Not so wonderful component of MAHA. How is this not much closer to MASA: Make America Stupid Again?? Why cripple biomedical research? Stupid is as stupid does.
President’s call to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has led to slashes in NIH funding – endangering jobs and vital research
www.theguardian.com
On 7 February, the administration implemented a policy that would cut NIH funding to research institutions by over two-thirds. A federal judge has since blocked the cuts –
for now.
‘A scary time to be a scientist’: how medical research cuts will hurt the maternal mortality crisis
Biomedical scientists depend on the NIH to fund their employment. Many are expected to cover a large proportion of their own salaries with NIH grants. Scientists studying neuroscience, diabetes, autism and bird flu became emotional as they spoke to the Guardian about the possibility of losing their life’s work.
“For the last 50 to 75 years, the NIH has been the biggest
funder of biomedical research in the world. Most advances in medicine, at some point, were seeded by NIH funding. And when we became scientists, we just bought into this system. This is how it works. There is this long term support,” said
John Tuthill, who runs a neuroscience lab at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Tuthill was scheduled to give a seminar to the NIH on 3 February, and had already travelled to Washington DC when he was informed the talk was cancelled due to a Trump administration directive
banning communication between federal health agencies and the public. The ban was supposed to be lifted on 1 February. It wasn’t.
“This is the pain that the people are feeling within NIH trickling outside to affect the rest of us,” he said.
Tuthill is now re-evaluating plans, as cuts threaten the entirety of his specialized field. His parents were planning to move to Seattle to be closer to their granddaughter. Now, they are not sure it makes sense. Tuthill is considering jobs abroad.
“If science in the US collapses, it would be very hard for people to leave the country and get work, because a significant fraction of the top scientists in the world are here, and there’s not a lot of room for the rest of the world to absorb that,” he said.
It’s not just jobs cut and agencies gutted. It’s the talent that will be lost for generations to come.
www.thebulwark.com
“One might ask, ‘Why are they trying to destroy the science training pipeline?’” that professor said. “To what end?”
