The White House has accused The Washington Post of "lying to its readers" through an article concerning the National Institutes of Health's indirect costs policy.
In the article, published Saturday, the Post reported that the administration is "cutting billions of dollars in biomedical research funding," which the White House Office of Communications called a "misleading lie."
Instead, the White House said that the NIH has announced an indirect costs policy in line with what research institutions are granted from private foundations.
"The indirect cost rate is intended to cover overhead, and the federal government has been paying an exorbitantly high rate," the White House said.
The NIH said in a statement Friday on social media that the indirect costs policy will result in $4 billion in savings.
"The average indirect cost rate reported by NIH has averaged between 27% and 28% over time," the NIH said in its official notice. "And many organizations are much higher — charging indirect rates of over 50% and in some cases over 60%.
"Most private foundations that fund research provide substantially lower indirect costs than the federal government, and universities readily accept grants from these foundations. For example, a recent study found that the most common rate of indirect rate reimbursement by foundations was 0%, meaning many foundations do not fund indirect costs whatsoever."
The White House further pointed out that the NIH announcement reported that the nation's largest research funding sources pay a maximum indirect costs rate of 15%, and that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pays a maximum of 10% for indirect costs for institutions of higher education.
"The United States should have the best medical research in the world," the NIH said in its notice. "It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead. NIH is accordingly imposing a standard indirect cost rate on all grants of 15%."
The White House also accused the Post of reporting in a "dishonest article" that the opposition to the high direct costs is a partisan issue.
"'The Post wrote, 'These are the administrative requirements, facilities and other operations that many scientists say are essential but that some Republicans have claimed are superfluous,'" the White House argued.
The White House also cited Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and medicine at the University of California San Francisco, who praised the NIH's action on his blog.
"Cutting indirects might even mean more science," he wrote. "Less money spent on the administration is more money to give out to actual scientists. I am shocked to see researchers crying about how much money the university gets — it means more grants can be given per cycle."
"The Trump administration will continue implementing policies to make America great again while the failing legacy media appears determined to continue to lie and lose the trust of the public," the White House notice concluded.