Donald Trump has targeted the National Institutes of Health’s funding by $1.8 billion in the name of eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” and “DEI.” Ali Velshi sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and blood cancer survivor, John Harwood, to discuss why cutting scientific research on projects that Trump believes signify diversity, equity, and gender identity threatens everyone.
The United States accounts for 80% of the world’s biomedical research. NIH research is responsible for medical breakthroughs in cancer, diabetes, strokes, pandemic studies, and treatments for Alzheimer’s and dementia. Research on maternal health outcomes, youth suicide, HIV prevention, and diseases that target women, people of color, and other high-risk groups yields results and treatments that benefit public health for all people.
Studies that only make the news when cited as “waste” and are not understood by laypeople, such as hormone studies in rodents, are in fact the very long-term scientific studies that lead to treatments and cures for chronic illnesses. The Covid vaccine wasn’t discovered in a year; it had been studied for four decades by award-winning Penn scientists by the time the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
The NIH is essential for solving public health problems and medical breakthroughs. The future of science itself, especially in the United States, is under threat as promising scientists and researchers look abroad for opportunities. This “brain drain” cannot be replaced by the work of private labs and pharmaceutical companies, as the for-profit business world doesn’t invest in exploratory projects lasting 20 to 30 years. They aren’t profitable; that’s the domain of government research.
Donald Trump’s proposed slashing of NIH funding is 18 times smaller than the proposed tax breaks for the top 0.001% in Trump’s budget bill. We are exchanging spare change for billionaires for our top scientists, cancer, birth defects, unchecked rare diseases, chronic illnesses, uncontrolled pandemics, and the loss of America’s position and soft power in the world.
LISTEN: VELSHI ON ESSENTIAL RESEARCH AND MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
WATCH: VELSHI AND HARWOOD DISCUSS WHAT THE NIH DOES
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