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By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -Scientific researchers on Wednesday sued to secure reinstatement of National Institutes of Health grants that funded research on topics like LGBTQ health, COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy canceled by Republican President Donald Trump's administration as part of an "ideological purge."
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Boston federal court on behalf of four researchers, the American Public Health Association, the Ibis Reproductive Health and the United Auto Workers union challenging the abrupt decision to revoke at least $1.1 billion in grant funding for hundreds of studies.
They argue NIH exceeded its statutory authority and acted arbitrarily by issuing boilerplate letters canceling grants that failed to provide adequate explanations for how those studies fell below its standards for scientific research.
"The NIH's efforts to shut down research that so much as references LGBTQ people or racial minorities is a direct attack on public health," Olga Akselrod, a lawyer with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The funding cuts are part of Trump's wide-ranging actions to reshape the government, slash federal spending and end government support for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and transgender healthcare.
"Defendants attempt to justify this ongoing ideological purge of hundreds of critical research projects because they assertedly have some connection to 'gender identity' or 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' or other vague, now-forbidden language," the complaint says.
The lawsuit came a day after the Trump administration began mass layoffs of 10,000 staffers in health agencies, including NIH, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy described as essential to streamline a bloated bureaucracy.
Trump has signed a series of executive orders requiring agencies to ensure grant funds do not promote "gender ideology" and to end support of what it sees as "discriminatory" DEI programs.
In line with Trump's policy agenda, NIH began instructing staff to terminate grant funding for studies related to DEI programs, transgender issues and any that could potentially benefit Chinese universities.
In subsequent guidance on March 25, NIH instructed staff on how to terminate grants funding research into COVID-19, citing the end of the pandemic, and ways to curb vaccine hesitancy. Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic.
Lawyers at the ACLU argue the termination of grants from NIH, the world's leading funder of biomedical and behavioral research, will jeopardize the discovery of new treatments, curtail research concerning diseases including HIV and Alzheimer's disease, and cause researchers to lose jobs.
Among the researchers suing over canceled grants are Dr. Brittany Charlton, the founding director of Harvard Medical School's LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, and Dr. Katie Edwards, a University of Michigan professor who researches preventing sexual violence among minority communities.
UAW says it represents about 120,000 workers in higher education.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)
