Dr. Faust, I honestly don’t know how you keep up with all of this, but I’m grateful that you do. Your efforts to cut through the noise and track these attacks on biomedical research, public health, and scientific institutions are invaluable. The silence from major universities is particularly alarming—if they don’t push back now, they may soon find themselves unable to do so at all. The NIH funding situation, the Federal Register slowdown, and the uncertainty surrounding CDC programs like EIS are all deeply concerning. And the idea that the Trump administration even considered destroying stockpiled COVID-19 tests is beyond infuriating. Please keep up the good fight—we need voices like yours more than ever.
Dr. Faust writes: "Have you noticed that virtually no universities have specifically come out against the Trump administration’s attacks on public health? ... At some point, these institutions are going to realize that silence is more expensive than they think." These institutions - and Harvard is pre-eminent among them - are in the end run by boards and administrators who are closely tied to corporations and very big donors (check out for instance President Garber's board memberships - and income from them). It's not at all clear that they will find costs that in the end fall on students and faculty to be persuasive to action.
At Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern their DEI statement was taken down. This was the same for Northwestern University in general. To me this demonstrates how threatened people are feeling. We are living with so much anxiety.
NO President should have the power or influence to cause the Federal Register to miss a scheduled publication.
This should have been seen as an egregious overstep, and a deliberate attempt to HIDE the activities of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government.
The Trump Administration couldn't signal more clearly that transparency is out, opacity is in, and the King controls the narrative.
What I worry about as much is the damage to young ones in college or graduate students in public health or research. Will they want to continue in this avenue of work given the uncertainty of where this is going? Will the US have a next generation of these young people to carry on in the myriad of ways they do now? Or will the US lose a generation of public health people & have to rely on other countries for their good graces when issues come up? Like Israel or South Africa during Covid. Scary. Not just the public not interested or won't listen to public health guidelines but there will be the void of public health professionals and researchers.
So true, Nancy. My experience with scientists is they love their data and proud of making it accurate. Watching some of these new, young Fed workers and interns lose their jobs, having a nephew graduate with honors (despite losing his Mom to cancer) in Environmental Studies now watching future jobs close their doors, is heartbreaking. But gotta say, how could especially the higher-ups in CDC and FDA not know this was coming and this bad? We saw what Trump & Co. did their first go around. How Dr. Fauci walked the tight rope as the only scientific adult in the room. Trump would come into a second term knowing more. He told us what he was going to do every day for 4 years before the 2024 election. He defied subpoenas, impeachments, and criminal case rulings even then. And all you described above was projected by many.
Read Dr Fauci's book "On Call" from last year. It is an amazing testament to dealing with 7 different presidents over his time working at the NIH/NIAID. He got it from all sides & continues to get it even while gone from NIAID while now talking with young potential public health students/researchers at Georgetown U. It will be some very tough months ahead.
I've read much about Dr. Fauci for years including his initial not so good stance on AIDS/HIV, but even on that he did come around. My point was not about Dr. Fauci, but on the CDC that went through that in Trump's first term and are still there, unlike Fauci. How could they not know?
I just think no one in public health is used to this or ready for all this "shock and awe" that has happened in a month. They generally just work in their labs or universities quietly doing their work. All the sub agencies. And Trump/RFK Jr know this & will take full advantage for as long as possible. Where it leads who knows. BUT I do think there NEEDS to be some public coordination between the universities, research facilities or they will wake up to being completely cut from public/NIH funding & will have to find private funding. Unfortunately, a lot of damage is already done. I think some researchers will leave the US in the short term to Canada, Australia, Europe. Excuse me but I don't trust Jr's promises as far as you can throw them to Congress. Next 6 months to a year it is really anyone's guess how this all settles. BUT not looking good to be optimistic.
A good article on just some of the damage so far in assorted gov depts and agencies...https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-act-doge-lawsuits/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us. And the 50-year old legal precedent that we hope will help the health departments and others. We have to try these law suits but Trump/Musk oligarchy holds all branches of fed gov including majority in Congress, Justice Dept, FBI investigative, and enforcement. In Wisconsin, Musk & Co. have flooded a campaign for state justice that can flip total count in the country and power of state supreme courts, with millions of dollars. They are always 10 steps ahead of us. Call Wisconsin Dems and find out how you can call their voters now. Election is in April. Contact Susan Crawford, Dem candiate in Wisconsin for state supreme court...donate and make calls. https://www.crawfordforwi.com/
In our municipality we are already seeing the loss of huge grants that impact environment, housing, disabled citizens, and public health...even as long as 2-3 weeks ago. One of my members on our Commission on Disabilities was a former Transit Authority who dedicated her work to using transportation access to poor people, pedestrians, and people who are disabled/chronically ill at all ages. She told us that the cuts in Medicaid have already impacted her programs to provide transportation for these people to get to healthcare and services. It's now and it's broad, deep and real.
Dr. Faust, I honestly don’t know how you keep up with all of this, but I’m grateful that you do. Your efforts to cut through the noise and track these attacks on biomedical research, public health, and scientific institutions are invaluable. The silence from major universities is particularly alarming—if they don’t push back now, they may soon find themselves unable to do so at all. The NIH funding situation, the Federal Register slowdown, and the uncertainty surrounding CDC programs like EIS are all deeply concerning. And the idea that the Trump administration even considered destroying stockpiled COVID-19 tests is beyond infuriating. Please keep up the good fight—we need voices like yours more than ever.
Dr. Faust writes: "Have you noticed that virtually no universities have specifically come out against the Trump administration’s attacks on public health? ... At some point, these institutions are going to realize that silence is more expensive than they think." These institutions - and Harvard is pre-eminent among them - are in the end run by boards and administrators who are closely tied to corporations and very big donors (check out for instance President Garber's board memberships - and income from them). It's not at all clear that they will find costs that in the end fall on students and faculty to be persuasive to action.
At Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern their DEI statement was taken down. This was the same for Northwestern University in general. To me this demonstrates how threatened people are feeling. We are living with so much anxiety.
NO President should have the power or influence to cause the Federal Register to miss a scheduled publication.
This should have been seen as an egregious overstep, and a deliberate attempt to HIDE the activities of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government.
The Trump Administration couldn't signal more clearly that transparency is out, opacity is in, and the King controls the narrative.
What I worry about as much is the damage to young ones in college or graduate students in public health or research. Will they want to continue in this avenue of work given the uncertainty of where this is going? Will the US have a next generation of these young people to carry on in the myriad of ways they do now? Or will the US lose a generation of public health people & have to rely on other countries for their good graces when issues come up? Like Israel or South Africa during Covid. Scary. Not just the public not interested or won't listen to public health guidelines but there will be the void of public health professionals and researchers.
So true, Nancy. My experience with scientists is they love their data and proud of making it accurate. Watching some of these new, young Fed workers and interns lose their jobs, having a nephew graduate with honors (despite losing his Mom to cancer) in Environmental Studies now watching future jobs close their doors, is heartbreaking. But gotta say, how could especially the higher-ups in CDC and FDA not know this was coming and this bad? We saw what Trump & Co. did their first go around. How Dr. Fauci walked the tight rope as the only scientific adult in the room. Trump would come into a second term knowing more. He told us what he was going to do every day for 4 years before the 2024 election. He defied subpoenas, impeachments, and criminal case rulings even then. And all you described above was projected by many.
Read Dr Fauci's book "On Call" from last year. It is an amazing testament to dealing with 7 different presidents over his time working at the NIH/NIAID. He got it from all sides & continues to get it even while gone from NIAID while now talking with young potential public health students/researchers at Georgetown U. It will be some very tough months ahead.
I've read much about Dr. Fauci for years including his initial not so good stance on AIDS/HIV, but even on that he did come around. My point was not about Dr. Fauci, but on the CDC that went through that in Trump's first term and are still there, unlike Fauci. How could they not know?
I just think no one in public health is used to this or ready for all this "shock and awe" that has happened in a month. They generally just work in their labs or universities quietly doing their work. All the sub agencies. And Trump/RFK Jr know this & will take full advantage for as long as possible. Where it leads who knows. BUT I do think there NEEDS to be some public coordination between the universities, research facilities or they will wake up to being completely cut from public/NIH funding & will have to find private funding. Unfortunately, a lot of damage is already done. I think some researchers will leave the US in the short term to Canada, Australia, Europe. Excuse me but I don't trust Jr's promises as far as you can throw them to Congress. Next 6 months to a year it is really anyone's guess how this all settles. BUT not looking good to be optimistic.
NIH grant delay information from Pennsylvania: https://www.wesa.fm/health-science-tech/2025-02-21/university-pittsburgh-phd-pause-research-funding-uncertainty
A good article on just some of the damage so far in assorted gov depts and agencies...https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-act-doge-lawsuits/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us. And the 50-year old legal precedent that we hope will help the health departments and others. We have to try these law suits but Trump/Musk oligarchy holds all branches of fed gov including majority in Congress, Justice Dept, FBI investigative, and enforcement. In Wisconsin, Musk & Co. have flooded a campaign for state justice that can flip total count in the country and power of state supreme courts, with millions of dollars. They are always 10 steps ahead of us. Call Wisconsin Dems and find out how you can call their voters now. Election is in April. Contact Susan Crawford, Dem candiate in Wisconsin for state supreme court...donate and make calls. https://www.crawfordforwi.com/
In our municipality we are already seeing the loss of huge grants that impact environment, housing, disabled citizens, and public health...even as long as 2-3 weeks ago. One of my members on our Commission on Disabilities was a former Transit Authority who dedicated her work to using transportation access to poor people, pedestrians, and people who are disabled/chronically ill at all ages. She told us that the cuts in Medicaid have already impacted her programs to provide transportation for these people to get to healthcare and services. It's now and it's broad, deep and real.