Science, May 2025
On 28 March, Briony Swire-Thompson began seeing reports online that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) might cancel grants for research on misinformation. At first, she didn’t think she would be affected. Swire-Thompson, a psychologist at Northeastern University, studies misinformation—but not the political lies that get most of the attention. She’s interested in false information about cancer, and why people fall for it. “There’s a lot of people online trying to sell their snake oil,” she says.
But on 2 April, she got an email from NIH saying her work was no longer “effectuating government priorities” as it was “research to influence the public’s opinion.” She had to halt any work paid for by the grant immediately and won’t be able to hire postdocs, research assistants, and Ph.D. students, she says. “It will dramatically impact the size of my lab going forward.”
