This holiday season, the government is open again, and we can be grateful for the federal workers who keep our holiday season humming, including the heroes at the United States Postal Service who deliver gifts in time and the air traffic controllers who ensure our travel is uninterrupted. But although many agencies have resumed operations without missing a beat after the longest government shutdown in history, the fallout for science persists. When the government shuts down, research grants stall, laboratories lose access to reagents and data systems, and clinical studies—many involving vulnerable participants—are disrupted. Disruption delays discovery, which delays the development of better diagnostics and treatment for the diseases that affect all of us. Federal policy is a critical link that connects investigation at the bench to improved patient outcomes at the bedside—but this connection is fragile, and government shutdowns expose just how life-threatening that fragility can be.
During the 16-day government shutdown in 2013, 98 percent of employees of the National Science Foundation (NSF), nearly three-quarters of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and two-thirds of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were furloughed. Practically speaking? Hundreds of patients were prevented from enrolling in existing NIH Clinical Center studies, new studies could not begin, and multiple clinical protocols for patients who had life-threatening medical problems were delayed. Public health officials around the country did not have access to surveillance data for influenza, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis. And this was just over 16 days.
The recent shutdown lasted nearly three times longer. In addition to the billions of dollars of SNAP payments that were delayed in November alone, billions of dollars of promised research money were paused. Research budgets are often created years in advance and depend on careful calculations, including the costs of needed supplies, processing, personnel, and analysis. Not to mention the critical public health functions that were suspended, such as disease tracking, disability benefit processing, and the communication infrastructure that patients depend on for care continuity.
We work as the scientific manager of the Center for Infection and Immunity and as a physician-scientist at the Yale School of Medicine. Together with our colleagues in the Iwasaki laboratory, we study post-acute infection syndromes, including Long COVID, a poorly understood chronic condition following acute COVID. In the wake of the pandemic, millions of individuals around the globe, likely including people you know, suffer from this condition, which can be debilitating. But currently, there are no clear diagnostic criteria, biomarkers of disease, or treatment. Our efforts to unravel this disease, and others, depend on a crucial partnership with patients who participate in our studies, and on critical federal funding to support our studies.
But review of proposals for the NIH RECOVER initiative, the major federal effort to decipher Long COVID, was halted during the shutdown; new submissions entered into the backlog. Our investigations depend on the steady flow of funds and the processing of research proposals. The disruptions incurred promise to delay the discovery of immune mechanisms, biomarkers, and treatments for many diseases, including Long COVID, undermining momentum for cutting-edge research that patients cannot afford to lose.
The effects of the most recent shutdown on science will undoubtedly linger. After the shutdown of 2018, essential federal workers such as air traffic controllers did not receive their promised back pay for seven years, and only after a lawsuit. This precedent may be an exception, but the NIH funding freeze in February of this year stalled the processing of 16,000 grant applications vying for 1.5 billion dollars in funding and affected nearly 75,000 participants enrolled in clinical trials. The delays from the shutdown will beget more delays as furloughed NIH workers scramble to catch up on funding application deadlines that occurred during the shutdown, with new deadlines looming. Over at the National Foundation of Science, more than 300 grant review meetings will need to be rescheduled. These meetings serve a critical purpose in appraising the quality of new research proposals, including clinical trials, to determine their fit for funding. It will take time and momentum to restart the lumbering and bureaucratic processes that have been stalled, but that keep research afloat. And in the meantime, the individuals who generously participate in research studies lose their time and their trust in the process and professionalism of science and public health.
Of course, it’s not like the federal funding machine was humming harmoniously along before the shutdown. The Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH, and CDC have been reorganized, gutted, and strongly encouraged to pursue new and different priorities that counter decades of institutional precedence. Funding for diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, and even cancer has been crippled through these new exclusionary research priorities. If the connection between federal policy and life-saving research was already fragile, it now risks becoming downright precarious.
In this sense, government shutdowns are not abstract fiscal events—they are public health emergencies in slow motion, threatening to sever the lifeline that connects federal policy to laboratory innovation and, ultimately, to the real-world health of millions of Americans. We can’t turn back the clock on the delays that will ensue, but we must learn our lessons, prepare for the future, and demand accountability from our elected officials.
Written into law, other essential services like Medicare and Medicaid continue mostly uninterrupted during shutdowns; so too should research. With funding for the majority of governmental agencies, including the NIH, set to expire January 30th, we need urgent bipartisan legislation to safeguard essential research funding during government closures. Let’s remind our elected officials of the vital role science and public health play in keeping Americans safe and healthy, and demand that they protect research from the caprices of a broken government system.
So, amidst the gratitude and holiday cheer of the season, call your congressional representatives and demand accountability. For the sake of those with Long COVID and the related post-viral conditions that we study. For those with life-threatening cancers, with rare diseases, and with common diseases for which there is no cure. For these millions of individuals suffering — every day counts, and the cost of governmental closures is too high. Let’s not lose any more days than we have already.