As tens of thousands of people assembled across the US and around the world for No Kings protests, about a thousand people gathered outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, on Saturday morning to protest cuts to medical research and the Trump’s administration’s policies on health.

The rally follows a tumultuous year for the research agency, with devastating cuts to multi-year funding and outright terminations of grants, especially to research related to gender and race. The White House is now poised to cut the NIH’s budget by 20%, according to reporting by Roll Call on Friday, nearly one year after mass layoffs at health agencies.

A year ago, Bill Bien woke up sick, with a sore throat and shortness of breath. He was soon diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma.

“It was like trying to climb a mountain, and I couldn’t breathe,” he told the crowd. “But I made it, and so will you.”

Ten years ago, his diagnosis would’ve been a “death sentence,” he said. That was before breakthroughs in research to treat lymphoma, after 25 years of research at places such as the National Cancer Institute, he said. “You create fundamental shifts, and now lymphomas are cured.”

After a year of treatments and recovery, including sometimes life-threatening infections, Bien’s cancer is now gone. NIH researchers are “national treasures”, he said. “You guys should be cherished, not diminished.” He urged the government to continue funding long-term science done by interdisciplinary teams.

“You must persevere,” Bien said. “It means so much to so many people you’ll never meet. It will save their lives.”

Speakers’ words were underscored by honking cars along the road. Chilly winds blew cherry-blossom petals like snowflakes.

“No kings, just vaccines!” protesters shouted as speakers decried harsh immigration crackdowns, limitations on transgender healthcare, the war in Iran and blockade in Cuba, and a radically reshaped public health environment. The event was also a food drive to support unpaid employees with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and others affected by the partial shutdown.

“Speaking into a microphone, it’s new to me,” said Nina Friedman, a doctoral candidate at University of Maryland whose research has been supported by the NIH. “But I’m realizing that if we don’t take the microphone, RFK Jr and Jay Bhattacharya will have the airwaves.”

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, have overseen the gutting of one of the world’s premier research institutions.

In August 2024, Michael Green was thrilled to receive an early-career fellowship from the NIH for his work on discrimination in healthcare. But in 2025, that research was terminated in the sweeping cuts enacted over the past year – part of the purge of research on diversity, equity and inclusion, which are key parts of public health research.

“I study trust for a living … Trust is not found by going on a podcast,” Green said, a reference to Bhattacharya’s frequent appearances on rightwing podcasts and conferences. “What I see is one person trying to run science like a king, deciding which research is acceptable based on political ideology rather than scientific merit,” he said.

Conducting public health research has required “a very, very visible lifetime commitment to championing equity, diversity and inclusion”, said Jeanne Marrazzo, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and current CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Leaders of NIH institutes such as Marrazzo resisted the cuts imposed by leadership. “We never explicitly told why we were placed on administrative lead almost exactly a year ago,” Marrazzo said. “I was never explicitly told why I was ultimately fired six months later. But it’s very hard to imagine that our resistance did not play a role.”

But she said she’s still fighting to support vital research in the US. “I am ready for this. I am all in,” she said. She referenced the name of the rally, No (Shadow) Kings, and said: “It can be dimmed or redirected by political will or malign intent … but eventually the light reaches where it needs to go.”

Anna Culbertson, co-founder of 27 UNIHTED, a non-profit of former NIH workers, led the crowd in the oath of office that all government employees take: “I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” she said, and the crowd, repeating after her, shouted the last part.