Administration Is Weakening US Research Capacity and Endangering Americans, Nation’s Leading Scientists Warn

The well-being of Americans and the United States’s longstanding position as a world leader in science and technology are in jeopardy due to the actions of the current administration, approximately 1,900 leading figures in medicine, science, and engineering warn today in an open statement to the American public. 

The list of signatories includes Nobel Prize winners, deans of medical schools, and national leaders in science and technology.

“For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world,” the experts note. “Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”

The statement is an “SOS to the public” to warn that these setbacks will forestall life-saving medical research and slow advances in science and technology that Americans rely on daily. 

The advances science has given us range from medical discoveries to smartphones, GPS, weather forecasting, and cleaner air. Weakening the US research capacity will damage the economy and diminish US global competitiveness and national security. “We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nation’s research enterprise is destroyed,” said the authors.

The statement cites a range of actions by the Trump administration, including layoffs at federal research agencies, cuts to funding that underwrites research at hundreds of universities and medical centers, and government “censorship” to alter data and research findings available to the public. 

Financial and legal threats are forcing the nation’s research institutions to pause research (including studies of new disease treatments), freeze faculty hires, and stop enrolling graduate students, “the pipeline for the next generation of scientists.” They describe a “climate of fear” among researchers, who are altering their proposals and publications to remove scientific terms objectionable to the current administration.

The statement was written by 13 scientists and physicians and endorsed by approximately 1,900 leaders in science, medicine, and engineering from 38 states and over 400 universities and research institutions, all of whom are elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

Congress established the National Academy of Sciences in 1863 as a private, nongovernmental institution tasked with advising the government on issues of science and technology. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, and the National Academy of Medicine in 1970. Election to the academies is one of the highest honors a scientist can receive. 

The authors state that the views expressed are their own and not those of the National Academies or their home institutions.

The scientists who helped produce the statement include:

Richard N. Aslin, PhD
 Senior Scientist
 Yale School of Medicine

Paula Braveman, MD, MPH
 Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine
 Founding Director, Center for Health Equity
 University of California, San Francisco

Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH
 Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology
 Director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative
 Dean Emerita Dornsife School of Public Health
 Drexel University

Marthe Gold, MD, MPH
 Senior Research Scholar
 New York Academy of Medicine
 Professor Emerita, CUNY School of Medicine

Kathleen Mullan Harris, PhD
 James E. Haar Distinguished Professor of Sociology
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Barbara Landau, PhD
 Dick and Lydia Todd Professor
 Department of Cognitive Science
 Johns Hopkins University
 
Charles F. Manski, PhD
 Board of Trustees Professor in Economics
 Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research
 Northwestern University

Douglas S. Massey, PhD
 Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Emeritus
 Princeton University

Lynn Nadel, PhD
 Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science
 University of Arizona

Benjamin David Santer, PhD
 Climate scientist
 Formerly at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Kevin Struhl, PhD
 David Wesley Gaiser Professor
 Dept. Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
 Harvard Medical School

Ray Weymann, PhD
 Carnegie Institution for Science

Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH
 Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health
 Director Emeritus, Center on Society and Health
 Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine