For years Republicans and Democrats alike have touted the medical breakthroughs at Texas medical research institutions like MD Anderson and Baylor College of Medicine.

But after President Donald Trump announced a policy change at the National Institutes of Health last week that would slash federal funding for those Houston institutions by tens of millions of dollars, Texas Democrats find themselves alone in trying to stave off the cuts, at least publicly. 

U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, said she asked all members in the Texas congressional delegation to sign a letter to the Trump administration warning the cuts would "devastate medical research in our state." The four-term congresswoman said while every Democratic member signed, not a single Republican House member agreed to do so.

"I am disappointed," Fletcher said in a statement. "These cuts hurt our constituents. And these cuts undermine the very system of scientific research and groundbreaking advancements that we are so proud happen here in Houston."

Texas Republicans have largely stayed quiet on the cuts, despite protest from medical institutions across Texas, which collectively received $1.9 billion in NIH funding last year.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who was treated for Hodgkin lymphoma at MD Anderson, questioned the amount of funding U.S. medical research institutions were getting, while acknowledging the medical breakthroughs it had enabled.

"People travel from all across the world to our innovative cancer centers to receive top not treatment. MD Anderson is one of them, and they saved my life," he said in a statement. "However, we are $36 trillion in debt and barreling toward a debt crisis. There is no reason the federal government should be paying 70% of a university's administrative costs for research."

Other Republican members did not respond to requests for comment Friday. This week many cheered on the administration's wider spending cuts, carried out by Texas billionaire Elon Musk and staffers at his Department of Government Efficiency

"Elon is blowing the lid off DC’s deep corruption, and the left is LOSING IT!," Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, wrote on X this week. "The real constitutional crisis? Decades of fraud, waste, and abuse—YOUR money stolen to keep the swamp alive."

The proposed cuts to NIH medical research grants were put on hold Monday after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction to 22 state attorneys general who sued to stop the policy change. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was not among them. 

Trump is targeting grant funding for research overhead costs, such as lab maintenance and support staff. He said the NIH would no longer reimburse more than 15% of those costs, but some large research facilities have been paid considerably higher reimbursement rates, including more than 50%.

Research institutions in the Houston area collected a combined $263 million in those co-called "indirect costs" last year from the NIH, according to Houston Chronicle analysis of an agency database.

"Within a short order, there would probably have to be personnel decisions,” Darren Woodside, vice president of research at the Texas Heart Institute, said last week. “The long term consequences are dire. You’re really talking about the U.S.’s leadership role in medical research being affected.”

MD Anderson, widely renowned as one of the world's top cancer treatment and research facilities, has in particular been a point of pride for Texas politicians of all stripes.

Roy speaks frequently of the life saying treatment he received there. And U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, wrote an op-ed in 2020 in which he praised MD Anderson for the care they gave his mother, who died from breast cancer at age 35, including enrolling her in an early clinical trial for the chemotherapy drug Taxotere.

"My mom knew that this clinical trial would mean a small extension on her life at best," Crenshaw wrote. "She knew that Taxotere would not ultimately save her life, but that her trial would provide doctors like Peter Ravdin — who led the clinical trial — the scientific research they needed to improve the drug and save the lives of others."

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