a particular disadvantage since peer reviewers often lack expertise in pediatrics and rare disease. We are concerned that research on rare conditions will be all but eliminated.
  • Another concern is that the pipeline of researchers interested in these conditions will dry up. This may be particularly acute for physician-scientists who will lose their protected time for research and focus solely on clinical practice. All but the wealthiest institutions will not be able to bridge the funding gap in the absence of federal support.
• NIH is being asked by HHS to implement substantial cuts for FY 2025, develop restructuring plans, and implement policy changes without transparency and absent any Congressional oversight.
  • We ask Congress to exercise its oversight authority immediately and demand that HHS halt any pending changes to the organization of NIH and instead provide a scientific and policy rationale for these changes with an opportunity for Congress and stakeholder comment to ensure that the agency’s essential functions are preserved and the full range of research on conditions affecting Americans—including children.
• Should the current policies continue, the bipartisan investments that Congress has made in NIH over the years will be eroded, setting science and the country’s biomedical research enterprise back for decades resulting in fewer new cures and poorer health for Americans. Should this funding be cut off—and ultimately impounded—it will take years for NIH and the country’s biomedical research community to recover. The medical research infrastructure and workforce cannot just be switched on and off.

FY 2026 Funding:

• In addition to these immediate concerns about FY 2025 funding, we urge Congress to reject the administration’s request to cut NIH funding to $27 billion in FY 2026. At this funding level, NIH will have to eliminate significant portions of its research portfolio affecting both the research and the economy.
• We urge you to adopt the NIH funding level included in the Senate Appropriations Committee-approved Labor-HHS bill of $48.7 billion, which provides a modest increase for the agency, in the final funding package.
  • Additionally, we recommend that the language including in that bill that prohibits the use of multi-year funding unless the same number of grants are funded in FY 2026 as in FY 2024 and prohibits changes to the formula for facilities and administrative costs be adopted in the final funding package.