{"id":5194,"date":"2026-03-29T06:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/29\/no-kings-just-vaccines-demonstrators-gather-at-nih-headquarters-to-protest-against-cuts-to-medical-research-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T06:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:20:24","slug":"no-kings-just-vaccines-demonstrators-gather-at-nih-headquarters-to-protest-against-cuts-to-medical-research-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/03\/29\/no-kings-just-vaccines-demonstrators-gather-at-nih-headquarters-to-protest-against-cuts-to-medical-research-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No kings, just vaccines!\u2019: demonstrators gather at NIH headquarters to protest against cuts to medical research – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protesters decried Trump administration healthcare policies and direction of HHS under leadership of RFK Jr
As tens of thousands of people assembled across the US and around the world for No Kings protests, about a thousand people gathered outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland<\/a>, on Saturday morning to protest cuts to medical research and the Trump\u2019s administration\u2019s policies on health.
The rally follows a tumultuous year for the research agency, with devastating cuts to multi-year funding and outright terminations of grants, especially to research related to gender and race. The White House is now poised to cut the NIH\u2019s budget by 20%, according to reporting<\/a> by Roll Call on Friday, nearly one year after mass layoffs at health agencies.
A year ago, Bill Bien woke up sick, with a sore throat and shortness of breath. He was soon diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma.
\u201cIt was like trying to climb a mountain, and I couldn\u2019t breathe,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cBut I made it, and so will you.\u201d
Ten years ago, his diagnosis would\u2019ve been a \u201cdeath sentence,\u201d he said. That was before breakthroughs in research to treat lymphoma, after 25 years of research at places such as the National Cancer Institute, he said. \u201cYou create fundamental shifts, and now lymphomas are cured.\u201d
After a year of treatments and recovery, including sometimes life-threatening infections, Bien\u2019s cancer is now gone. NIH researchers are \u201cnational treasures\u201d, he said. \u201cYou guys should be cherished, not diminished.\u201d He urged the government to continue funding long-term science done by interdisciplinary teams.
\u201cYou must persevere,\u201d Bien said. \u201cIt means so much to so many people you\u2019ll never meet. It will save their lives.\u201d
Speakers\u2019 words were underscored by honking cars along the road. Chilly winds blew cherry-blossom petals like snowflakes.
\u201cNo kings, just vaccines!\u201d protesters shouted as speakers decried harsh immigration crackdowns, limitations on transgender healthcare, the war in Iran and blockade in Cuba, and a radically reshaped public health environment. The event was also a food drive to support unpaid employees with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and others affected by the partial shutdown.
\u201cSpeaking into a microphone, it\u2019s new to me,\u201d said Nina Friedman, a doctoral candidate at University of Maryland whose research has been supported by the NIH. \u201cBut I\u2019m realizing that if we don\u2019t take the microphone, RFK Jr and Jay Bhattacharya will have the airwaves.\u201d
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, have overseen the gutting of one of the world\u2019s premier research institutions.
In August 2024, Michael Green was thrilled to receive an early-career fellowship from the NIH for his work on discrimination in healthcare. But in 2025, that research was terminated in the sweeping cuts enacted over the past year \u2013 part of the purge of research on diversity, equity and inclusion, which are key parts of public health research.
\u201cI study trust for a living \u2026 Trust is not found by going on a podcast,\u201d Green said, a reference to Bhattacharya\u2019s frequent appearances on rightwing podcasts and conferences<\/a>. \u201cWhat I see is one person trying to run science like a king, deciding which research is acceptable based on political ideology rather than scientific merit,\u201d he said.
Conducting public health research has required \u201ca very, very visible lifetime commitment to championing equity, diversity and inclusion\u201d, said Jeanne Marrazzo, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and current CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Leaders of NIH institutes such as Marrazzo resisted the cuts imposed by leadership. \u201cWe were never explicitly told why we were placed on administrative leave almost exactly a year ago,\u201d Marrazzo said. \u201cI was never explicitly told why I was ultimately fired six months later. But it\u2019s very hard to imagine that our resistance did not play a role.\u201d
But she said she\u2019s still fighting to support vital research in the US. \u201cI am ready for this. I am all in,\u201d she said. She referenced the name of the rally, No (Shadow) Kings, and said: \u201cIt can be dimmed or redirected by political will or malign intent \u2026 but eventually the light reaches where it needs to go.\u201d
Anna Culbertson, co-founder of 27 UNIHTED, a non-profit of former NIH workers, led the crowd in the oath of office that all government employees take: \u201cI will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,\u201d she said, and the crowd, repeating after her, shouted the last part.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters decried Trump administration healthcare policies and direction of HHS under leadership of RFK JrAs tens of thousands of people assembled across the US and around the world for No Kings protests, about a thousand people gathered outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, on Saturday morning to protest cuts to medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}