Statement to the American People
Table of Contents
- Overview
- Threats to Science Funding and Independent Inquiry
- Impact on Research, Higher Education, and Public Health
- Censorship, Data Access, and Academic Freedom
- Call to Action
- Signatories
-
---
Overview
Statement TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
We all rely on science. Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation
systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care. We count on engineers when we drive
across bridges and fly in airplanes. Businesses and farmers rely on science and
engineering for product innovation, technological advances, and weather forecasting.
Science helps humanity protect the planet and keeps pollutants and toxins out of our air,
water, and food.
For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s
research enterprise, making it the envy of the world. Astoundingly, the Trump
administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing
thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring
researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.
The undersigned are elected members of the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine, representing some of the nation’s top scientists, engineers,
and medical researchers. We are speaking out as individuals. We see real danger in this
moment. We hold diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in wanting to
protect independent scientific inquiry. We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning:
the nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.
The administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to
scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific
collaboration. The funding cuts are forcing institutions to pause research (including
studies of new disease treatments), dismiss faculty, and stop enrolling graduate
students—the pipeline for the next generation’s scientists.
The administration’s current investigations of more than 50 universities send a chilling
message. Columbia University was recently notified that its federal funding would be
withheld unless it adopted disciplinary policies and disabled an academic department
targeted by the administration. Destabilizing dozens of universities will endanger higher
education—and the research those institutions conduct.
The quest for truth—the mission of science—requires that scientists freely explore new
questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The
administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence. It is using
executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or
published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can
access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as
climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine
safety to economic trends.
A climate of fear has descended on the research community. Researchers, afraid of losing
their funding or job security, are removing their names from publications, abandoning
studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms
(such as “climate change”) that agencies are flagging as objectionable. Although some in
the scientific community have protested vocally, most researchers, universities, research
institutions, and professional organizations have kept silent to avoid antagonizing the
administration and jeopardizing their funding.
If our country’s research enterprise is dismantled, we will lose our scientific edge. Other
countries will lead the development of novel disease treatments, clean energy sources,
and the new technologies of the future. Their populations will be healthier, and their
economies will surpass us in business, defense, intelligence gathering, and monitoring
our planet’s health. The damage to our nation’s scientific enterprise could take decades to
reverse.
We call on the administration to cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science, and we urge
the public to join this call. Share this statement with others, contact your representatives
in Congress, and help your community understand what is at risk. The voice of science
must not be silenced. We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nation’s
research enterprise is destroyed.
The views expressed here are our own and not those of the National Academies or our
home institutions.
Richard N. Aslin, PhD
Senior Scientist
Yale School of Medicine
Paula Braveman, MD, MPH
Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine
Founding Director, Center for Health Equity
University of California, San Francisco
Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH
Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology
Director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative
Dean Emerita Dornsife School of Public Health
Drexel University
Marthe Gold, MD, MPH
Senior Research Scholar
New York Academy of Medicine
Professor Emerita, CUNY School of Medicine
Kathleen Mullan Harris, PhD
James E. Haar Distinguished Professor of Sociology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Barbara Landau, PhD
Dick and Lydia Todd Professor
Department of Cognitive Science
Johns Hopkins University
Charles F. Manski, PhD
Board of Trustees Professor in Economics
Department of Economics and Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
Douglas S. Massey, PhD
Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Emeritus
Princeton University
Lynn Nadel, PhD
Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science
University of Arizona
Benjamin David Santer, PhD
Climate scientist
Formerly at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Kevin Struhl, PhD
David Wesley Gaiser Professor
Dept. Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Harvard Medical School
Ray Weymann, PhD
Carnegie Institution for Science
Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH
Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health
Director Emeritus, Center on Society and Health
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
SIGNATORIES
Henry J. Aaron, PhD
Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow, Emeritus and Former Director of
Economic Studies
The Brookings Institution
Nicholas L. Abbott, PhD
Tisch University Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Cornell University
Salim S. Abdool Karim, MBChB, PhD
Professor
Columbia University
E. Dale Abel, MD, PhD
Professor
University of California, Los Angeles
Edwin (Ted) G. Abel, III, PhD
Professor
University of Iowa
John Abelson, PhD
George Beadle Professor Emeritus
Caltech
Anissa Abi-Dargham, MD
Professor
Stony Brook University
Janis Abkowitz, MD
Clement A Finch Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology
University of Washington
Barbara F. Abrams, DrPH
Professor, School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
Linda M. Abriola, PhD
Joan Wernig and E. Paul Sorensen Professor of Engineering
Brown University
Daron Acemoglu, PhD
Institute Professor
MIT
Susan L. Ackerman, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology and Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD
Professor
University of California, San Francisco
David Andrew Agard, PhD
Professor
University of California, San Francisco
Ian Agol, PhD
Professor
University of California, Berkeley
Arun Agrawal, PhD
Professor
University of Notre Dame
Gustavo D. Aguirre, PhD
Professor
University of Pennsylvania
Guenter Ahlers, PhD
Professor
University of California, Santa Barbara
Richard D Alba, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Bruce M Alberts, PhD
Chancellor's Professor of Science and Education
University of California, San Francisco
Susan C. Alberts, PhD
Distinguished Professor
Duke University
Charles R. Alcock, PhD
Menzel Professor of Astrophysics
Harvard University and Smithsonian Institution
John H. Aldrich, PhD
Pfizer-Pratt University Professor, emeritus
Duke University
Richard W. Aldrich, PhD
Professor Emeritus
University of Texas at Austin
Margarita Alegria, PhD
Professor
Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital
Kari K. Alitalo, MD, PhD
Academician, Academy Professor
University of Helsinki
Eleanor Allen, MS
CEO
Catapult For Change
Russell J. Allgor, PhD
Chief Supply Chain Scientist
Auger
John E. Allison, PhD
William F. Hosford Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Michigan
Myron Allukian, Jr, DDS MPH
Former City of Boston Dental Director
Harvard University and Boston University Schools of Dental Medicine
Robert J. Alpern, MD
Professor
Yale University
Frederick Alt, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics
Harvard University Medical School
Harvey J. Alter, MD
Distinguished NIH Scholar Emeritus; Nobel Laureate
National Institutes of Health
Yusuf Altintas, PhD
Professor
University of British Columbia
Russ B. Altman, MD, PhD
Professor
Stanford University
Hortensia Amaro, PhD
Distinguished University Professor
Florida International University
Richard M. Amasino, PhD
Carlos Miller Professor of Biochemistry
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Victor R. Ambros, PhD
Professor
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
David J. Anderson, PhD
Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology
Caltech
Kim D. Anderson, PhD
Professor
Case Western Reserve University
Mary Pikul Anderson, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Hydrogeology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Robert S. Anderson, PhD
Professor
University of Colorado Boulder
Sir Roy M. Anderson FRS, PhD
Professor Sir
Imperial College London
Leif B. Andersson, PhD
Professor
Texas A&M University
Nancy C. Andrews, MD, PhD
Professor
Harvard University
George J. Annas, JD, MPH
Warren Professor
Boston University
Dimitri A. Antoniadis, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
MIT
Lawrence J. Appel, MD
C. David Molina, MD, MPH Professor of Medicine
Johns Hopkins University
Paul S. Appelbaum, MD
Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine & Law
Columbia University
... [REDACTED: Full list continues with thousands of signatories]
"SPECIAL NOTE: The signatories list is extensive and includes many prominent scientists, scholars, and policy experts from universities, research institutes, and organizations across the United States and worldwide. The names listed above represent a snapshot of the breadth and depth of the scientific community endorsing the concerns expressed in this statement. The views expressed here are the authors’ own and not those of any single institution."