I’ve spent over five decades as a scientist in academia and the federal government, including as director of the National Institutes of Health. Never before have I seen my profession so politicized as it is now under the Trump administration.
Historically, Americans of all political persuasions have respected science and celebrated its breakthroughs. In my field, these range from discovering the fundamental mechanisms of cancer to the development of drugs that improve and extend people’s lives.
And yet, for baffling reasons, the executive branch is now waging war on America’s scientific enterprise. This assault includes nominating leaders hostile to science and unqualified for their roles; issuing a barrage of executive orders that disrupt research by restricting meetings, publications, travel and grant making; censoring ideas and even certain words from scientific discourse; and trying to withhold billions of dollars from universities and other research institutions that help pay the costs of research.
Since 1945, when President Franklin Roosevelt’s science adviser, Vannevar Bush, outlined a blueprint for national research, government agencies have funded basic science conducted at universities, research institutions and government laboratories. Companies then turn their results into products that drive economic growth and improve our lives. In this way, the United States has come to lead the world in nearly all fields of science and technology. The rewards have been evident in virtually every aspect of human life, including medicine, agriculture, national defense and manufacturing.
This process has never been free of disagreement. Interested parties have argued over many things: How much funding should each federal science agency receive from Congress? How should the agencies spend that money? How should grant applications be evaluated? Who owns the products of research? What kinds of research should be exempted from federal support?
These questions are routine, and their answers have shifted across administrations. But one thing has remained constant: Regardless of their personal views on contentious topics, members of the executive and legislative branches have long seen themselves as caretakers of a precious commodity — the nation’s scientific and technological communities.
Today is very different. Scientists working within the federal government or at federally funded research institutions are wondering how their work can possibly continue.
Several of the people nominated to lead federal health and science agencies are hostile to the institutions and people they are meant to serve. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the country’s most notorious vaccine critics, is now the health secretary — despite his history of spreading misinformation, his disparagement of the Department of Health and Human Services staff and his bizarre and immature behavior.
Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman tapped to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has pushed the long-debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a health economist nominated to direct the N.I.H., the world’s largest supporter of medical research, seems to harbor grievances against critics of his ideas to forgo certain public health measures to curb Covid-19. He is reportedly considering an outlandish plan that would make institutions accused of stifling “academic freedom” less likely to receive N.I.H. funding.
Such nominations seem unsuitable and yet remain consistent with the Trump administration’s other actions to kneecap America’s science and health security. President Trump is withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and is dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. Immigration policies are making America an unattractive destination for talented foreign students who have long contributed to our success in science and technology.
Efforts made last week to deprive universities and other research institutions of billions of N.I.H. dollars needed to support scientific infrastructure have been at least temporarily blocked in the courts. But they reveal the extent to which the new administration is willing to go to disable our scientific enterprise.
This is a time to reflect on the marvels of science, in which America has played a leading role. The wonder of unveiling the genetic blueprint of life. The painstaking brilliance behind deciphering how cells respond to their environment and infectious invaders. If the attacks on our scientists and their institutions are allowed to continue, our envisioned future of longer, healthier lives will happen more slowly, in other countries, or not at all.
Perhaps what’s most disheartening is what feels like the absence of widespread opposition to this unraveling. Thankfully, in a few situations, judges have stepped in, but there have not been the kinds of public demonstrations in support of science that occurred, with less provocation, in Mr. Trump’s first term. Industries reliant on new scientific discoveries to maintain their global market share have largely remained quiet. Republican members of Congress, even those who have typically supported federally financed science, have been subservient to party directives.
Preventing this destruction will require at least two actions. Americans who value the spirit of discovery — and eagerly await new ways to confront disease, strengthen our economy and improve the quality of human life — need to issue a strong outcry. And legislators must exercise their constitutional responsibilities to oppose unqualified candidates for important federal positions, constrain damaging actions by the executive branch and give science agencies the resources needed to do their jobs. This is not a fight that our country can afford to lose.
Harold Varmus is a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. He shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in medicine for the discovery of cancer genes and was the director of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
