‘The Office Feels Like a Tomb’: Even With Clarification, NIH Chaos Continues

A memo from the acting director of the National Institutes of Health Matthew Memoli circulated inside the agency on Monday, ostensibly meant to offer clarity on the various freezes to purchasing, meetings, travel, and more that had thrown the NIH into chaos since late last week. First reported by Stat News and since seen by Splinter, the memo may allay some of the absolute worst fears, but some inside the country’s primary biomedical research agency see darkness behind the supposed clarity.

One source inside NIH told Splinter that it may look like leadership is rolling back some of the worst or most politically sensitive issues — true monstrosities like cancer patients not getting their medication — in order to lay the groundwork for, essentially, full politicization of science moving forward.

The memo notes that “clinical trials at NIH or NIH-funded institutions are ongoing,” and that purchasing “should continue for anything directly related to human safety, human or animal healthcare, biosafety, biosecurity, or IT security.” Procurement for lab materials can also theoretically keep going “for ongoing research experiments that began before January 20, 2025, so that this work can continue, and we do not lose our investment in these studies.” Nothing can be bought or contracted, though, for any new experiments — presumably without say-so from on high.

While the allowance that ongoing experiments can continue is reassuring — no dead lab mice, or thawed samples without new liquid nitrogen, as long as bureaucratic or administrative bottlenecks don’t just gum up the works entirely — there are plenty of knock-on effects here that will still harm people down the line. One person within the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the NIH, told Splinter that there are “many new studies lined up in support of discovering and developing new cancer therapies and getting them ready for use in clinical trials.” At least for the moment, those are going nowhere, and as we covered earlier, delayed trials means delayed drug approvals and delayed treatment for people who need it.

And further, the clarification memo doesn’t actually clarify all that much. Another source inside the NCI shared an annotated version circulated by leadership with notes on some of Memoli’s instructions; on various points including travel restrictions and exceptions, the only note is “awaiting additional guidance.” A source inside a different NIH agency said there have been confusing instructions on what meetings can and cannot be held, with some indication that meetings held “strictly to discuss science” — rather than, say, grant-making — are permissible, but even those are somehow restricted to one-on-one meetings rather than a group of any size.

And of course, these internal machinations are ongoing while the Office of Management and Budget threw the entire government into chaos on Monday. As first reported by independent journalist Marisa Kabas, the OMB issued what can only be described as an absolutely batshit memo pausing all grants, loans, and other financial assistance. “The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” that memo reads, apparently unaware that the Green New Deal is not an actual policy. Though Democrats in Congress and blue states may in fact fight back on what certainly looks like a drastically illegal attempt to remove Congress’s power of the purse, the spending freeze along with communications blackouts are affecting just about everyone. Splinter heard from a source within the Environmental Protection Agency as well, who said that much of the agency’s work is essentially halted under these conditions.

Such a restrictive setting for science, a field that thrives on cross-institutional collaboration and communication, will drive agency experts away; a source at the NIH told Splinter that at least two colleagues have already started looking for other jobs at least in part thanks to Memoli’s memo, and many more are likely doing the same. One person at NCI told Splinter the mood remains grim amid the confusion: “The office feels like a tomb today.”