Everything was ready to go. In late January, a consortium of researchers from eight African countries was set to launch a phase 1 clinical trial of two experimental HIV vaccines that would enroll dozens of volunteers in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda. “The vaccines are in the country. The regulators have approved the study. [Clinicians] at the sites have been trained,” says Glenda Gray, chief scientific officer at the South African Medical Research Council, who leads the BRILLIANT Consortium.
But the trial is off—at least for now. The consortium, which was awarded more than $45 million by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2023, has decided to put the research on hold after President Donald Trump’s administration announced a 3-month freeze on all U.S. foreign assistance on 20 January and ordered recipients of its funding to halt their work. “It would be unethical to start a study that you can’t guarantee you can continue,” Gray says. She doesn’t know yet whether the team will have to let the project’s scientists go or how the consortium will continue to pay for cold storage of the vaccines.
The global impact of the aid cutoff is “tectonic,” she says—“and that’s an understatement.”
BRILLIANT’s predicament is just one example of how the U.S. freeze on foreign aid—along with what appears to be the gutting of USAID itself this week—has dealt a blow to scientific research around the world. USAID-backed studies have been shuttered, data streams have dried up, researchers and technical staff have been fired or put on leave, a system to predict food crises has been muzzled, and a USAID-supported global health journal has stopped reviewing manuscripts.
For many scientists, the result has been chaos and uncertainty. Gray and her colleagues have been reaching out to philanthropic organizations and other possible funders for their HIV studies and are even looking into crowdfunding. “It’s incredibly tragic, from a science point of view, to not go forward with this study,” she says.
The agency at the center of the turmoil, USAID, devotes some $10 billion to global health, much of it for humanitarian assistance such as food and medications. But it also funds clinical trials on HIV and malaria vaccines and microbicides and supports other research projects.
In an interview from a factory floor in El Salvador on Monday, Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of State, argued that foreign aid spending does not support U.S. aims and that USAID, the main conduit for foreign assistance, has been recalcitrant. The agency, he said, has a history of “deciding that they are somehow a global charity separate from the national interest. These are taxpayer dollars.” Last night, USAID posted a notice saying all of its staff globally would be placed on administrative leave effective 7 February, with some exceptions for critical jobs. Staff posted overseas would be repatriated within 30 days.
Many observers expect legal challenges will stall or stop these moves and Rubio has granted a waiver to some “life-saving” health efforts, such as the distribution of anti-HIV drugs. But already, the freeze and USAID woes are disrupting research aimed at improving the health and lives of the world’s poorest people, as well as efforts to help build research capacity in developing nations.
