When Congress plays chicken with government funding, the casualties extend far beyond federal paychecks. Perhaps nowhere is this more devastating than within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where research into life-saving treatments, disease prevention, and medical breakthroughs comes to a grinding halt during government shutdowns.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an operating division within HHS and is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, providing grants to universities, hospitals, and other research institutions. 

One example of a significant cancer breakthrough in recent years and funded by the NIH was the development and approval of CAR-T cell therapy to treat children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). It was groundbreaking as the first gene therapy approved for cancer treatment. 

This breakthrough was the result of decades of NIH-funded research and has transformed treatment for certain blood cancers, offering hope to patients with previously incurable diseases. Many patients, children and adults alike, who had exhausted all other treatment options have achieved complete remissions with CAR-T therapy.

The ripple effects of a government shutdown on medical research could be profound. Clinical trials and research training would be stalled as billions in NIH funds sit idle, affecting not just current studies but also the next generation of medical researchers. 

When grant applications are frozen, promising clinical trials testing new cancer treatments, infectious disease therapies, and neurological interventions face indefinite delays. Patients who might benefit from these experimental treatments lose precious time—a commodity that cancer patients and those with degenerative diseases simply don’t have.

Research institutions across the country would feel the squeeze immediately. Universities and medical centers that rely on federal grants to maintain their laboratories suddenly find themselves unable to purchase critical supplies or pay research staff. 

But perhaps most troubling is the momentum lost in addressing urgent public health challenges. Scientific research builds upon itself. Each shutdown doesn’t just pause progress—it sets it back, as researchers must spend time restarting experiments, renewing collaborations, and rebuilding research teams.

There is probably not a human alive on this earth who hasn’t been impacted in some way by cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or diabetes. 

Moving out of the abstract and into reality, according to ClinicalTrials.gov, there are 172 ongoing clinical trials on Alzheimer’s Disease and 266 studying dementia. 

7,537 ongoing clinical trials on the wide ranging topic of Cancer research. 

700 active clinical trials studying Diabetes

1,171  active clinical trials researching Heart Disease

The solution isn’t complicated—Congress must do their job and fund the government, which would in turn, commit to stable and predictable funding for medical research.

The American people deserve better than a healthcare research system held hostage by political theater. When lawmakers threaten government shutdowns, they’re not just playing games with bureaucracy—they’re gambling with American lives and our nation’s scientific leadership. In the race against disease and death, we simply cannot afford these self-imposed setbacks.