Much of the cuts to funding done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has directly affected health and science research. The cuts include firing of scientists and support staff, cuts to research grants, and reduced graduate student enrollment.
A 75 page open letter
published Monday March 31 and signed by over 1,900 members of the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, criticizes these cuts as a “wholesale assault on U.S. science” that
will set back American research for decades and threaten the health and safety
of American people.
Federal government
funding has supported research both within government agencies and at
universities across the country.
“For over 80 years, wise investments by the U.S. government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world. This is all being destroyed by the Trump regime. Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”
As one example, the
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “responsible for protecting the quality of health care in the United
States, just got demolished. These changes … are going to translate into harms
to everyday Americans.” Life expectancy, mortality rates, and the mental
health crisis will all worsen.
The letter accuses the
Trump administration of censorship by blocking research on subjects that it
doesn’t like including climate change, trans-gender health, and vaccine safety.
Any studies focusing on the specific health needs of Blacks or other ethnic
minorities were shut down.
The letter was addressed
“To The American People” and called on them to pressure their members of
Congress to protect and restore scientific funding.
Economists are also
protesting the cuts to science which they say will make America less
competitive and the people poorer, less healthy and less productive in the
coming decades. They argue that fundamental research is among the most efficient
uses of taxpayer dollars, returning 500% on investment. The discoveries made by
fundamental research fueled the rise in economic growth and standard of living
in America’s 20th century.
Immigrants are a
critical component of scientific innovation, accounting for 36% of patents since
1990, and are more likely to create new businesses than native born Americans.
Trump’s immigration policies are not helping.
Canada went through
something like this with the Harper Conservative government (2006-2015). He cut
scientific research in many areas but particularly anything that threatened the
oil industry in his home province of Alberta. All government scientists had to
have their reports vetted by his office before publication. He even had his men
shadow scientists – reminiscent of Stalin era USSR – when they attended
international conventions, to prevent them reporting anything linking climate
change to fossil fuels. Chris Turner published a book documenting this called “The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and
Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada” (2014).
But from what I’ve seen,
Trump has done far more damage to American science in 8 weeks than Harper did
in 8 years.
European and other
countries are now actively recruiting American scientists. In a weird reversal
of history, American scientists are now finding refuge in Germany.
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/31/health/scientists-letter.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/science/trump-science-nas-letter.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/business/economy/trump-research-cutbacks-economy.html
https://www.amazon.ca/War-Science-Muzzled-Scientists-Blindness/dp/1771004312
We are never mgoing to recover from Harper's time in office. He set science in teh country back a long ways when he destroyed libraries
ReplyDelete