She was wrongly snagged by Trump's word police

Nisha Acharya, an eye doctor and UC San Francisco professor, was at her campus clinic tending patients when a surprising email arrived. Her federal research grant had just been terminated, according to a reporter for the Washington Post, who wondered if Acharya had any comment. She was stunned. Her research, into the workings of the shingles vaccine, didn’t seem remotely controversial. The $3-million grant was the second she’d received, after years of similar work. The National Institutes of Health, which awarded the grant and regularly reviewed Acharya’s performance, had been pleased with all she’d accomplished. Nevertheless, the NIH tersely informed the university its latest grant was among dozens terminated because the federal government, under President Donald Trump, would no longer support research focused on “why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment.”

Acharya’s research had nothing to do with any of that. But the mention of “hesitancy” and “uptake” in her grant application — referring to the concern some cornea specialists had about the vaccine for those with shingles in the eye — was apparently all it took to snare Acharya in a dragnet mounted by the Trump administration word police. Perhaps “hesitancy” and “uptake” generated an AI response, or triggered some on-the-hunt algorithm. Acharya can’t be entirely sure, but there’s no evidence an actual human being, much less any sort of expert on vaccines or shingles, reviewed her grant proposal or assessed her work. She’s gotten no explanation beyond that one, formulaic March 10 email dispatched to the university. “I lost funding immediately,” Acharya said.

The randomness of the administration’s action, and its apparent error, is maddening enough. But it’s also frightening, Acharya said, to think that political considerations are now guiding science and scientific research, erasing years of effort and thwarting potential cures and the chance at future breakthrough treatments. “I don’t think government is in a position, or should be, to dictate what’s important in science,” Acharya said over lunch on UCSF’s sparkling Mission Bay campus. Trump’s heedless, meddlesome policy, she suggested, is going to scare off a whole generation of would-be scientists and medical researchers, undermining the quest for knowledge, hurting the public and negatively affecting people’s health “for years to come.” Acharya was in a high school when she reached a fork in the road. Now 50, she pressed her hands into a “V” shape to illustrate the two paths. At the time she was a violinist in the Chicago Youth Symphony, touring the world with the orchestra. She also loved science. Her father was a pharmaceutical chemist. Her mother taught high school math and chemistry. She realised, Acharya said, she wasn’t ready to make the commitment or accept the all-encompassing sacrifice needed to forge a professional career in music. So science became her chosen route. At Stanford, she majored in biology and received a master’s degree in health services research. From there, it was on to UCSF medical school. “I love scientific knowledge. But I really wanted to be able to directly interact with patients,” said Acharya, a self-described people person.

A favourite professor, who specialised in eye infection and inflammation, steered her into ophthalmology and helped Acharya find her life’s passion. She smiled broadly as she rhapsodised with mile-a-minute enthusiasm about her work, eyes wide and fingers fluttering over the table, as though she was once again summoning Bach or Paganini. “The body affects everything in the eye,” she explained. “Like, if you have an infection, you can get it in the eye. If you have an autoimmune disease, you can have manifestations in the eye. You have blood pressure problems, you can see it in the eye. The eye is like, really, a window into the body.” Acharya’s latest research was focused on how the shingles vaccine works. Shingles is a rash brought on by the varicella zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. Once chickenpox subsides, the virus can remain dormant in a person’s body for decades before erupting again. “In the first grant, we showed that the vaccine is very effective at preventing shingles and shingles in the eye if you’ve never had it,” Acharya said. “But we hadn’t gotten to the question of what if you already have shingles in the eye?”

It was work, Acharya said, that no one else was doing, aimed at preventing a loss of vision or blindness. It was not, she repeatedly emphasised, an attempt to promote vaccination, a once-common practice now tangled in layers of political, social and cultural debate — or, for that matter, to dissuade anyone from getting vaccinated. “This is the kind of research that you would think the government would want. Safety and effectiveness ... the pros and the cons,” Acharya said, giving a small, puzzled shake of her head. “I wanted to just get the information out there so people can use it.” Now that guidance won’t be available anytime soon.

If ever. Acharya has never been politically active. Her whole life and career, she said, have been devoted to the furtherance of science. While she leans left, she’s never been wedded to any party or ideology; Acharya has found reasons to agree — and disagree — with Democrats and Republicans alike. She didn’t vote for Trump, but didn’t see her support for Kamala Harris as making any sort of stand for scientific inquiry, or as a means of protecting her grant. “It never crossed my mind,” she said. The five-year grant paid 35% of Acharya’s salary — she was nearing the end of Year Two — and, while the loss of income isn’t great, she’ll manage. “I’m a professor and I’m a doctor as well,” she said. “I’m not going to lose my job.” Acharya has been forced, however, to lay off two data analysts, and a third research position is in jeopardy. Her voice thickened as she discussed those let go. At one point, she seemed to be fighting back tears. “I’ve cried with my team a lot,” she said over the soft thrum of conversation in the airy cafeteria-style bistro. “I’m just keeping it together because I have to ... I still take care of patients. I still teach. I can’t lose it like that. I feel like ... I have to find some way to keep on going.”

In its zeal to dismantle the federal government — driven more, it seems, by political calculation and a taste for vengeance than any well-thought-out design — the Trump administration has terminated hundreds of grants, ending research focused on Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, COVID-19, mental health services and addiction, among other areas of scientific pursuit. Hundreds of millions of dollars that already have been spent are now wasted. The fruits of all that research have been blithely and abruptly lopped off the vine. It’s impossible, Acharya said, to calculate the loss. It’s painful to even try. “All the things that might not be learned,” she mused wistfully. “All the potential gains out there” that may go unrealised. The termination notice UCSF received from the National Institutes of Health gave Acharya 30 days to appeal if she believed the decision to end her research was made in error. She did so. A few days later, the university received a pro forma email acknowledging receipt of Acharya’s appeal. Since then, nothing.