“Cutting the rate to 15% will destroy science in the United States,” says Jo Handelsman, who runs the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “This change will break our universities, our medical centers and the entire engine for scientific discovery.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said the decision to cut National Institutes of Health funding, or NIH, will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison put out a statement arguing the new indirect cost cap will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and daily life-saving discoveries.” It added that the move will also “have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities.”
Dr. Robert Golden, the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said indirect costs aren’t just administrative tasks, or “waste,” but the physical structures and equipment needed to do “top tier” research.
“I’ve been at several public institutions, including the NIH early in my career, and never saw waste to a striking degree,” he said. The NIH’s change, Golden said, “will have a profound significant impact on everything,” including utility charges, building out the laboratories where scientific experiments are done and finding cures for patients.
Afederal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump Administration cap on federally funded medical research that UW-Madison said Monday could cost the the university $65 million in already-pledged funds.
In a joint statement sent to members of the UW-Madison community, Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin, Provost Charles L. Isbell, Jr., Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs Robert N. Golden and Vice Chancellor for Research Dorota A. Grejner-Brzezinska, explained how the indirect costs are essential to the university.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a statement: “This proposed change to NIH funding – UW–Madison’s largest source of federal support – will significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.
“In addition, these reductions will have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities, from undergraduates to Ph.D. and medical students. Medical innovation will be slowed, delaying the creation of new treatments, new technologies, and new health workers.”
It can take farms months to recover after an outbreak since most chickens don’t begin laying eggs until they are 18-22 weeks old, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A federal judge last month blocked efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to halt the flow of billions of federal dollars. Wisconsin officials worried the freeze would have wide-ranging effects, including at the state’s flagship university.
Then over the weekend, the National Institutes of Health announced a “dramatic” cut in funding for some research expenses at UW-Madison and other institutions, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and other university leaders said in a statement.
St. Norbert — a small liberal arts college in the Green Bay suburb of De Pere — is planning to eliminate about a dozen majors and to restructure a handful more as it contends with an anticipated $7 million budget gap for 2026.
Patrick Remington, emeritus professor at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health who began his career at the CDC, said some who oppose fluoride because of its risks aren’t weighing them against the benefits — something people do every day when they choose to drive a car, have a drink or make other choices.
The benefits of fluoride are clear: less tooth decay, Remington said, while the science doesn’t yet show neurodevelopmental problems for children who ingest fluoride at the level in the U.S. water supply.
Soybeans is one of the major commodities purchased by USAID, according to agricultural economist Paul Mitchell at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But Mitchell said foreign food aid also includes shelf-stable foods that may be produced by Wisconsin farms and food processors. With the agency’s website largely down, he said it’s almost impossible to determine what products could be affected.
How safe is the personal information of millions of Americans while the computer systems of federal agencies are accessed by an outside team looking for waste and fraud? Then, we ask if personal devices purporting to track our fitness actually work.
It’s unclear how long it will take for consumers to feel the impact and to what extent. That’s in part because it depends on how much steel or aluminum is used to make the product, said Lydia Cox, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
It’s also on the businesses to decide what added costs they should pass along to their customers, she said: “If you had a 25 percent increase on 50 percent of your costs, that’ll be a pretty sizable [potential] increase” in prices.
Greg Piefer, the founder and chief executive officer of Shine Technologies in Janesville, wouldn’t frown over that punchline. But he’s the first to say fusion for other purposes ranging from fighting cancer to national security, and from inspecting industrial components to recycling nuclear waste, comes first and is no laughing matter.
Sam Bartel, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Chinese studies, aims to help change that. He’s now director of racing and operations at the Lake Minnetonka Sailing School in suburban Minneapolis.
