Approximately 1,900 leading researchers have denounced the Trump administration Open Letter On Monday, it conducted a “wholesale assault on National Science” that could backtrack research for decades, threatening the health and safety of Americans.
All signatories of the letter were warned by the damages caused by layoffs in health and science institutions, all elected members of the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and by the cuts and delays in funding that have historically supported research within government and across American universities.
“For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up national research companies and are a global hope,” the letter states. “Amazingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing the company by stripping funds for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressures researchers to change or abandon their work on ideological basis.”
The letter stated that many universities and research institutes have so far “became antagonistic to the administration and remained silent in order to put their funds at risk.” However, he said, “The country’s scientific enterprises are undoubtedly undoubtedly.”
The signatories urged Americans to appeal to Congress to protect scientific funds.
With Elon Musk’s efforts to cut spending on institutions he considers as ideological enemies and President Trump’s crackdown, the administration has sought to dismantle some of the federal government’s scientific fundraising equipment.
Funding from the National Institutes of Health, which supports jobs by more than 300,000 scientists across the country, has down billions of dollars from typical levels in the early months of the Trump administration.
The White House has also moved to cancel research in certain areas, including transgender health and climate science.
The Trump administration announced last week that it had fired 10,000 Health and Human Services Department employees as part of a broader restructuring that reflects the priorities of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The department hired unreliable vaccine skeptics to study the links that have been exposed by scientists for a long time between vaccines and autism. On Friday, the country’s top vaccine regulator resigned, citing Kennedy’s “misinformation and lies.”
Over the past few weeks, members of the National Academy of Medicine, a nonprofit that provides independent health policy advice, have begun discussing concerns with members of the National Academy of Science and Engineering.
Dr. Stephen Wolf, the organizer of the letter studying health policy at the Federal University of Virginia, said the conversations produced open letters.
The letter was drafted by a group of 13 scientists representing fields such as medicine, climate science, sociology and economics.
“We know what this does to the US life expectancy, mortality rates and the mental health crisis we have,” Dr. Wolf said. “These changes in research companies are going to lead to harm to everyday Americans.”
Dr. Wolf cited the planned reorganization of the Agency for Medical Research and Quality, a small institution responsible for protecting patient safety and ensuring Americans’ access to free preventive services like mammograms.
“The person responsible for protecting the quality of healthcare in the United States has just been demolished,” Dr. Wolf said.
The letter outlines the results of funding cuts, including a pause in research studies, faculty layoffs, and reduced enrollment of graduate students.
It also condemns the management of “censorship involvement” among other things by “blocking research on topics that appear undesirable, such as climate change, or topics that have unfavorable outcomes on topics from vaccine safety to economic trends.”
Source: www.nytimes.com
