As preventable infections like measles threaten to become endemic again in the US, researchers whose government grants were recently terminated are warning about the consequences of throttling studies looking at ways to increase vaccination.
Among more than 1,600 grant cancellations announced by the US Department of Health and Human Service since January 20, roughly 300 have been related to vaccines, making the area one of the largest focal points for funding cuts by the agency.
In a viewpoint published Monday in the journal JAMA, three pediatricians wrote about the letters they and their colleagues recently received terminating grants to research vaccine uptake, and they warned that “the lives of individuals in the US are at stake” if the government continues to undermine immunization.
“This was a broad swath of work that was terminated, all focused on trying to understand the needs of individuals and communities regarding vaccines,” Dr. Douglas Opel, a pediatrician at the University of Washington and one of the paper’s authors, told CNN.
Opel was part of a grant looking at ways to increase vaccine confidence in Alaska Native and American Indian communities.
