Trump’s calculated assault on science

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/01/2025 (295 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mere hours from taking the oath of office, U.S. President Donald Trump executed a blitzkrieg against science, freezing all activity in the science-funding agencies across the federal government. The research enterprise in the crown jewels of American science, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is stopped dead in its tracks.

We don’t know yet whether this a temporary pause or permanent closure, but damage is already being inflicted. Grant review panels are halted, meaning no new research funding and layoffs of scientists. And all the science agencies are being muzzled, with external communication banned.

The NIH is the world’s largest publicly funded science agency, with a budget of nearly US$50 billion annually. That dwarfs the Canadian equivalent, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and its budget of about C$1 billion annually.

Trump took pains to distance himself from Project 2025 during the election campaign. It is the infamous 922-page manifesto produced by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.

But all of his early policy moves are taken directly from its pages, sending shivers down the spine of the science community. Among other things, Project 2025 calls for dismantling the NIH and distributing block grants to the states in its place. This would be a disaster of the first order. The NIH grant competitions are fiercely competitive and represent the gold standard for peer-reviewed research. And it gets results.

How important is the NIH? Its importance to the global community cannot be overstated. If you have received (evidence-based) health care — e.g., treatment for cancer, cardiac disease, psoriasis, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, shingles, tuberculosis, COVID or myriad other health conditions — you have very likely received the direct benefits of NIH-funded research.

A detailed analysis of the importance of NIH and NSF funding to science isn’t possible in the short space here, so here is a snapshot from the pinnacle of science. This year, laureates for all of the science Nobels (physiology or medicine; physics; chemistry) received NSF funding for their research; and 2024 laureates in physiology or medicine and chemistry received NIH funding. In all, NIH funding has supported research generating more than 100 Nobel Prizes across the sciences.

No other funding agency can boast such success.

Trump intends to put an end to that. His nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the secretary of health and human services, the parent agency to the NIH, sent alarm bells ringing across the scientific community. RFK Jr, is a notorious anti-vaccine crank. He is on the record as saying all infectious disease research should stop for eight years. Watch out if there is a bird flu pandemic.

Putting a charlatan in charge of the world’s most important science-funding agency will only bring it into disrepute. And that is the obvious intent: to undermine science and the role of experts.

Trump’s actions show all the signs of a vendetta against the scientists who embarrassed him during the COVID pandemic. When Trump suggested injecting bleach might be a treatment for COVID, his chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, had to warn the public that would be a really stupid and dangerous thing to do. Trump didn’t forget.

Former president Joe Biden so feared that Trump would seek revenge against this dedicated public servant, he gave him a prophylactic presidential pardon.

But it’s not just the NIH and NSF in the crosshairs.

Trump is purging any climate-related research from the federal government, calling it climate alarmism. Project 2025 proposes, among other things, to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and privatize the National Weather Service. Want alerts to an oncoming tornado or hurricane? Get out your credit card.

Why does this matter to Canadians? Because Trump is charting the path for his northern alter ego. The self-anointed prime-minister-in-waiting has become increasingly Trump-like both in his rhetoric and policy. A Fox News host described a recent Poilievre speech as so similar to Trump, that “I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald Trump wrote it.”

Among the other targets of Trump’s early moves are “wokeism” and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, looking to purge all of this from not just the federal government, but the private sector, too. Poilievre? His recent extended interview with Jordan Peterson, psychologist and right-wing media star, lamented the evils of “wokeism.” Trump, in his executive orders, declared there are only two genders. Poilievre declared immediately afterward there are only two genders. Trump is virulently opposed to climate science and pro-fossil fuel. Poilievre is virulently opposed to carbon taxes and pro-fossil fuels.

The similarities to Trump and his policies are too great to be ignored. If Pierre Poilievre indeed becomes our next prime minister, Canada’s science community has much to fear.

Scott Forbes is an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg.