The Department of Veterans Affairs has long been one of the nation’s largest research powerhouses

VA researchers operate at 102 research sites and are engaged in 7,300 ongoing projects, while publishing more than 10,000 papers in scientific journals last year .

Congress funded $984 million in VA research, which is a pittance compared to the NIH .

VA researchers were initially supposed to be exempt from the current federal hiring freeze, but the new VA leadership quickly reneged on that promise.

There are now over 200 vacant research positions, including principal investigators and research coordinators who are some of the most respected scientists in the nation.

The cuts are part of the government’s crackdown on so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs.

The Musk/Trump/Collins team has placed unprecedented restrictions on communication between VA researchers and their colleagues outside of the department.

Researchers are now required to get approval from VA headquarters in Washington if they want to present at a national conference and exchange information with colleagues outside the agency.

VA has even stopped allowing non-VA researchers to attend its renowned VA Health Systems Research Cyberseminar Series .