(8 Apr 2025) The Trump administration has blocked access to multiple data repositories maintained by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for researchers in several countries, including a cancer statistics database used heavily by scientists in China.
The ban is effective April 4 and applies to institutions in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, according to the notice announcing the restrictions.
The numerous controlled-access data repositories (CADRs) that are affected by the rule hold data on a vast swath of subjects including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, mental health disorders, substance abuse and adolescent brain development.
One of the newly banned databases is the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program, which includes data on cancer occurrences across the United States. Starting on April 4, Chinese scientists were no longer able to log in to the SEER system, Chinese news outlet DeepTech reported.
Read the news in full here.
