• Posted May 12, 2025

Trump Administration Cuts Funding for Life-Saving Baby Heart Device

MONDAY, May 12, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A Cornell University project to save babies born with serious heart defects has lost key funding just days after it was approved. 

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded $6.7 million on March 30 to support production and development of PediaFlow, a small device to help infants with heart defects. Days later, the DoD sent a stop-work order, NBC News reported.

James Antaki, the biomedical engineering professor leading the project, said he was shocked.

“I feel that it’s my calling in life to complete this project,” he told NBC News, in his first news interview since losing funding. “Once a week, I go through this mental process of, ‘Is it time to give up?’ But it is not my prerogative to give up.”

Neither the Defense Department nor the White House would comment.

NBC News reported that the order was “at the direction of the Administration.”

The project had previously received grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Defense Department without issue.

One in 100 babies in the U.S. are born with heart defects, with about 25% needing surgery in their first year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Roughly the size of a AA battery, PediaFlow uses a tiny rotating propeller to boost blood flow. It is designed to help babies survive surgery or stay home safely while waiting for a donor heart.

The canceled funding would have supported further animal testing to ensure it doesn't harm humans, as well as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  paperwork.

Antaki began developing the device in 2003 while working on a similar one for adults. After moving to Cornell in 2018, he secured new federal funding. 

His team submitted a 300-page proposal last June, and the grant was approved in March before being canceled abruptly.

Dr. Evan Zahn, a pediatric cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who is not involved with PediaFlow, called the funding loss a blow to children’s health.

“Technology specifically designed for our children, particularly babies across the board, is desperately needed, so losing funding for something like that is a real loss,” he said.

If the funding is not restored within 90 days, Antaki said his team would have to lay off staff and students would have to change their research focus.

“It’s a small amount of money that could do so much good for so many people, and it’s just the right thing to do," he added. It just it kind of speaks for itself.”

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on congenital heart defects in children.

SOURCE: NBC News, May 10, 2025