The Trump administration’s move to cancel a slew of federal contracts at Harvard University has sparked an internal clash over the impact on medical research intended to help veterans, including projects involving suicide prevention, toxic particle exposure and prostate cancer screening, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.
The dispute among officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs has focused in part on a collaboration with Harvard Medical School to develop a predictive model to help V.A. emergency room physicians decide whether suicidal veterans should be hospitalized, according to the records.
Canceling that contract would result in “more veteran suicides that could have been prevented,” Seth J. Custer, an official in the V.A.’s Office of Research and Development, wrote in a May 8 email asking leaders at the agency to reverse their decision. But John Figueroa, a longtime private industry health care executive and a senior adviser to Doug Collins, the veterans affairs secretary, said that researchers at other institutions could do the work instead.
Peter Kasperowicz, a V.A. spokesman, said that the department’s research contracts with Harvard were “under review.” He said the goal of the review was to ensure that “the projects best support the Trump administration’s veterans-first agenda.”
Mr. Custer declined to comment. In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Figueroa said the V.A. was examining “every contract” it had issued. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. So did a spokeswoman for Harvard.
The tensions inside the V.A. over the Harvard contracts demonstrate how President Trump’s use of research funds as leverage in his broader pressure campaign on universities carries political risks. Mr. Trump and other Republicans have courted veterans as a key political constituency, and Mr. Collins has repeatedly promised that veteran care would not be affected, even as he enacts major cost-cutting measures and other changes.
The Trump administration has increasingly targeted Harvard, demanding it overhaul its admissions, curriculum and hiring practices to comply with the president’s political agenda. The government has canceled roughly $2.7 billion in grants, frozen nearly $1 billion in funding for Harvard’s research partners and told the university it would not receive future research grants.
Scores of termination notices began arriving for Harvard researchers on Thursday and Friday. In a letter to the university community, Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, described the terminations as “part of a broader campaign to revoke scientific research funding,” and said their impact on scientific research “could be severe and lasting.” The university has sued the government to stop the cuts.
Pushed by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, the V.A. has pledged to cut costs by canceling contracts and slashing more than 80,000 jobs — roughly a sixth of its total work force. The department has also instituted a broad return-to-office mandate, forcing clinicians to work in crowded offices where some have said they cannot guarantee their patients’ confidentiality.
The emails and other records reviewed by The Times show that the V.A. has begun the process of ending half a dozen contracts on a range of research projects at Harvard.
On May 7, a V.A. employee told colleagues that “if you are not already aware, contracts associated with Harvard are under termination” or being narrowed. She then listed the six contracts to be canceled, warning that requests to maintain the contracts would be met with “hard scrutiny.”
“Please start the termination process ASAP,” she wrote.
One of those agreements was to evaluate the quality of cancer care at non-V.A. health facilities that contract with the department to treat veterans. Republicans have pushed for veterans to be able to access more care outside the V.A. “This high-priority contract aligns with both congressional and V.A. secretary priorities,” Mr. Custer wrote.
Another contract assisted the V.A. in analyzing its vast reams of clinical data. The contract, Mr. Custer wrote, helped ensure that “veterans have access to clinical trials, with notable efforts directed toward advancing precision prostate cancer screening.”
“This is HIGHLY critical to fulfill the V.A. mission,” he wrote in bold, adding: “There is NOT an internal V.A. solution.”
Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said he had worked with the V.A. for roughly five years on one of the projects being canceled, helping to analyze nutrition data for a large study on the diet and health of 500,000 veterans. One of the study’s goals is to illuminate the links between diet and chronic disease.
“This science benefits everybody,” Dr. Willett said. “It’s not political. But we are being caught up in politics.”
Andrea Fuller, Ellen Barry, Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder and Steven Moity contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Nicholas Nehamas is a Washington correspondent for The Times, focusing on the Trump administration and its efforts to transform the federal government.
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