In Ezra Klein and Derk Thompson new book Abundance – which maybe YOU heard of – They tell the story of Katalin Karikó, the American Hungarian scientist whose work has finally led to mRNA vaccines.
When the research center for which she worked in Hungary lost its state funding in the early 1980s, Karikó left her homeland, selling her car for 900 British pounds and covering money in the teddy bear of her daughter so that her family has something to live on. As countless other researchers around the world, she has found her way to the country where a scientist had the best chance of finding funding and supporting to advance their work: America.
Thompson and Klein, one of the founders of Vox, mainly use the history of Karikó to illustrate the way in which risk aversion hides science. Karikó was convinced that mRNA could be exploited for new types of treatments and vaccines, but she lived rejection after the rejection of short -sighted subvenients to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was only when the cocovated pandemic struck that the enormous value of the work of Karikó’s mRNA was finally recognized. THE Arnm vaccines finally saved No less than 20 million people in one year, and Karikó won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2023.
Even before her years of rejection in the American academic world, if Karikó had never been able to immigrate, she might never have been able to continue her research in the first place. Perhaps we would never have had mRNA vaccines-or even if we had done, they would have been the product of another nation, which would have collected the advantages that were finally gone to the United States.
Instead, Karikó is part of a long line of foreign scientists, with the support of the university system and unequaled government support from America, reached the greatness that took advantage of him as well as his adopted country. THE The United States has won more Nobel Prize in the Sciences that any other country from afar, and Immigrant scientists have won more than a third of these pricesA proportion that has only increased in recent years.
America has become a scientific colossus not only because it has spent more than any other nation for research and developmentBut because he made a magnet for world scientific talents, superstar researchers to modest junior scientists like Karikó. This, in turn, resulted in a huge economic advantage. According to a study, the research and development financed by the government was responsible for 25% productivity growth since the end of the Second World War.
Now the Trump administration strives to destroy it all Catastrophic financing cuts And Nativist immigration policies obviously. And the result will be nothing less than an act of national suicide.
That’s why money is for
There was no shortage of cover of Financing section that the Elon Musk Government Ministry of the Government asked American science. The NIH announced in February that it Reduce the indirect costs it covers for academic researchThis would lead to a reduction of some $ 4 billion in the budget of approximately $ 50 billion in NIH; More cuts have been announced later. Hundreds of subsidies Who go to research in the fields that the Trump administration seems to believe to be controversial – like HIV – have been downright canceled. Thousands of government scientists in agencies Like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Ministry of Health and Social Services have been dismissed. Universities see hundreds of millions Subsidies for threatened scientific research on campus policies.
It’s very bad. The power of the dollar has always been a key ingredient in American scientific domination, returning to the huge advances of the country during the Second World War. (As important as geniuses like J. Robert Oppenheimer were the development of the atomic bomb, the United States finally arrived first because it had the resources, as the The physicist Niels Bohr saidTo transform the whole country into a factory for nuclear materials.) Universities have already used Hiring freezes to cope with the cutsAnd some even cancel the admission offers to doctoral students. Some young scientists can simply leave the field completely, potentially depriving us of future Karikós.
But there has already been some success to repel these cuts. Friday, a federal judge constantly prohibit the Trump administration from limiting funding NIH to support university research, although the decision is almost sure to be on appeal. And even if funding is reduced, future administrations could restore it, while other sources of money can be found in the meantime. What the Trump administration does with funding is a bodily blow to American science, but it is not necessary to be fatal.
What is happening with immigration policy, however, is another matter.
The Trump administration did not hide the fact that it deliberately targets foreign students in the United States which was involved – sometimes only on periphery – in pro -Palestinian demonstrations. Mahmoud Khalil, a holder of green cards from Algeria who was a graduate student at Columbia University, is currently seated in detention In Louisiana after his arrest by immigration and customs agents. Another international student, Rümeysa Öztürk from Tofts Universitywas arrested and planned to expel, apparently for the co-writing crime of a newspaper editorial criticizing the actions of Israel in Gaza.
But these are only the most publicized cases. The New York Times reported this week that nearly 300 international students in the United States universities had their The visas suddenly revoked and could face the deportation. (This figure could be higher when you read this – whenever I clicked on the title yesterday, the number of visas revoked increased.) There was also Harassment and detention reports of foreigners Legally crossing the American border, which adds to a state of fear for all non-citizens.
A few hundred students may not seem so much, given that the United States has granted more than 400,000 visas in 2024 only. But the administration’s message, which is also apparently Browse the social media of students’ visa candidates For the proof of “hostile attitudes” towards America or Israel, is clear: we do not want you here. And students and scientists listen to.
In a recent newspaper survey Nature more than 1,200 scientists In the United States, three-quarters said they were planning to leave the country. This was particularly true for young scientists who should train the next avant-garde of American research. Foreign scientists who could otherwise come to the United States for short-term conferences or posts are Rethink these plansFrightened – with reason – they could find themselves inside an ice detention center. Other countries like China and Canada are already Make openings to scientists in the United StatesBecause they are intelligent enough to seize an opportunity when they see one. Like a recent The opinion of time put itThe actions of the Trump administration “could mean the disappearance of America as the most powerful force for innovation in science, health and technology in the 21st century”.
Could they be replaced by American students? Don’t bet on it.
In 2017, International students represented 54% of master’s degrees And 44% of the doctorates granted this year in the STEM domains. For some particularly important subjects, the percentage is even higher: in 2019, 72% IT graduate students were international. At the same time, the number of Americans of authoritarian origin are part of STEM programs remained stagnant. American students scored below that their counterparts in 36 other educational systems on international mathematics tests in 2018, and only one American student at the five college is considered Ready for college level STEM lessons.
Putting foreign scientists who are here and close the door to those who come to cause incalculable damage to the United States. Jeremy Neufeld of the Institute for Progress called the Recruitment of brilliant immigrant scientists in the United States The “secret ingredient” in American dynamism. A study in 2022 revealed that immigrants represented 36% Total innovation in the United States Since 1990, as measured by patents, while more than half of the US startups of billions of dollars in the past 20 years have an immigrant co-founder.
And now, apparently, we don’t want it anymore.
A shop industry recently emerged by trying to give meaning to the apparently insane actions of Trump and Musk. A theory is that Musk does what he has often done in his businesses: cutting things to the bone, then adapting to what he sees what breaks.
This can work – Musk has not built companies of several billion dollars like Tesla and SpaceX by accident – but it depends on the possibility of seeing the effects of what is cut immediately, through a quick information feedback loop. If Musk makes a change for a SpaceX rocket and he explodes, well, there is his answer.
But as Klein said on a recent podcast“The government does not have very fast feedback loops.” And this is particularly true for something as long term as scientific financing and talent.
Katalin Karikó came to the United States in 1985, but it was only 35 years later that his true value as a scientist was confirmed. We may not immediately feel the impact of fewer foreign scientists who come to the United States and stay here, but the impact is real. We will feel it when we see scientists from other countries winning Nobel prizes when China detaches us in vital areas like biotechnology And IAWhen we have trouble finding people and ideas that can create the next companies beating around the world. We will feel it when America just becomes another country.
A version of this story appeared originally in the Future perfect Bulletin. Register here!