Trump’s unrelenting war on science is reckless and dangerous

It will cost lives and puts all of us at risk.

By Jeff Nesbit

The war on science being waged by the Trump administration is so deep and furious that it’s almost impossible to keep track of it all. Perhaps that’s by design. Or, more likely, it’s simply that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have unleashed the forces of reckless, dangerous chaos on institutions and agencies that are the backbone of science and innovation in America without much thought about the consequences.

Take just four examples: climate change, public health, medical science and patient safety.

On climate change, the Trump administration ended the program that produces the National Climate Assessment, is considering defunding the research site that benchmarks carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and killed dozens of critical climate science research grants that study how climate-related impacts such as extreme weather events devastate communities.

On public health, it abruptly canceled more than $11 billion in COVID-related funds that will cripple hundreds of local health clinics that use the money to address preventable diseases like flu, mpox, and measles. As NPR reported, “More than 500 cases of measles in a Texas outbreak have led to 57 hospitalizations and the deaths of two school-age children.”

On medical science, Trump’s team has waged an all-out assault on the National Institutes of Health for seemingly ideological reasons. It has canceled peer-reviewed scientific meetings, fired top NIH scientists, and delayed or killed hundreds of NIH grants, sending the medical science field into a panic. NIH funding supports the work of more than 300,000 scientists.

And on patient safety, in a move that barely registered with the public, Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dissolved the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a small agency that has historically protected patient safety. Kennedy also fired the entire office that sets federal poverty guidelines that determine whether tens of millions of Americans are eligible for critical programs like Medicaid, childcare and food assistance.

Whether by design or thoughtlessness, the impact of this unrelenting war on science being waged by Trump, Elon Musk, and their inner circle is still the same. It’s reckless and dangerous. It will get people killed. It will make our lives, homes, and communities less safe. And it will do irreparable harm to scientific institutions that have made America the leader of innovation in fields ranging from computer science and biotechnology to medicine and public health.

The Trump administration’s war on science is so unnerving, in fact, that it prompted nearly 2,000 of the nation’s top scientists to sign an open letter to the American people. So many scientists signed the letter that it ran to 75 pages long. They signed as individuals, but it should be noted that they signed the letter at personal and professional risk to themselves, given this administration’s avowed intent to investigate and prosecute “enemies of the state.”

“We all rely on science. Science gave us the smart phones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care,” wrote the scientists, all of whom are elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “representing some of the nation's top scientists, engineers, and medical researchers.”

“We count on engineers when we drive across bridges and fly in airplanes,” they said. “Businesses and farmers rely on science and engineering for product innovation, technological advances, and weather forecasting. Science helps humanity protect the planet and keeps pollutants and toxins out of our air, water, and food.”

All of that, now, is at risk, they wrote, because of the Trump administration’s reckless, dangerous, and unrelenting war on science.

“For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation's research enterprise, making it the envy of the world,” the scientists wrote. “Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”

These scientists wrote the letter, they said, because they are afraid of the consequences. “We see real danger in this moment. We hold diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in wanting to protect independent scientific inquiry. We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning: the nation's scientific enterprise is being decimated,” they wrote.

The Trump administration is investigating more than 50 universities that accept billions of federal dollars for critical scientific research. All that funding—and the infrastructure that has allowed America to lead the world in scientific, medical, and health innovation for decades—is now at grave risk, as the scientists wrote. Trump, Musk and the people they empowered are destroying, not creating.

The consequences at a global scale are immense. At a minimum, it will allow China to overtake the United States as the global superpower in the sciences. At its worst, it will put America at risk of losing its edge in nearly every area that affects our national security, technological and scientific innovation, and the ability to apply science to industries we rely on for our daily needs.

“If our country's research enterprise is dismantled,” the scientists wrote, “we will lose our scientific edge. Other countries will lead the development of novel disease treatments, clean energy sources, and the new technologies of the future. Their populations will be healthier, and their economies will surpass us in business, defense, intelligence gathering, and monitoring our planet's health. The damage to our nation's scientific enterprise could take decades to reverse.”

Trump’s war on science, at its core, is ideological. It plays to the worst anti-science conspiracy fears of the base of voters who propelled him to the Oval Office a second time. But the impacts of that war on science will be felt by all of us, sooner or later, unless the courts and Congress intervene to change course and American voters recognize the grave risk we all now face.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

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