(Press-News.org) The wellbeing of Americans and the country’s longstanding position as a world leader in science and technology are in jeopardy due to the actions of the Trump 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 U.S. 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
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This news release is being posted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center on behalf of the scientists who signed the statement.
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