Cnn
–
Scientists, professors and staff from Emory University received an alarming email on Saturday: an announcement of financing ceilings of the National Institutes of Health meant that scientists and their laboratories in research institutions in the United States should tighten their belts.
For the Atlanta -based school, a pre -eminent research university specializing in health and medicine – including cancer, vaccines and drugs to prevent and treat HIV – the new federal ceiling will reduce the funding of $ 140 million per dollars per dollars per dollars per dollars per dollars per year.
“To put it simply, this evolution could affect almost all the academic units of Emory, with immediate and long -term consequences for our scientific research, our clinical trials, our care for patients and in other academic activities,” said declared the memo.
It is only one of the large-scale effects of the effects of President Donald Trump’s races that threaten to slow down or stop research on health and science in the United States, risking the well-being of Americans and Ending the country in danger of delaying critical advances.
In the many federal agencies that finance or conduct scientific research – or use science to make rules affecting human health, the environment and public security – several scientists describe to CNN and on social networks. licensed or losing funding.
Universities that study at the level of the breakthrough are rushing to understand the effects because their financing agencies reduce their budgets.
In its last blow – and what caused email to Emory staff and researchers – the Trump administration delivered a large Friday evening, capping the costs that research institutions can charge to the government to maintain the Laboratories, equipment, administrators and examination councils they need to conduct the country’s advanced studies.
Twenty-two states announced on Monday that they were continuing the Trump administration for “trying to illegally reduce subsidies” in research institutions.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services has the power to bring these changes, its communications director Andrew Nixon, told CNN by e -mail – and even think that the institutions make the funds they have already received , although he has not yet been left so far.
“Our administration wants to help America to have the best research in the world, and we think that by ensuring that more hundred on each dollar go directly to science and not in administrative heard, we can do another step in this direction “Said Nixon.
“These are funds used to keep, I literally say, to help keep the lights at university,” said Katie Edwards, who heads the Research Laboratory on Interpersonal Violence at the University of Michigan. “Without having sufficient funding, I do not know how many universities will continue to be in the leading research institutions in the world, very frankly.”
An official of the White House defended the actions of the administration, adding that he has an “audit” of what federal funding leaves the door.
“Assuming that this work is not serious … or there is nothing malicious, we do an audit process,” said the manager. “I understand that there is a feeling of concern here, but it is not an anti-science administration.”
The federal government finances around 40% of fundamental research carried out in the United States, according to The National Science Foundation; Pulling this financing pipeline would give a paralyzing blow not only to American universities, but to progress in cancer research, climate science and more.
Beyond universities, the federal government itself Funds and supports advanced sciences at the NIH. Researchers have been informed that they could not hire new trainees to help carry out their studies, not review scientific articles or write comments in medical journals and cannot advertise to recruit Participants for their clinical trials, according to the details of internal communications by CNN.
Edwards, at the University of Michigan, employs around 50 research assistants. His work focuses on prevention of sexual violence in disadvantaged young people, including LGBTQ children and transgender children. In the past two weeks, she has released a subsidy proposal to NIH, without any guide on her fate. He was told to stop working on another study, although this order was finally reversed by an injunction of the court.
She says that confusion and uncertainty have been devastating.
“We have an intervention study which is intended to prevent depression and suicide and other negative results in young people, and it would be extremely dangerous for us to stop in the middle of a clinical trial. I mean, literally, it could cost lives, ”she added.
In addition to financing cuts, the staff of federal agencies – including scientists – receives mass emails inviting them to leave their jobs for so -called buyouts. In response to a question of knowing if they could find another job while being inserted, the email encouraged him: “The way to greater American prosperity is to encourage people to pass jobs of Lower sector productivity. ”
“So I’m going to do my NIH work with low productivity, inhibiting American prosperity,” a health researcher told CNN.
A survey created by public health researchers to document the repercussions of Trump’s executive actions has generated more than 3,000 responses. About 80% of those who responded to the survey said they received direct federal funding.
Another alarming effect of actions: certain health research laboratories abroad could be closed – laboratories that monitor harmful infections that could evolve towards the next world pandemic.
Another security study at an early stage, which tested the vaginal rings to prevent HIV and pregnancy among women in South Africa, was suddenly interrupted, forcing researchers to jostle to contact 17 participants in the study.
“We had to make phone calls to these participants almost immediately and tell them to come to the clinic,” said Leila Mansoor, senior scientist of the Center for Aids Program of Research in South Africa.
“We had to withdraw these rings, even if they were only in the trial, for example, a few weeks, when they really registered to be in the trial and use a ring for a month,” said Mansoor .
The withdrawal of emergency violated the trust of the study participants, she said, and presented years of work to reach this point from the trial. Mansoor said they were looking for alternative sources of funding but do not know if they can keep their doors open.
“The political agenda really leads to damage to researchers and sciences, which are collateral damage,” she said.
One of the fears that spread in the scientific community is that impartial scientific work will be imbued with politics – to the point that projects could be chosen for funding according to the question of whether the researchers support Trump.
“We want to be able to continue this non -partisan work,” a coastal researcher works with the NOAA. “People fear that you are not considered not only sympathetic, but a supporter (Trump administration) if you want to be funded.”
Independent scientific advice which advise federal agencies on the regulations they develop have also been affected.
Last week, all members of the Scientific Advisory Council and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, two independent panels who advise the Environmental Protection Agency, were also rejected – something that happened during Trump’s first mandate.
The decision to “reset” the members of the two committees “seeks to reverse the politicization of Sab and Casac produced by the previous administration,” said EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou, in a statement.
Jeremy Sarnat, professor of environmental health and the most recent president of the scientific advisory committee of clean air, rejected this notion, affirming that he had never seen politicization within the committees.
“I am not a politician; I’m just an air pollution scientist, “he told CNN. “I am not interested in the policy of this.”
The dismissal of the board of directors launches its work on lead and nitrogen oxides in the limbo, as well as its upcoming work on ozone.
“The work on each of these pollutants will be delayed while the administration finds new members for these committees,” said Sarnat.
Membership of these independent advisory groups has fluctuated from administration to administration. Biden EPA’s administrator Michael Rejea, added and replaced members of the two committees after Biden took office in 2021.
The independent committees are important because the laws governing the work of the EPA forced him to use “the best science available”, said Chris Frey, a scientist who served in the EPA Biden and sat on both advice during previous administrations. This science is part of the development of regulations on several chemicals, pollutants and warming emissions from the planet.
“They are there in good government and good scientific practice,” he said. “This is really the integrity and protection of the public.”
Frey said he was concerned about what happened in the first weeks of the Trump administration and suggested that, unlike the Republican presidents or previous democrats, he “looked outside the law”.
“They are much more aggressive now. They try to put science or censor it, “said Frey.
Neha Mukherjee of CNN contributed to this report.