{"id":9635,"date":"2025-11-17T05:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T05:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=9635"},"modified":"2025-11-17T05:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T05:02:00","slug":"support-your-neighborhood-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=9635","title":{"rendered":"Support your neighborhood scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

By KIM BELLARD<\/p>\n

These are, it must be said, grim times for American science. Between the Trump budget cuts, the Trump attacks on leading research universities, and the normalization of misinformation\/ disinformation, scientists are losing their jobs<\/a>, fleeing to other countries<\/a>, or just trying to keep their heads down in hopes of being able to just, you know, keep doing science.<\/p>\n

But some scientists are fighting back, and more power to them. Literally.<\/p>\n

Lest you think I\u2019m being Chicken Little, warning prematurely that the sky is falling, there continue to be warning signs. Virginia Gewin, writing in Nature<\/em>, reports Insiders warn how dismantling federal agencies could put science at risk<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>A former EPA official told her: \u201cIt\u2019s not just EPA. Science is being destroyed across many agencies.\u201d Even worse, one former official warned: \u201cNow they are starting to proffer misinformation and putting a government seal on it.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A third researcher added: \u201cThe damage to the next generation of scientists is what I worry the most about. I\u2019ve been advising students to look for other jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that students are looking for jobs outside of the government. Katrina Northrop and\u00a0Rudy Lu write in The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> about the brain drain going to China. \u201cOver the past decade,\u201d they say, \u201cthere has been a rush of scholars \u2014 many with some family connection to China \u2014 moving across the Pacific, drawn by Beijing\u2019s full-throttle drive to become a scientific superpower.\u201d They cite 50 tenure track scholars of Chinese descent who have left U.S. universities for China. Most are in STEM fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. is increasingly skeptical of science \u2014 whether it\u2019s climate, health or other areas,\u201d Jimmy Goodrich, an expert on Chinese science and technology at theUniversity of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, told them. \u201cWhile in China, science is being embraced as a key solution to move the country forward into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

They note how four years ago the U.S. spent four times as much in R&D than China, whereas now the spending is basically even, at best.<\/p>\n

I keep in mind the warning<\/a> of Dan Wang, a research fellow at Stanford\u2019s Hoover Institution:<\/p>\n

Think about it this way: China is an engineering state, which treats construction projects and technological primacy as the solution to all of its problems, whereas the United States is a lawyerly society, obsessed with protecting wealth by making rules rather than producing material goods.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen what a government of lawyers does, creating laws and regulations that protect big corporations and the ultra-rich, while making everything so complex that, voila, more lawyers are needed. Maybe it\u2019s time to see what a government of scientists could do.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

When scientists (or engineers) are in charge, we can put a man on the moon within a decade or create a pandemic vaccine in months. When lawyers are in charge we get Congresses that can\u2019t even pass a budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In The Atlantic<\/em>, Katherine J. Wu discusses<\/a> a new wave of scientists who are running for public office. Core to that effort is 314 Action<\/a>, which claims it is \u201cthe only organization in the nation focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office.\u201d Shaughnessy Naughton, the president of 314 Action, told Ms. Wu the organization had fielded 700 applications from scientists interested in becoming candidates just this year, which is seven times what it would normally expect.<\/p>\n

Ms. Wu cites data from Rutgers University\u2019s Eagleton Institute of Politics that only 3 percent of state legislators are scientists, engineers, or health-care professionals \u2013 and most of those are Republicans. 314 action thinks it can help change that. Its website declares:<\/p>\n

Bottom line: when candidates run on their science credentials and have the backing to get their message out there, they win. 314 Action candidates are scientists first, not politicians. We\u2019re fighting to elect scientists who can tackle urgent shared challenges \u2013 like the climate crisis, reproductive rights, and healthcare access \u2013 and secure a better future for us all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It claims to have raised some $8.6m and help elect 400 endorsed candidates, including 4 U.S. Senators, 13 members of the U.S. House, 9 candidates for down-ballot statewide offices, and over 300 candidates at the state and municipal level. Ms. Wu reports that Hawaii\u2019s Josh Green, the only Democratic physician currently serving in a state governorship, has partnered with 314 Action to launch a $25 million campaign to elect 100 new Democratic physicians to office by 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics came for us,\u201d pediatrician Annie Andrews told Ms. Wu. \u201cYou can\u2019t fight bad politics by staying apolitical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running for office is only one way for scientists (or people who care about science) to fight back. Take Stand Up for Science<\/a>, which believes in protesting loudly and proudly. Founded just this year in response to Trump Administration actions, Stand Up for Science describes itself as \u201ca political activism organization dedicated to defending and advancing America\u2019s scientific ecosystem, a cornerstone of democracy, freedom, and progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its mission:<\/p>\n

We believe that science is the lifeblood of American democracy and freedom. With a bold strategy combining activism, messaging campaigns, grassroots organizing, and political advocacy, we\u2019re mobilizing the fight for science and democracy, now and for generations to come.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SUFS was active in the No Kings protests, and is conducting an important \u2013 and amusing \u2014 effort to impeach HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. called \u201cImpeach the Quack<\/a>,\u201d complete with toy ducks.<\/p>\n

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Colette Delawalla, MA, MS manages to run the organization while working on her Ph.D. (and apparently being a mom). She saw the need as soon as Trump was inaugurated. \u201cYou\u2019ve got these legacy organizations that have simply not thought it was that important to communicate with the public in a meaningful way,\u201d she told NOTUS<\/a>. \u201cAny of these organizations \u2014 and I know this because I\u2019ve done it \u2014 on Jan. 21, 2025, could have stood up, in less than 24 hours, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm of what they\u2019re already doing, and granted over some money, set up a little team, and gotten political.\u201d Too few did, so she created her own organization.<\/p>\n

Both 314 Action and Stand Up for Science deserve our support.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

Scientists are no angels (e.g., James Watson, William Shockley), Maybe putting them in charge isn\u2019t the answer. But, really, could they do any worse than our current politicians? We\u2019re quickly moving into an era of AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and a host of other advances, while battling climate change, microplastics, income inequality, and many other challenges. Who do you think will be best able to deal with them: lawyers, or scientists? \u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By KIM BELLARD These are, it must be said, grim times for American science. Between the Trump budget cuts, the Trump attacks on leading research universities, and the normalization of misinformation\/ disinformation, scientists are losing their jobs, fleeing to other countries, or just trying to keep their heads down in hopes of being able to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}