How Trump unleashed chaos in science
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It's only been just over a month since Donald Trump was reinstated as president. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.

And he's been busy. In the first few days, he signed dozens of executive orders, pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, leaving the World Health Organization, defining only two biological sexes and banning diversity programs.

But that was just the start. And in the following four weeks, Trump and his head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, have been slashing, cutting, firing and bringing in new policies that will change how science is done in the US, in ways that will ripple outwards and for years to come.

So today, what's happened to science in Trump's first 30 days? From The Guardian, I'm Madeleine Finlay, and this is Science Weekly.

Ian Sample, it's been over a month since Trump was once again made president and he and his administration have brought chaos to the world of science. Let's go back to the start. How did all this turmoil begin? Well, blimey, where to start? And when you think about it, you think how can so much have happened in so little time?

Early on, there was an order to pause external communications issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services. And this is this vast part of the administration that's now overseen by RFK Jr. And it includes the National Institutes of Health. It includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, and the

and the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, essentially their food and drug regulator. Okay, so that portal communications may not sound like much, but

What it meant immediately was that a lot of information from these public bodies wasn't reaching experts, it wasn't reaching the public, but it also meant that meetings were being cancelled, including the kinds of meetings where people are issuing research grants. So what that effectively does is impose restrictions

a kind of a temporary freeze on about 80%, for example, of the NIH's $47 billion budget. And actually, the journal Nature reported over the weekend that meetings are still suspended at the NIH holding up its funding. But what happened after that? In October,

late January there was a memo that was issued that instructed federal agencies to pause their funding allocations and

to ensure that they served President Trump's goals. And they were things like ending wokeness and ending, in quote marks, the weaponization of government and things like promoting efficiency, making America healthy again. So these agencies have to look at all these grants and work out whether they're

Yeah, this gets to the impact on Science of Trump's War on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI. All of this is happening because of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact of the impact

Organisations have been removing mentions of terms related to DEI from their websites, sometimes even whole webpages. And scientific papers under peer review have been withdrawn so they can scrub references to anything deemed to be to do with DEI. And now Trump is even reported to be withdrawing support for research about the climate, which

But let's get back to our timeline. There was already this uncertainty in terms of communication and funding after week one of Trump's second term. But then on the 7th of February came another major blow, the

Just before 6pm US time, a memo went up on the National Institutes of Health, the NIH website, that really shocked the scientific community. So for this one, I have to give you a bit of background. It's pretty simple stuff. I mean, when you apply for an NIH research grant, there's basically direct cost and indirect costs. So the direct costs are things like the equipment for that particular project, the salaries for the researchers and so on. The

the kit to do that research. And then there's the indirect cost or the overheads. And they're just things like maintenance of the building, money for admin. Those indirect costs, you can't pin them on a particular project, but those costs are essential for that research to be done.

Now, historically, indirect costs for a project have been about 30% of the direct costs. But you can negotiate this up. Universities like Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, they get above 60% in their indirect costs. Now, the memo that landed said that indirect costs were going to be capped at 15%, 1.5%. That is a dramatic loss of funding for universities.

universities to have to pick up. And the bottom line is many universities will not be able to pick that up or it will leave them with some really difficult decisions on what they can back and what they can't. Now, this might seem like quite a technical or niche thing, but just to emphasise, the NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world and

And so, sure, these indirect costs for things like administration, libraries, subscription to journals, keeping the lights on in the building, the Wi-Fi even, might not seem on the surface like they're critical, but they are absolutely necessary if you want to get any science done.

done. So Ian, how did the scientific community respond when they saw this memo? Some researchers thought this was a joke when they heard rumours, when they saw the first inklings of this appearing on social media. It's very far from a joke. I think there is now a level of panic among some researchers. One scientist said it would cripple the research enterprise.

But to get a sense from someone who really knows what this could mean, I got in touch with Professor Harold Varmus. Now, he's a Nobel laureate, and he was made director of the National Institutes of Health by President Bill Clinton back in the day. Now, he's also been director of the National Cancer Institute. So this is an impressive guy. And this is what he had to say on that.

We have a range of dire predictions that range from research simply not getting done now because money is not flowing. Research is not going to be done because the executive branch seems to have ideas that seem rather peculiar to me about what kind of research should be funded rather than leaving those decisions to experts.

And the NIH is responsible not just for doing research, but for maintaining the research environment. And that means, in part, training the personnel who are actually doing the research.

And that extends to another important aspect of our current concerns, and that is the traditional attraction of the U.S. as a place for people to come for training who have been traditionally responsible for much of the success of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. So the consequences of what's being done just now in the last few weeks are immense because they affect not only the immediate conduct of research,

and the effects on long-term studies like clinical trials, but also the future of science in America, which is dependent on training talent and attracting talent from abroad. Now, Ian, a federal judge has extended an order blocking the NIH cuts, so they haven't happened yet.

But our colleague, US health reporter Jessica Glenzer, described it as being like the sword of Damocles hanging over scientific research. Institutions are forced to impose spending freezes and it's casting the future of whole labs into doubt. And just

Just to go to Harold's point about staff, by mid-February, mass layoffs began across scientific agencies of employees that were still on probation. What happened there? That's right. It's been a chaotic wave of firings across US government agencies.

The Department of Health and Human Services, again, which includes the NIH, CDC and FDA, I mean, they had planned to cut over 5,000 people. And some of those got a last minute reprieve. So the number that went was smaller, but still a lot have gone. The National Science Foundation dismissed about 10% of its workforce. So there are a lot of people going.

What is very depressing and really extraordinary is the ham-handed way in which those firings have been carried out because in many cases there's no apparent deliberation, no real evaluation process. In fact, many of the people who've been laid off, and there are thousands of them at NIH, National Science Foundation, and several other agencies,

have recently had evaluations that were extremely favorable. And the evidence for incompetence or a lack of need for these people is minuscule if it exists at all.

One thing I was reflecting on, Ian, is that a lot of these people will be highly skilled, but also have a lot of very specific skills that are not easy to replace. And they're going to have families and mortgages and bills to pay. And they're now going to have to find alternative work, which won't necessarily be easy. And there's no doubt that the loss of so many people across these agencies will impact the health and safety of American citizens.

Talk me through some of the immediate consequences of what's been going on. Well, I mean, these people are under attack and they know it. And so there is uncertainty, there's fear, there's clearly chaos. I think for those who are remaining in their jobs, there must be a lot of insecurity and uncertainty over jobs.

how things are going to work from now, whether those departments are going to be able to operate properly. You've got to think that there will be projects and perhaps clinical trials that are going to be delayed. They may collapse. And a lot of the DEI programs are pretty much done for. And obviously, a lot of those programs were delayed.

trying to bring more Americans into science. And this will have long-term consequences too because you're stopping research that's critical for new developments and progress in all kinds of ways. And there are going to be a lot of young, talented people who are not going to be able to enter their chosen scientific field, particularly those who, because of these attacks on DEI, will not see themselves or be seen as welcome to

If, on top of all of that, the proposed cuts come through, this is going to have some serious economic impact, surely? Well, it's hard to know for sure because, not least with Trump, often what is said and what is suggested, sometimes what actually happens isn't quite as dramatic and as destructive as the initial comments would suggest. At the same time, you sometimes have to take the man at face value.

But just looking at how Musk cuts costs, his sort of MO seems to be that you slash really deeply and then you sort of maybe patch things up a bit later when you realise that you've maybe cut a little bit too deep.

That really doesn't work well with science. If you speak to the people who run the major scientific laboratories and organizations around the world, the main thing that they always want is a good level of keyword consistent funding. If you pull the plug on studies, on clinical trials...

You can't just plug it back in and off they go again. But look, let me just give you some figures which will just give you a sense, I hope, of the return on investment, if you want to put it that way, that you get from putting money into research. Now, some work done around 2006 showed that for the money put into the US National Institutes of Health, we're talking about $16 billion at the time,

That led to reductions in illness that saved the US economy $240 billion. So the amount of money you're putting in and the benefit you get from it in people having healthier lives

is extraordinary. This is the destruction of an environment that took 80 years to build and can be deeply damaged in the course of a very short period of time. And that is happening very rapidly. And it's already deeply upsetting. Remember, the federal government supports research done at universities and then government labs to generate ideas.

that are subject to intellectual property protection, but they're also available for the biotech industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the devices industries that depend on the flow of new ideas to develop useful commercial products. And one of the reasons America is great is because we have a very vibrant scientific enterprise and undermining that in ways that

will persist long after this administration are going to have the opposite effect on the country's reputation and its economic success and its position as an intellectual leader throughout the world.

Ian, this isn't just going to be felt in the US, is it? These days, science is a global practice. But also, frankly, some other countries may benefit if there is a brain drain from the US as scientists look elsewhere for opportunities. And also as the next generation decide where to train and set themselves up. The US reducing its scientific work is unbelievable.

surely going to have a global impact? I mean, US is obviously a scientific superpower and this will certainly have ripple effects that go beyond the US and impacting on projects that are not just within its borders. And to be doing that as a sort of scientific superpower in the world, especially when the US is so concerned about China, is an extraordinary thing to do.

This is a really difficult time for people working in science in the US and there is still a lot of uncertainty. But how should the scientific community react to what's going on? It's pretty clear that they have to fight this. The danger is that a lot of scientists, understandably, but just keep their heads down and just

hope that they can weather the storm, that the axe will fall elsewhere and somehow they will muddle through. But again, Harold was really interesting on this. People are concerned about this issue of retribution. I'm of a certain age and I no longer worry about retribution.

being told that I can't have a grant or that I'm going to be damaged in some way. So I am speaking out, but most people are hesitant to speak up because understandably they don't want to damage their own careers. I do think that more people should be speaking out for them. And I especially would like to hear more from the industries that are dependent upon NIH funding, the pharmaceutical industry, biotech industry, the industries that make chemical reagents and equipment to conduct research and

So I would like to hear more from them and then I'd like to hear more from the general public. It's interesting hearing Harold talk about wanting the public to speak out because I do think beyond the battle that lies ahead in terms of trying to stop further cuts and layoffs and fight what's happening, that actually this goes a lot deeper now.

You know, there's been a lot of effort put into eroding the trust and confidence people have in science and scientists. There's been mis- and disinformation spread about vaccines, the climate crisis. Scientists themselves have been villainised. And without that trust in science, we're all in a risky position. To me, it feels...

precarious. If you think about the COVID pandemic, what got us through that? Well, it was science, right? If you think about the climate crisis, if we are going to get through that, it's going to be science and it's going to be engineering. We have bird flu spreading around the world, causing infections in countless species, humans included. We've had the first death.

There are a lot of threats out there. And if the US isn't going to have infectious disease investigators anymore, things like that, if it's not going to be really on top of vaccinations, that feels like a very vulnerable position to be in for me. And we know that when these things hit, they are incredibly damaging and incredibly expensive.

And just to finish up, Ian, let's hear from Harold on this, because he made the point that politicians from all parties need to stand up for science too. There is no simple alliance between political party and being pro or anti-science. Indeed, in my years working in the federal government, whether it's as a trainee or at the NIH's director, our friends are on both sides of the aisle, as we call it, people who are

believe in the scientific process. People who experience disease in their own lives or in the lives of members of their families and friends don't align by party. So I'm finding it difficult to accept the idea that suddenly this is a partisan process supporting science in the scientific process.

People who are now voting in a highly partisan way because they're fearful of what our new president might do to their reelection prospects and perhaps other things as well, they have to begin to understand that country comes first before party and that the welfare of people in our country and people abroad is going to be heavily influenced by our willingness to support the scientific establishment.

Thanks to Professor Harold Varmus and of course to Ian Sample. And that's all from us. This episode was produced by me, Madeline Finlay. The sound design was by Joel Cox and the executive producer is Ellie Burey. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then.

Hello, I'm Jonathan Friedland from the Politics Weekly America podcast. Donald Trump has started his second term. It's going to be a turbulent period and The Guardian will be here covering it all. We have no billionaire owners or shareholders pulling at the purse strings. So if you can afford it, please do support us. Every contribution powers our independent journalism. Do click the link in the episode description.

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