John,
Frankly, it’s unconscionable.
Three of Trump’s Executive Orders issued in his first two days in office wiped out literally billions of dollars in scientific research grants based on the most regressive criteria imaginable: Any grants that include the words “women,” “female,” “DEI,” “racial,” or “trans” are to be automatically stripped of funding.
In the midst of all the outrageous things the Trump administration has done in its first months, this broad based attack cutting funding for scientific research that even mentions women’s health or racially-based health outcomes is among the most incredibly short-sighted and scientifically indefensible.
Coming at the same time that Trump’s sexist Defense Secretary is curtailing women’s roles – and sexual harassment policies -- in the military, and as Trump offers women a $5,000 “baby bonus” to become pregnant, it’s clear the administration’s vision for women is to go back to a time when women’s lives were far more circumscribed and subservient.
Women, people of color, and gender-expansive people have long been underrepresented in medical research and too often dismissed or misdiagnosed by healthcare providers. After decades of fighting for inclusion in the scientific process, we’ve finally started to see progress -- but now, the Trump administration wants to reverse that progress entirely.
Tell the Directors of the NIH and NSF to use only legitimate scientific criteria, not regressive, MAGA-influenced exclusions, to fund health research across the full range of topics critical to Americans’ health outcomes, inclusive of all races and genders.
Let’s be clear: Trump’s policy is not about trimming budgets or improving efficiency. It’s about willfully blinding our nation’s scientific institutions to the realities of gendered and racial health outcomes. It’s about choosing ignorance over evidence -- and it’s going to cost lives.
Though these executive orders are being contested in court, the damage is already underway. Billions of dollars in funding for vital research -- research on cancer, Alzheimer’s, uterine fibroids, intimate partner violence, HIV/AIDS, birth outcomes, and much more -- has already been slashed or is on the chopping block.
Simply put, this anti-knowledge, anti-science approach is an utter catastrophe for American health research. We will need to rely on the rest of the world for years to come until the destruction can be mitigated and reversed. In the meantime, we must put Trump’s appointed leadership on notice that their actions are under scrutiny.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and interim NSF Director Brian Stone -- appointed after the abrupt departure of NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan upon the arrival of Elon Musk’s DOGE -- already know that these cuts in National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation research into the health of women and diverse populations will be catastrophic.
Tell the Directors of the NIH and NSF to resist the intense political pressures to cut crucial health research, and instead, to do what science -- and morality -- demands.
Thank you for bolstering the courage and conscience of these agency leaders.
- DFA AF Team
