Exclusive: Trump administration defunds autism research in DEI and 'gender ideology' purge

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

May 16, 2025 5:32 PM EDT Updated 12 hours ago


NEW YORK, NY, May 16 (Reuters) - Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has vowed to address rising U.S. autism rates as a top health priority for the Trump administration.

Last month, he pledged $50 million to help identify environmental causes of autism, to be issued as grants by the National Institutes of Health, and has announced plans to create a national “autism registry.”

Yet during the first four months of 2025, the NIH has reduced funding for autism-related research by an estimated $31 million to $116 million from $147 million in the same period in 2024, according to a Reuters analysis of NIH data. The spending is 26% lower than the prior four-year average for that period, the analysis found.

In some cases, the NIH has canceled projects because they involved diverse populations, studied differences in gender or took place at research universities currently under scrutiny by the Trump Administration. For others, funding for autism projects has simply halted or money for new projects has not been approved.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-cut-autism-related-research-by-26-so-far-2025-2025-05-16/

[Lovie777]

1. shithole just can't defund federal programs at will........

congress decides.

shithole musk republicans sure hate the USA.

[Skittles]

2. the repuke congress whores for Trump

they are disgusting

[yardwork]

4. They're defying the courts and defunding projects.

[ShazzieB]

10. That's assuming congress actually has the backbone to reclaim their right to decide these things.

Seems to be a major shortage of that these days!

[LiberalArkie]

13. Since the executive branch controls the treasury and the government printing office, they just do not send the

money.

[Bayard]

3. How in the world is autism DEI or 'gender ideology?

[yardwork]

5. They're using that excuse to defund all kinds of research.

If the research model included ways to assure there representative numbers of women and minorities in the study, that's "DEI" and the funding is cancelled.

[Bayard]

12. Ah, jeez

Stupid Incorporated.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. If there is a "woman" involved, it's "DEI"

Men are supreme and never considered "DEI" (unless they are non-European).

[ShazzieB]

11. Definition of DEI: anything Schlump doesn't approve of.

Or maybe it's "anything Stephen Miller doesn't approve of"? It's hard to tell sometimes!

[ck4829]

7. They don't want to do research, they already "know" what the "cause" is. We know what they're gonna say

[LiberalArkie]

14. Me being 77, it had to have been the smallpox vaccination I had before the first grade. The only vax available.

Although I was autistic way before the first grade.

[travelingthrulife]

8. What a clusterfuck. As a retired research nurse I can't even imagine the upheaval

researchers are going through.

The 'DEI' makes the studies more valid you dimwits

[sakabatou]

9. He's making everything political....