Attacks against efforts to diversify the sciences. Research grant terminations. Fear among scientists to denounce the government. Cup with international aid.
It was a long list of concerns shared by three research leaders when they discussed the state of American sciences at the Breakthrough West of Stat summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.
“What would I not be worried about?” Susan Desmond-Hellmann, member of the board of directors of Pfizer and Openai, said when she was asked what she would be worried about whether she was a biotechnological framework at the moment. “When you are an innovative industry, you need a very solid fundamental research group and scientist. You need to carry out clinical trials that are often global. It is difficult to do global work when other countries are not very satisfied with us, or you have problems with immigration and things of this nature. So, from the R&D point of view, there are a lot of problems. ”
A large part of the conversation focused on the highest head of health in the country, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who appeared at the audiences held by Home And Senate Committees a few hours earlier. While Kennedy told members of the Chamber that his opinions on vaccines were “out of words”, the three panelists expressed their concern that his skeptical rhetoric of vaccines could harm the threats of infectious diseases such as measles or bird flu.
“We are about to lose our status of elimination (of measles), and more than half of the states have cases of measles,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who has called Kennedy to resign. “And we have a secretary who promotes a toxic vitamin that causes hepatic toxicity in children, vitamin A. We do not use science. We have dismantled the public health infrastructure. ”
Panelists have also discussed how people can defend research and slow down science disturbances. Desmond-Hellmann, who is a former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said that the proceedings are important: “The judiciary always seems to work.” She also urged the participants to “vote, go to the elections – I am not kidding. I think that is what the real change looks like. ”
Benjamin and the third panelist, Eric Rubin, editor -in -chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, were both involved with legal challenges In the past few weeks. Everyone received a letter from the American interim prosecutor from the Columbia district, Edward R. Martin Jr., on alleged prejudices. Martin has since been removed as a Trump choice for the American lawyer, and the impact of letters is not clear.
Nejm replied to the letter By affirming his commitment to the recommendations based on evidence and editorial independence. The American Journal of Public Health, of which Benjamin is a publisher, had not previously disclosed a letter. “They threatened (we), by the way, we also received a letter,” he said. “We have returned the same answer (like Nejm) who said:” We do not agree with you “,” said Benjamin.
“We are going to have them followed by the law,” he said, noting that the APHA has filed five prosecution against the Trump administration so far who have made the judges block the actions. “So we try our best to slow them down and have the law follow.”
A teacher at the start of his career asked for advice on how to sail in the current situation. After a break, Rubin joked: “Have you considered an alternative career?”
Despite the dark mood of the panel, there was a certain optimism which offered cuts – like a 40% reduced to the National Institutes of Health Budget Proposed in the budgetary demand of President Trump at the Congress – would not be transpired.
“On the plane here, I wrote a subsidy of NIH, because it’s like the lottery. You cannot win unless you buy a ticket and who knows what will happen,” said Rubin. “So I would not discourage anyone from writing a subsidy, despite the horrible atmosphere you are talking about.”