‘A disaster for all of us’: US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts | US news

“OThe ability to respond to climate change, the greatest existential threat confronted with humanity, is completely drifting, “said Sally Johnson, land scientist who has spent the last two decades to collect, store and distribute data to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the NOAA (National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration).

Donald Trump’s assault on science – but in particular climate science – has led to unprecedented financing reductions and personnel layoffs between agencies and programs funded by the federal government, threatening to derail research on the most urgent problems for Americans and humanity more widely. A generation of scientific talents is also about to be lost, with unprecedented political interference in what was previously focused on evidence by putting the future of American industries and economic growth.

Johnson was one of the dozens of scientists conducting vital research in a range of fields of infectious diseases, robotics, education, IT and the climate crisis, which responded to a Guardian online call to share their experiences on the impact of the Trump administration reductions to scientific funding.

Many have said that they had already had finished funding or programs, while others fear that the cuts will be inevitable and begin to seek alternative work – abroad or outside science. Until now, the cuts have led to a 60% reduction in the Johnson team, and fear accumulates during the future of 30 years of climate data and expertise, because communities across the country are beaten by extreme weather events increasingly destructive.

“We cannot allow ourselves to continue to provide free and quality tools and services to make our data stores available, visible, usable and accessible. We may even not be able to keep all the data … This will mean worse forecasts and less effective research and rescue responses leading to unnecessary and avoidable loss of life, “said Johnson (not his real name).

Trump One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) calls for a 56% reduction in the current budget of $ 9 billion on the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as a 73% reduction in staff and scholarships – with graduate students.

The NSF is the first federal investor in fundamental sciences and engineering, and more than 1,650 subsidies have also been terminated, according to Grant Watch, non -profit monitoring funded by the federal government under the Trump administration. At the request of Trump, the hardest blow is the studies aimed at treating the unequal impact of the climate crisis and other environmental dangers, as well as all the projects perceived as having a link with diversity, equity or inclusion (DEI).

An anthropologist who is looking for the impact of floods and cyclones on public health and food supplies in Madagascar, which is among the most vulnerable nations in the world to the climate crisis but which has contributed practically nothing to the disaster, leaves Johns Hopkins at the University of Oxford after the funding of the rest of its scholarship.

“I am devastated to leave family, friends and graduate students that I supervise in the United States, but it seemed to be the only way to continue working that I have been pursuing for more than 10 years. I work to improve climate attenuation and adaptation in an African country. After Trump was elected, the writing was on the wall. There is no way that I can write grant applications that will be acceptable to this government. ”

A researcher of veterans’ infectious diseases of Ohio State University was forced to abandon a clinical trial for a new drug to treat hypoxemic respiratory insufficiency in patients who are cowped after funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) halfway through the study.

The decision will save $ 500,000, but 1.5 million dollars had already been spent on the trial which, according to researchers, would lead to new treatment options for approximately one million people hospitalized with respiratory failure each year due to flu, flu, cocvid and other infections. The trial should be repeated from the start, in order to request the approval of the FDA.

“It’s a disaster for all of us. We are all depressed and live on a knife, because we know that we could lose the rest of our subsidies every day. These people really hate us, but everything we have done is to work hard to improve people’s health. A flu pandemic arrives for us, “said the Ohio scientist.

Between 90 and 95% of their laboratory work is funded by the NIH. Until now, more than 3,500 subsidies have been terminated or frozen by the NIH. Trump’s budget proposes to reduce the financing of NIHs by more than 40%.

The majority of scientists who contacted have described themselves to feel anxious and discouraged – of their own work if the cuts continue, but also from what seems an inevitable loss of talent and knowledge that could upset the American position as a world leader in scientific efforts and ricochet for the years to come.

The brain’s flight is real. The Australian Academy of Sciences directs the country’s efforts to proactively recruit the best American scientists, creating a new global talent program that includes research funding, access to Australian research infrastructure, accelerated visas and a relocation set. At least 75 scientists applied in the first three months of the program, the AAS told the Guardian.

The Trump administration has accused universities, without proof, of promoting radical thinking and the search on the left, but the federal funds form scientists who work for oil and gas, mining, chemicals, large technologies and other industries.

Several respondents said the private sector was also starting to feel the training effect for Trump cuts and prices. Wessel van den Bergh, a scientist of materials with a doctorate, worked on battery storage technology for a renewable energy company belonging to the Chinese in Massachusetts. He was dismissed in early June in the middle of Trump’s price chaos and attacks on science and renewable energies, and has trouble finding work.

“When I started my doctoral program, America was at the forefront of batteries / energy storage, but this is no longer true due to prices, financing reductions and aggression to green alternatives.

Trump supports the expansion of fossil fuels and has received millions of dollars of campaign donations from the oil, gas and coal industry, while its budgetary legislation has dismissed incentives for solar and wind energy.

“It’s overwhelming, I no longer see a clear path to come. I no longer think that this country values science. It is really heartbreaking to build your vocation on something that could really benefit the world so that it is canceled for the imagined political victories … In particular at a time when this type of technologies is the only way to get out of the climatic criesis, “said Van Den Bergh.

In addition, the University of Illinois nuclear physics laboratory (NPL) came into contact after the recent Guardian survey on chaos at the NSF. For almost 100 years, the NPL has been at the forefront of advanced sciences in the discovery of drugs, cancer treatments, pet analyzes and other medical diagnoses and semiconductor tests, researchers playing a key role in global renown institutions such as CERN and Los Alamos. It is a major hub to feed and train future talents, and at least 50 students have obtained a doctorate in the past 20 years.

It was here that Rosalind Yalow obtained his doctorate in nuclear physics in 1945, then invented radio -immunodosage – a technique to detect tiny amounts of hormones, viruses and blood medications that have revolutionized medical tests for conditions such as diabetes. Yalow received the Nobel Prize in 1977, only the second woman to win it.

The laboratory has recently been informed that the NSF will reduce funding which supports graduate students of $ 15 million for four years to $ 1 million for one year.

“Our Illinois nuclear physics group is actually prior to the NSF foundation in 1950, and we have a long history of producer scientists and accelerator technologies that have had an impact on a large number of people,” said Anne M Sickles, professor of nuclear physics.

“If you reduce funding for people who do the work right now, you don’t know what they would have innovated in 10 or 15 years or 32 like Rosalind Yalow. We don’t know what we lose.”

The NFS refused to comment, while the management and budget and NIH office did not respond.