The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are drawing sharp criticism from scientists, civil rights advocates and health equity researchers who warn that the reductions are disproportionately harming African Americans and other historically marginalized communities.

The newly released Bethesda Declaration — signed by more than 2,300 NIH staff, Nobel laureates, and public health leaders — calls out politically motivated funding terminations and staff layoffs that have jeopardized decades of life-saving research. Signatories accuse NIH leadership of abandoning its core mission to enhance health and reduce illness in favor of partisan interference.

“NIH has stigmatized and abruptly cut off funding for research mislabeled ‘Diversity, Equity, and

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