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Harvard Experts Alert: Research Monkeys Face Euthanasia Due to Trump’s Funding Cutbacks

Top researchers at Harvard University are expressing concerns that President Donald Trump’s funding freeze could result in the deaths of their research animals.

On April 15, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a stop-work order to researchers, following Trump’s decision the night before to halt $2 billion in federal funding for projects at the prestigious institution.

This freeze stems from Harvard’s refusal to comply with the president’s demands presented on April 11. These demands included submitting admissions and hiring data, eliminating diversity programs, and adhering to federal directives concerning foreign students.

“No government — regardless of the political party in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which fields of study and inquiry they can explore,” wrote Harvard President Alan Garber in an open letter on Monday afternoon.

The response from Trump’s antisemitism task force was swift, stating, “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is prevalent in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

The funding freeze not only impacts researchers but also threatens the lives of ongoing study subjects. For Sarah Fortune, the principal investigator of a pivotal tuberculosis study, the stakes are even higher.

With a $60 million contract from the NIH to investigate the effects of vaccines on macaques, a species of primate, Fortune explained to a local publication that the macaques may need to be euthanized if the research cannot proceed due to a lack of federal funds for their care.

“They’re so precious,” Fortune remarked about the animals. “It’s an enormous responsibility to work with them, and to be asked to kill them halfway through the study is overwhelming…”

Her situation is not unique. Fortune noted that many researchers involved in animal studies may have to consider euthanizing their subjects if the funding freeze persists. She, however, expressed her backing for Harvard’s decision to oppose Trump and initiate the work stoppage, initially slated for up to 90 days. “I feel good about standing on the right side of this action,” she stated.

Harvard has emerged as the most prominent U.S. institution to resist the Trump administration’s demands so far. In contrast, Columbia University, another Ivy League school, capitulated last month and agreed to increased oversight of its Middle East studies department, among other conditions.

The Trump administration has claimed that many of its demands aim to combat antisemitic discrimination against Jewish students or athletic discrimination against female athletes. However, critics have argued that these demands are anti-Palestinian and anti-trans, respectively.

Tyler Coward, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, characterized Trump’s withholding of federal funding as “unlawful abuses of government power.”

“We’ve maintained since this began that it would require an institution to assert its own rights in order to put an end to this,” he explained. “Thankfully, Harvard chose a different path than Columbia and is standing firm in its right to resist a hostile takeover by the federal government.”

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