Some 1,900 leading researchers accused the Trump administration in a open letter Monday of the conduct of a “wholesale assault on American science” which could withdraw research by decades and which threatens the health and safety of the Americans.
The signatories of the letter, all elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, warned against the damage caused by dismissals in health and science agencies and the cuts and delays in funding which historically supported research within the government and in American universities.
“For more than 80 years, judicious investments in the United States government have built the country’s research company, which makes it the desire for the world,” said the letter. “Surprisingly, the Trump administration destabilizes this company by avoiding the financing of research, in dismissing thousands of scientists, deleting public access to scientific data and by putting pressure on researchers to modify or abandon their work for ideological reasons.”
The letter indicated that many research universities and institutions have so far “remained silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and compromising their funding”. But, he said, “the country’s scientific company is decimated.”
The signatories called on the Americans to call on the congress to protect scientific funding.
With Elon Musk’s efforts to reduce President Trump’s expenses and repression against institutions he considers ideological enemies, the administration sought to dismantle parts of the federal government’s scientific financing apparatus.
The funding of the National Institutes of Health, which supports the work of more than 300,000 scientists across the country, has dropped billions of dollars in typical levels during the first months of the Trump administration.
The White House has also decided to cancel research in specific areas, such as transgender health and climate science.
The Trump administration announced last week that it had dismissed 10,000 employees in the Department of Health and Social Services as part of a large reorganization which reflected the priorities of the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The department hired a skeptical Vide-Vaccin Disritité to seek a link, long demystified by scientists, between vaccines and autism. Friday, the best regulator of the country’s vaccine resigned, citing the “disinformation and lies” of Mr. Kennedy.
In recent weeks, members of the National Academy of Medicine, a non -profit organization that provides independent health policy advice, began to discuss their concerns with members of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.
These conversations gave birth to the open letter, said Dr. Steven Woolf, an organizer of the letter that studies health policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.
The letter was written by a group of 13 scientists representing fields such as medicine, climate science, sociology and economics.
“I know what it will do to life expectancy in the United States, mortality rates, the mental health crisis we have,” said Dr. Woolf. “These changes in the research business will result in damage to everyday Americans.”
Dr. Woolf cited, for example, the planned restructuring of the Agency for Research and the Quality of Health Care, a small agency responsible for protecting patient safety and guaranteeing that Americans have access to free preventive services such as mammograms.
“The agency responsible for protecting the quality of health care in the United States has just been demolished,” said Dr. Woolf.
The letter describes the consequences of funding reductions, including breaks on research studies, teacher dismissals and registration for graduate students.
He also accuses the administration of “engaging in censorship” by, among other things, “blocking research on subjects which he finds reprehensible, such as climate change, or which gives results that it does not like, on subjects ranging from the safety of vaccines to economic trends.”