News & Alerts

Protecting Scientific Independence and Public Trust: NBCC’s Response to OMB’s Proposed Changes to Federal Research Funding

July 8, 2026

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Every advance in breast cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment begins with research. The quality of that research, and ultimately the quality of care available to patients, depends on how research priorities are set, how funding decisions are made, and who has a voice in the process. 

The National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) supports a research enterprise that is transparent, accountable, scientifically rigorous, and responsive to the needs of patients. These principles have guided our work for more than 35 years. 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed sweeping changes to the rules governing federal financial assistance, including biomedical research grants. According to OMB, the proposal is intended to improve transparency, accountability, and oversight of taxpayer dollars. 

NBCC agrees that the nation’s biomedical research enterprise must be transparent, accountable, and worthy of the public’s trust. We have advocated for those principles for more than three decades. We do not believe the proposed rule will achieve those objectives. Instead, we believe several of its provisions would weaken the very conditions necessary for public trust in biomedical research. 

The current research system is not without flaws. It can be more responsive to patients, more transparent in its decision-making, and more accountable to the public it serves.  Since our founding, NBCC has worked to reform biomedical research by strengthening scientific rigor, increasing meaningful patient participation, and improving public accountability.  

However, the changes proposed by OMB would move the research enterprise in a different direction—expanding political influence over scientific decision-making, weakening independent peer review, creating instability for ongoing research, and restricting the collaboration and open exchange of ideas that drive scientific progress. 

Patients deserve reform that strengthens the research enterprise—not changes that weaken it. Scientific independence, meaningful patient participation, transparency, and accountability are not competing values; rather, they are the foundation of public trust and scientific progress. 

NBCC’s Position 

We believe the proposed rule would undermine the biomedical research enterprise. Specifically, we believe the proposal: 

• Expands political influence over scientific funding decisions rather than preserving independent scientific peer review.  

• Creates instability for ongoing research by making it easier to terminate active awards when government priorities change. 

• Restricts the openness and collaboration that are essential to scientific progress. 

• Misses the opportunity to strengthen patient participation, which is one of the most effective ways to improve transparency, accountability, and public trust. 

NBCC believes the nation’s biomedical research enterprise should continue to evolve. But reforms should enhance the principles that have driven decades of scientific progress. Specifically, reforms should: 

• Preserve independent scientific peer review as the foundation for funding decisions.  

• Strengthen patient participation in setting research priorities, designing studies, and informing oversight.  

• Promote transparency and accountability through open scientific processes and public engagement.  

• Support the collaboration, stability, and open exchange of ideas that are essential to scientific discovery. 

These principles produce better science, better public policy, and ultimately better outcomes for patients. 

view full NBCC comments submitted to the Federal Register (PDF)