Contact: adam.ortega@treatmentactiongroup.org
Treatment Action Group (TAG) is profoundly troubled by recent reporting that the NIH’s longstanding Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) process is being interrupted and delayed by political interference. After a dramatic drop in the annual number of NOFOs issued in 2025, and the numbers for 2026 being on pace to decrease even further, researchers now wait for expected announcements for months to no avail. Though this is definitely not the first scientific review process to be upended by the Trump administration in their attack on health and science, it is yet another example of how regressive federal policy impedes innovation and harms the US public.
For decades, NIH and other Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies have relied on issuing NOFOs to inform researchers of key questions and focus areas at NIH and to indicate upcoming funding opportunities. This was certainly not the only way that researchers could apply for NIH funding, but it allowed the NIH to specifically highlight problems that needed to be addressed through research and provide incentives for addressing them. NOFOs proved particularly helpful in cases where multiple studies would be necessary to sufficiently investigate an issue, and they offered a coordinated approach to gathering varied information that could easily be synthesized for analysis.
Historically NOFOs have advanced HCV treatment and cure research and strengthened the cascade of HCV care by supporting clinical trials and implementation studies for direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) and research on the optimization of shorter, more effective DAAs; and projects to improve screening, diagnosis, linkage to care and retention in care. NOFOs have also expanded access to HCV care in underserved populations with the highest burden and drop-off rates by prioritizing funding for people who inject drugs (PWID), rural and low-income populations, and correctional settings. In addition, NOFOS have supported HCV elimination strategies by funding national and local efforts aligned with the World Health Organization goals of eliminating HCV as a public health threat by 2030 by promoting test-and-treat models and decentralization of care.
The NOFO mechanism funded a critical consortium for HIV vaccine research focused on generating broadly neutralizing antibody responses. News emerged in May 2025 that the funding was being cancelled, but then a new NOFO was forecast in September 2025 with an estimated issuance date of February 12, 2026. On April 22, 2026, this NOFO was cancelled and archived in a Kafkaesque maneuver with no explanation, eviscerating NIH support for pursuing the most promising pathway toward discovery of an effective HIV vaccine. A recently published preprint reports that the consortia’s work had led to the induction of antibodies capable of neutralizing 6% of circulating HIV stains, an important step toward the induction of antibody responses capable of broad neutralization.
NOFOs are pending for the longstanding HIV clinical trial networks that have transformed care and prevention for HIV, tuberculosis, and other associated coinfections/cormorbidities – and continue to address research questions of vital concern. The NIAID AIDS Research Advisory Council (ARAC) recently approved the issuance of NOFOs for renewing network support but they have yet to appear; the estimated issuance date is August 25, 2026 but at this juncture there’s no way of knowing for sure whether they might meet the same fate as the aforementioned HIV vaccine consortia NOFO.
Similarly, a NOFO is pending for the Martin Delaney Research Collaboratories which are focused on the essential task of developing a cure for HIV. The estimated issuance date of April 21, 2026 has already passed.
This latest NOFO delays are only the most recent instance of withdrawing, canceling, rescinding, slow-walking, restricting, or otherwise attacking the forms of federal research support that used to be determined by scientific consensus and review, whereas and are now subject to the political whims of the current administration. According to recent reporting and confidential sources, leadership at the NIH’s institutes and centers (ICs) have neglected to inform project officers under their purview of any timelines or rationale for delayed or abandoned NOFOs. A new policy requires NOFOs to be “forecasted”, or announced in advance, before being released. But NOFOs forecasted to be released earlier this year now languish in the ever-expanding chasm of “HHS review”, a term now universally recognized as meaning RFK Jr.’s fixation on pseudoscience.
While NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research recently published a blog post attempting to explain the change in NOFO numbers, it made bold claims of increased efficiency that have yet to materialize, and sought to provide “solutions” to problems that didn’t exist in the first place. For example, he stated that “[NOFOs’] narrow scope can sometimes limit flexibility for investigators to propose novel or unexpected ideas” without any evidence of them doing so. Contrary to that argument, the number of investigator-initiated grants have been dramatically decreasing alongside NOFOs, not increasing to fill that new gap.
The blog post, and other policy announcements coming from this administration, attempt to mask a simple truth: that these changes are not intended to increase efficiency or scientific oversight, they are intended to increase political control. With seemingly no regard for the consequences that these changes will have on all Americans, current leadership is destroying the lifesaving federal research infrastructure that has been built up over decades. HHS is now making rigorous scientific study harder to achieve, and politically-motivated censorship harder to avoid.
The sudden and as yet unexplained departure of Jeffery Taubenberger, who was acting director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), only adds to concerns about the future of NOFOs – and funding broadly – for HIV, TB, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases.
TAG calls on HHS to immediately cease its hijacking of NIH approval processes, and instead allow scientific inquiry to flourish once more under a comprehensive system of both NOFOs and other grant opportunities. A truly healthy society is one in which challenging research questions are embraced and studied, not silenced and defunded. We commend all the brilliant and courageous scientists, program officers, study participants, and research advisors who have made scientific advancement possible for so long, and we stand in solidarity with you during this period of relentless attacks.
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