Restoring the NIH Mission: Some Good News, Some Not-So-Good News, and Some Really Bad News

John F. Early and Terence Kealey

In our Cato working paper “Mission Lost: How NIH Leaders Stole Its Promise to America,” Terence Kealey and I highlighted some strategic failures by the National Institutes of Health, supported by a detailed analysis of budgets and projects funded by NIH. Since the completion of that analysis, which largely relied on data through 2024, a new leadership team has been installed, so some reflection on its impact seems in order.

In this update, we...