Why We All Need to Stand Up for Science

You’ve seen the news, right? The infrastructure that supports American science is being dismantled. Beyond what we will lose, I find myself mourning who we will lose.

It is nearly impossible to measure the losses we as a society are facing from these massive cuts to scientific inquiry. For the last month, I have been thinking about who gets hurt. I think about how the anti-vaccine agenda will slow down the next steps for a new mRNA vaccine to protect against pancreatic cancer, which took the life of my best friend’s father when we were 17. I think about my officemate, whose research on health disparities and substance use in the LGBTQ+ population was politically sabotaged. I am thinking about her son, who is less than a year old and can’t yet be vaccinated for measles while it spreads here in New Mexico. I am thinking about the would-be-researcher who spoke at our Stand Up For Science rally in Santa Fe: She was accepted to three environmental science PhD programs (a wildly impressive feat). All three offers were rescinded because of threats to federal funding. I think about a fellow postdoc whose proposal to study the link between Alzheimer’s disease and alcohol in mice was thrown away because the grant program supports diverse scholars. I think about my own work, whether I can continue to do research in harm reduction and substance use to improve public health and reduce fatal overdose, which took my brother’s life a decade ago. It is increasingly unbearable to watch as my friends, fellow researchers, lose opportunities to advance scientific research.