Commentary in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) by Professor Alan Bernstein, Director of Oxford Global Health, and Professor Sonia S. Anand, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at McMaster University
America’s position as the world’s dominant nation began after World War II with the appreciation that science played an outsized role in winning the war. For that reason, the US decided that the growth of American science, through investments in its universities, would position the country both as a dominant force in science and as the world’s preeminent superpower. This was informed by the 1945 report to President Truman by Vannevar Bush entitled Science: The Endless Frontier. The result has been enormous economic and military gains for the US, spectacular advances in science and technology, major advances in the treatment of disease, and the birth of the high tech and biotech sectors.
Now, a short 100 days into President Trump’s second term of office, the ecosystem that was built over the past 70 years—involving universities, the private sector, and government—has been the target of a concerted three-pronged attack: firstly by cutting billions of dollars and thousands of jobs from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration; secondly, by installing political leadership to oversee these organisations who have disavowed belief in science; and thirdly, by attacking universities themselves, the central institutions that have been pivotal to what made the US a science powerhouse.
Sweeping government cuts have eliminated nearly $4 billion (so far) in funding to institutions that have long been the bedrock of US innovation, discovery, and education. These cuts have targeted both specific programmes and laboratories and the infrastructure that supports research. The “indirect costs” that universities receive from NIH grants have been capped at 15%. Without these funds, universities must find alternative resources—or cease ongoing projects.
Many have compared what has been happening recently to the McCarthy era, when individuals were attacked for their supposed Communist leanings. However, today’s assault is different—and more dangerous. It is an attack on the institutions upon which America’s prosperity and freedom rest: its so-called elite universities, the engine of discovery and innovation, a pillar of free speech and diversity of views, and the source of reliable new knowledge.