NBC News
For James Antaki, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, the 6.7 million dollars that the Government granted him would allow him to save babies. Granted by the Department of Defense on March 30, the subsidy would allow its equipment to intensify the production and tests of Pediaflow, a device that increases blood flow in babies with heart defects.
A week later, everything changed.
On April 8, the Department of Defense sent Antaki an order to suspend work in which he informed him that his team would not receive the money, which should be distributed for four years. Three decades of research are now in danger, and Antaki says he has no idea why the government withdrew financing.
“I feel that completing this project is my mission in life,” said Friday, in his first interview since he lost the funds. “Once a week, I pass through this mental process of: ‘Is it time to surrender? But it is not my prerogative to take me.”
Neither the Department of Defense nor the White House Press Office responded to the requests for comments.
Antaki is one of the hundreds, but thousands, of academics throughout the country that have lost funds in a series of fields since the president, Donald Trump, came to power, due to a mixture of new executive orders that limit the scope of public money and the broad cancellations of subsidies ordered by the Government Efficiency Department of the billionaire Elon Musk.
In the United States, one in 100 babies is born with heart defects, and approximately a quarter of these need surgery or other procedures in their first year of life to survive, according to centers for disease control and prevention. Throughout the world, it is estimated that 240,000 babies die in their first 28 days of life for congenital defects.
The heart of a baby is similar to that of a large nut. When he was born with a hole between the cavities, his life is in danger. The creation of Antaki is a device for the size of an AA battery that uses a rotating helix on magnets to increase blood flow, helping them survive surgery or live at home with your family until the donor’s heart is achieved, if necessary.
The new financing round that Antaki expected would serve to continue testing the prototype, including placing it in an animal to ensure that it will not harm humans, and complete the paperwork of paperwork necessary to go through the process of regulating food and medication administration (FDA).
Over the years, the device has received several subsidies from the National Health Institutes (NIH) and the Department of Defense, according to Antaki that began working in this technology in 2003. It was already developing a similar one for adults at the University of Pittsburgh when the NIH published a call for proposals for a pediatric heart assistance system.
After Antaki arrived in Cornell in 2018, he obtained research funds from the Department of Defense to continue with the project. Last June he presented a proposal of 300 pages for the next injection of money he needed, and in March his team received notification of approval by the Department of Defense, before taking a step back in April, he said.
A copy of the suspension order, reviewed by NBC News, does not specify the reason why the Government canceled the subsidy beyond that it was “by indication of the administration”.
Dr. Evan Zahn, a pediatric interventionist cardiologist at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, who does not participate in Pediaflow, said the trimming funds for Antaki investigation is a step back for child health care, because there are few solutions commercially available for babies with heart defects.
“Technology designed specifically for our children is desperately needed, especially for babies in general, so losing the financing of something is a real loss,” Zahn said.
If the aid is not restored in 90 days, Antaki and their team will have to start saying goodbye to laboratory personnel and doctoral students must change their research topics.
In the broad scheme of what the government finances, he said, “it is a small amount of money that could do much good people, and it is right. It is something that speaks for itself.”
