For decades, the United States has been the fate of scientific talent around the world. Now, with the mass dismissals and cuts of the Trump administration of scientific research in the National Health Institutes, that could be about to change.
Earlier this month, a proposal was leaked that shows the draft of the Trump administration plan to reduce the budget of National Health Institutes. NIH is the world’s largest biomedical research agency. The administration proposal would reduce more than 40% of its budget of $ 47 billion and consolidate its 27 institutes and centers in only eight, eliminating four.
The plan has shaken the agency and the broader scientific community, since so much medical research depends on the financing of NIH. It also seems to have the potential to make young scientists look abroad to continue their work.
“We can see, as a result of what happened in these dramatic few months, a reverse brain leak, where we begin to lose some of our best and most brilliant young scientists, think they will have a better opportunity in another”, Dr. “Dr. Francis Collins, who left NIH in February.” That would be terrible tragic. “”
Collins spent 32 years at the agency, including 12 as director. Duration of his time at the agency, helped mentor of many young scientists. He told 60 minutes that agitation has already impacted researchers who just begin their careers, both because financing has been reduced for the necessary laboratory supplies and because many universities have arrested new graduate students or post -docational colleagues.
“This is a generation that we could lose from young talents,” Collins told the 60 -minute correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi. “They are the ones who are going to make those next advances for cancer and diabetes and strange diseases, and many of them there is no way [in the U.S.] Not anymore. “
Collins said that the United States has been the fate of medical research for decades, but other countries, including China, are now beginning to catch up. China will take advantage of any loss in the American impulse, said Collins.
China, together with Australia and Europe, has already promoted its recruitment efforts, hoping to capitalize on the possible “brain leak” of the United States. In France, a new program called “Safe Place for Science” within the University of Aix Marseille has dedicated millions of dollars to attract students from the United States.
And the scholars, apparently, are ready to be attracted. The three quarters of US researchers and postgraduate students who responded to a recent survey in the weekly scientific journal Nature said they are considering that the US.
But the programs abroad are not immune to changes in the US. Uu. Last month, the Trump administration sent a survey to some international agencies and universities around the world that receive US funds from various federal sources. The questionnaire asked investigators if their projects complied with the interests of the United States government, including the completion of DEI and climatic initiatives.
Kristin Weinstein, a doctoral candidate at Washington University, said she believes that Trump administration’s actions are deliberate.
“Scientists are a group of highly educated people and who are good to form community,” Weinstein told 60 minutes. “And I think that when you disburse scientific research and the creation of brain drainage, that helps consolidate control and power.”
To continue their research on cancer and automation after graduation, Weinstein and his family are considering moving abroad. Until now, she has explored options in Europe and Canada.
Weinstein worries that the loss of America in medical research could lead to the gain of other countries, including China.
“I think that even if you have no scientists who are specifically Gards China, wherever they are going, they are dispersing,” he said. “And so, you are losing a group of talented people in the United States, which is currently the world leader of biomedical research.”
According to former NIH director, Francis Collins, if the United States loses its status as a leader in biomedical research, the consequences will be more than health: it is also about economics.
Collins pointed out the human genome project, which he led during most of his 13 years. The project cost US taxpayers about $ 3 billion from 1990 to 2003. Collins said current estimates are that their investment yield has more than $ 1 billion.
“If we had another occasion like that at this time, a project appeared or as the human genome project, some really big, bold, a little risky, but if it works, in the United States in this situation we would have the courage to assume it?” Collins speculated. “Or would anyone do that else?”
Credit: Photos and Videos Courtesy of the NiH Clinical Center, Getty Images & AFP.
The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by Scott Rosann.