The speech of the pen of the great scholars who call for the end of the “attack on the American flag”

Almost 2000 doctors, researchers and scholars They signed an open message The call to the extent to what they describe as “wholesale assault on the Trump administration on the American flag”

The letter, written by 13 worlds of specializations, including medicine, climate science and economics, urges the Americans to demand the consumption of scientific financing and integrity.

The signatories, and all members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, wrote that the Trump administration “shakes the stability of this institution by overcoming funding for research, launching thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressing researchers to change their work in emotional reasons.”

Funding for biomedical research from the National Institutes of Health (National Institutes of Health), Which supports more than 300,000 worlds, was Decreased billions of dollars.

Environmental science has also been targeted with More than 1,000 scientists and other employees are scheduled From the Environmental Protection Agency Research (EPA).

Administration also plans Reduced the national workforce for ocean and atmosphere (Noaa) By up to 20 percent, which may seriously affect weather forecasting.

Dr. Stephen Wolf was one of the signatories. He is an older colleague at the American Progress Center and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Virginia Commonwealth. Talk to As it happens Nil Köksal hosted the message.

What is really at stake now?

The issue we are dealing with here is that the Trump administration policies have significantly crashed our government’s (and) different agencies.

But the field that concerns us as scientists is that there is basically the destruction of many research ability, not only within the federal government, but in universities and research centers throughout the country.

About 80 years ago, the United States has invested in building its research capacity.

Within weeks, the Trump administration has been unable to many of these jobs.

He was Seeing mass demobilization operations in the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services. What do you hear from your colleagues about what is happening there?

The demobilization of the workers that happens today is horrific in our field. These are the main agencies responsible for the health of Americans, and large quantities of workers who have spent their career in an attempt to improve Americans being sent.

There … who say that there is an enlarged bureaucracy, (this) you need to cut these things, so they are pleased to hear what they think happens, and they believe that the amount provided for research, such as your research and the research of your colleagues, has been much over the years. What do you want to say to them?

I think there is a fair argument that there are inefficiency in many of these agencies.

But the way it deals with the inefficiency of a more targeted approach. My measurement is if you have an ineffective car engine, you usually take it to a mechanic for adjustment.

In this case, what happens is that they take a heavy hammer and collect the engine, which does nothing to improve efficiency, and now the car is no longer working.

There was a very few attempt to improve the efficiency of these agencies. Instead, what has been done is simply reducing its size significantly and (this) Make them basically a functional defect.

I think it is important for listeners to understand that there are two pieces for this purpose.

One of them is that these huge cuts work to stop the tap for research, so there are less money and employees available to conduct the research.

But the second part is censorship. This is where the government imposes ideological and political business schedules to interfere in research questions that scientists can investigate, the methods they can use, do their studies, and … words that they can use to report the results.

The very important principle of scientific independence in which researchers around the world are exposed to the threat in this case.

Have you heard a response or reaction … that people get this message?

It is a greatly polarized country now.

When people like me raise concerns about the direction taken by the Trump administration, there is a large sector of population that is not satisfied with those types of comments.

On the other hand, there is a large sector of Americans who appreciate the fact that someone is actually speaking.

There is a climate of fear in many of these research institutions and universities in which the leadership is in a very difficult place and does not speak, in an attempt to preserve their heads and avoid disturbing the administration because the government puts a lot of financial and legal pressure on universities and other research institutions.

As a result, there was a relative silence in research and scientific community.

Here in Canada, we definitely saw … Stories about professors and researchers who leave the United States to Canada. Do you expect more of your colleagues to leave our country?

I think so. I think it happens very quickly. I personally know the colleagues who do it. This is true for experienced researchers who feel the need to leave the country in order to continue to conduct independent scientific research.

But this also happens to our young people interested in a profession in science that changes their minds about going to the Upper School in the United States and searching elsewhere to teach them.

What do you think will change the minds of people who do not agree with you now?

The only way the current momentum will change is when the American public begins to estimate in a concrete way how this affects them.

As long as it is a distant problem, which is a distant problem in some agencies in Washington, DC, it is easy for them to reject it as unrelated political news, and for the marginalization of other scientists or workers in these agencies or researchers in universities that they consider the elite and separation from daily life.

But when it comes to home, when your child cannot get the care he receives, when medical errors are increasing in the hospital because the agency that will be responsible for improving the results no longer exists, and when health trends such as the mental health crisis between young American and other major threats of health and luxury are increasing due to these policies.