Otolaryngology Department National Institutes of Health Grant Terminations

To the Editor,

We would like to bring awareness to the direct impacts of governmental funding terminations within otolaryngology. In February 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began terminating select federal biomedical research grants as part of a broader re-aligning of priorities. ¹ An analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that, as of May 5, 2025, 777 NIH grants – totaling approximately $1.9 billion in unliquidated funds – were canceled. ² Grant terminations have continued since then, though a recent report indicated that NIH staffers had been told to stop terminating grants in response to several court cases. ³ The future of terminated grants remains uncertain, but during this purported pause in terminations an assessment of already cancelled grants is warranted to identify areas most impacted. The field of otolaryngology has not escaped terminations, and we aimed to characterize otolaryngology department grants that have been terminated. We searched a publicly available database that tracks NIH grant terminations ⁴ to identify affected grants as of July 12, 2025. Grant cancellations and corresponding funding amounts were confirmed using the Health and Human Services Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, the NIH RePORTER, and USAspending.^{5 –7}

Between February 28, 2025 and July 12, 2025, 4490 grants were listed as canceled. Among these grants, 10 were directed to otolaryngology departments. The total funding canceled within otolaryngology departments was $1,820,075. Eight of the 10 grants involved research related to hearing and auditory perception. Of the remaining two grants, one was related to oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma and the other grant investigated olfactory dysfunction after COVID-19 infection. Nine out of the 10 grants were from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders. Four of the grant abstracts mentioned diverse, minority, or underserved populations. While we found that otolaryngology department specific grants account for a small portion of the total NIH grants terminated, these grant cancellations carry meaningful implications for both researchers and patients. It is notable that less than half of the terminated grants mentioned diverse, underserved, or minority populations, which is unexpected given the government directives to target these types of studies. In contrast, the most common theme targeted was sensory perception, particularly hearing. Grants related to auditory function and perception accounted for 80% of terminations. Although the underlying rationale for each grant cancellation is not publicly disclosed, the predominance of hearing related grants raises concern for a governmental shift away from this area. While the funding landscape is liable to change in the setting of court cases, if grant terminations continue into the future, awareness of the increased terminations within auditory function research is important for researchers, departments, and patients.

Beau M. Idler, MD Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA Noel F. Ayoub, MD MBA Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA