Gillibrand presses the case for $2.5M for Trudeau disease research

Senate line item may or may not survive the House of Representatives, Trump administration

By Tim Rowland

There’s a new wrinkle in the time-honored political tradition of delivering public money to local communities: The federal government may not pay up.

So when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand visited the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake Monday morning to announce a $2.5 million Senate line item for research at the center, the secondary message had to do with a White House that has pushed the limits of executive power.

The money would be available, the senator said, provided it survived a fractured House of Representatives and “if the appropriations process works.”

But the Trump administration has defied Congressional spending appropriations, holding back money for programs that include low-income housing services, education assistance, and medical research grants.

So far, said Trudeau Institute President and CEO William W. Reiley, the research center has managed to escape cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which funds about 30% of its budget.

“So far we’ve been very lucky that there have been no losses directly, but there’s a lot of indirect impact that we’ve also felt,” he said. “We’ve had collaborators and people that we do work with and that we do receive funds from, and their grants that have been lost or have been put on hold.”

Gillibrand said the $2.5 million Senate appropriation would support critical disease research, biotechnology innovation and military defense against biological weapons. “This will also create high-skilled jobs, attract top scientists and support workforce development in Saranac Lake, and help ensure economic stability and technological advancement in the entire country,” she said.

RELATED READING: Trudeau Institute impacted by federal funding cuts, uncertainty around grants

The Trudeau Institute has its roots in tuberculosis research, but pivoted in the 1950s with the introduction of antibiotics. Today, antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a focus of Trudeau research, along with infectious diseases (still including TB). It was also a significant player in the development of a Covid vaccine during the pandemic.

“We have a dedicated focus here on pathogens that have the potential for global impact,” Reiley said. “The Trudeau scientists really have focused on research areas where there are unmet needs.”

Gillibrand said administration cuts to public health are among the most concerning.

“During a time when public health funding and research is in jeopardy, this work here is more important than ever,” she said. “The administration has undermined the public health infrastructure of our country. They’ve cut hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institution of Health grants, they’ve slashed funding from our federally funded universities (and) just last week, they fired hundreds of CDC employees.”

She said members of Congress and affected agencies are trying to restore cuts both through the appropriations committees and through the courts, where there have been some successes.  “I’ve toured universities and talked about what the loss of funding is going to mean to them, and it’s devastating,” Gillibrand said. “For example, if your child did a cancer trial, the cancer trial is discontinued. Your child doesn’t get the benefit of that cancer research. So it’s very real, and it’s going to impact people’s lives.” 

The whole episode has been wearing on researchers just trying to do their daily jobs, Reiley said, but there is hope that leaders in the field of health will help see them through. 

“It is a very worrying situation; there’s not a single person here at the Institute who hasn’t had a colleague at another institution also affected in some way,” he said. “And so again, I tell everyone here that we can only deal with what we can deal with. We do hope that good leadership will help guide us through this period and to basically allow for us to be successful on the other side.”