On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought launched a scathing critique of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), charging that the agency “does nothing more than DEI research.” Vought argued that while the world faced a deadly pandemic, NIH leadership engaged in mismanaged science that helped create risks rather than solving them.
Vought alleged widespread waste, fraud, and abuse of funding across NIH programs. According to him, projects like injecting dogs with cocaine to study addiction or paying Harvard to examine lizards being blown off branches by leaf blowers epitomize scientific overreach and disregard for taxpayer money.
He characterized the agency’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts as bloated bureaucratic programs with little scientific value. “You literally have an entire institute that does nothing more than DEI research at NIH,” he stated, casting such work as symbolic of broader dysfunction.
Vought insisted the Biden administration’s budget proposal still fully funds essential biomedical studies. However, he pledged to overhaul NIH’s mission and budget oversight to prevent future abuse. “We’re going through the same programmatic review of the NIH that we did on education funding,” he said. The goal, he explained, is to sideline politically motivated research and return focus to core biomedical priorities—including preventing future outbreaks.
He accused NIH of weaponizing research against the American public by diverting attention and resources into what he deemed politically driven programming. The OMB director emphasized that while critical scientific work must continue, NIH should no longer be perceived as a vehicle for ideological agendas.
Vought’s remarks underscore a growing political push to scrutinize federal scientific institutions. As Congress considers future budget proposals, NIH may face heightened demands for transparency, stricter oversight, and curtailed spending on studies that critics view as extraneous or political rather than medical.
The NIH now faces calls to defend its research priorities and justify every publicly funded project. In his view, taxpayer-funded science should only serve the public good—not partisan objectives pushed under the banner of DEI.
