Attorney General Ford Secures Agreement with Trump Administration Preventing Further Delays in Medical and Public Health Research

Carson City, NV — Today, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced that he has secured a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) providing that HHS will resume the review process for critical medical and public health research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that have been unlawfully delayed by the Trump administration. The agreement resolves claims made in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Ford as part of a coalition of 16 attorneys general in April, challenging the administration’s unreasonable and intentional delays in reviewing NIH grant applications.

“This is a win for the public health of Nevadans and Americans across the country,” said Attorney General Ford. “The Trump administration's unlawful delays on this funding caused an unnecessary and dangerous impact on our public health and medical research infrastructure, including at UNLV. This agreement stops the Trump administration from using these grant delays to further damage the ability of our medical professionals to keep Nevadans safe and to stay at the forefront of necessary research."

NIH grant applications typically undergo several rounds of rigorous review by subject-matter experts and agency officials who assess each proposal’s scientific merit in light of funding availability and agency priorities. Earlier this year, the administration took the unprecedented step of cancelling upcoming meetings for the agency’s review panels and delaying the scheduling of future meetings. The administration also indefinitely withheld issuing final decisions on applications that had already received approval from the relevant review panels, leaving the plaintiff states awaiting decisions on billions of dollars in requested research funding.

As a result of the administration’s delays and terminations, the states alleged that their public research institutions experienced significant harm. As an example, three NIH grants for UNLV were terminated, resulting in researchers losing out on around $2.4 million in grant funding.

This settlement agreement commits HHS to resuming the usual process for considering NIH grant applications on a prompt, agreed-upon timeline. The agreement complements the coalition’s victory in an earlier phase of the lawsuit, in which the plaintiff states challenged unlawful directives that targeted NIH projects based on their perceived connection to “DEI,” “transgender issues,” “vaccine hesitancy” and other topics disfavored by the Trump administration. The District Court found for the plaintiff states and set aside the unlawful directives; a hearing on the federal government’s appeal of that decision is scheduled for Jan. 6, 2026. The current settlement agreement limits NIH from applying the unlawful directives while reviewing applications for new grants.

Joining Attorney General Ford in reaching this settlement are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

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