Top scientists warn that Trump policies are causing a 'climate of fear' in research
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Nearly 2,000 leading American scientists, including dozens of Nobel Prize winners, have issued a stark warning that the U.S. lead in science is being "decimated" by the Trump administration's cuts to research and a growing "climate of fear" that jeopardizes independent research.
An open letter from members of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made public on Monday outlines grave concerns.
"A climate of fear has descended on the research community," the letter says. Researchers fearing for their jobs are "removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms (such as 'climate change') that agencies are flagging as objectionable."
"Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care," the letter says. "We count on engineers when we drive across bridges and fly in airplanes. Businesses and farmers rely on science and engineering for product innovation, technological advances, and weather forecasting. Science helps humanity protect the planet and keeps pollutants and toxins out of our air, water, and food."
As the administration cuts federal funding for scientific agencies, ends grants to scientists and defunds laboratories, there is "real danger in this moment," the authors say. "[T]he nation's scientific enterprise is being decimated."
In recent weeks, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has halted consideration of new grant applications and delayed decisions about funding disease research. As of Tuesday, layoff notices were also going out at NIH and FDA, but details were not immediately known.
In addition, the Trump White House's effort to eliminate what it views as "woke" initiatives have included banning words and phrases such as "health disparities" and "climate science." Just days ago, the NIH also rescinded a scientific integrity policy aimed at thwarting political interference in order to "ensure alignment with the Administration's priorities."
"We're seeing this across sectors in which the government is exerting pressure to make changes that conform with ideological perspectives rather than ... intellectual independence," according to Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University, who is a co-author of the letter.
"The very research that would help improve our health is being defunded," he says. "This is likely to have the opposite effect."
In one instance, a public health study about inequities in smoking for rural young adults was withdrawn from publication in Public Health Reports , the official journal of the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service . The study's authors say that after the paper was accepted for publication, editors instructed them to remove language relating to gender and sexual orientation, citing compliance with Trump's executive order.
As a result, study co-author Tamar Antin, director of the Center for Critical Public Health , says she and her colleagues opted to withdraw publication in the peer-reviewed journal.
"The expectation that we would remove that information really felt like political interference in science and in fact, was clearly interference in science," she says.
Antin says she and her fellow researchers plan to submit the paper elsewhere, but "we will not be submitting it to a journal that is supported by the federal government at this time, because this is a sign to us that they are not upholding principles of scientific integrity."
NPR reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Public Health Reports about the study's withdrawal and the scientists' open letter but did not immediately receive a reply.
The assault on scientific inquiry is unlike anything that Dr. Ana V. Diez Roux, a professor of epidemiology at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, says she has seen in her 30 years of research. Like Woolf, Roux is a co-author of the open letter.
"I think this is what's so shocking — it's arbitrary cuts to research, federally funded research, completely arbitrary and sudden cuts to projects that have been approved and reviewed by committees of scientists," Roux says.
She says she's concerned that the Trump administration's stifling of scientific freedom could have a chilling effect on the future of science in the U.S.
"I fear that we are going to lose our ability to attract these very, very capable young scientists," she says.
"In the past they have made careers in the United States and have contributed to the health of the American people in many ways and globally," Roux says. "Now, [they may] feel that they're no longer welcome here."
VCU's Woolf agrees, saying public investment in U.S. science since the end of World War II has made it "the envy of the world."
But that could easily be undone, he cautions. "The broad, sweeping effects of the administration's attack on … our research infrastructure is going to affect the lives of Americans in diverse ways," he says. "And the effects are likely to be long-lasting."
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Can't wait till they get to the center of all that's true Creation Museum.
the POS/POTUS will never outlive any respected scientific research protocol ...
Already there AND supported by tax dollars.
Ken Ham’s Ark Park Floats On A Sea Of Taxpayer Subsidies
Is that another form of TARDIS? 'cause that aint nearly big enough on the outside...
biggest example of fraud, waste, and abuse or as we said in military jargon FWA
Not to mention it is falling apart because of "bad weather".
"In one instance, a public health study about inequities in smoking for rural young adults"
And they call this important scientific research?!
I recall one fine scientist researching grasshoppers instinctive reactions to visual stimuli by holding them in a device in front of screenings of Star Wars films, her research led to automatic vehicle driving technologies ... one never knows what research will blossom into.
Some peoples kids...
Of course it is going to have a chilling effect on multiple fronts, not just scientific studies. The President is trying to bully through numerous laws and the constitution to set up his own, personal fiefdom of graft and corruption. He is no better than an out of control mafia boss.
Just let the scientists and researchers do what they do best....SCIENCE!
Science should have no political influences at all. Shut up climate science deniers
From The New Yorker
So they're crying they aren't getting the FUNDING. There are other methods to fund research outside of taxpayer handouts.
From The New Yorker
What the current administration "upended" was the funding. As I said, there are other methods to fund research outside of taxpayer handouts.
Investment, not handout.
No matter how you decide to spin it, it was the funding cut.
Tell it to Elon, he's received $38billion from taxpayer 'handouts'.
Under what administration was that initially awarded?
Does it matter?
The last administration that awarded any of Elon's companies a contract was Biden. Try again?
Yes, yes it does
And now it's the Trump administration's term. You really think he's doing all of this DOGE b.s. for nothing? He's gotta be bored out of his mind.
Doesn't change what administration awarded the contract.
He's not taking a salary for his work with DOGE. If you think he is, show your proof.
Enjoy your next yard sale on the White House grounds.
And that's what I expected.
Say goodbye to any medical advances for Cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or any other serious affliction. They cannot research and develop without funding or expertise.
Trump didn't "drain the swamp", he drained all hope for cures.
Massive cuts to HHS, FDA, CDC, and Universities and other related funding means slow pandemic response, slower drug development, slower response to food contamination, and slow development toward any advances in fighting disease.
The last admin's science goons just waged war against scientists who stood up for the truth against the heavy handed attempts to call the lab leak theory a conspiracy for political reasons. Some scientists themselves censor their own work to ensure they are pushing the correct narratives. The idea that the Trump admin is cusing a climate of fear is laughable.
I am beyond tired of people attempting to blame their own fear on somebody else.
Fear is a choice. If someone is afraid, that is their decision.