The Trump administration has issued a series of executive orders and proposed numerous controversial changes to agencies within the United States. Trump’s proposed alterations to federal medical agencies and national medical research have sparked significant uproar.
Trump and his administration have recently proposed significant cuts to the funding of medical research, alongside his overtaking of federal agencies like the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and NIH (National Institutes of Health): two well-renowned sources of medical information and two crucial resource providers throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. As of now, multiple pages of the CDC’s website have become unavailable to the public. Specifically, some pages that relate to LGBTQ health information, pregnancy safety, and STIs, such as HIV, have been removed, indicating targeted demographics and raising serious concerns for groups who need access to this life-saving information. The proposed federal funding cuts of medical research may also raise concerns for the research and treatment developments of medical diseases and conditions, like cancer, that impact a significant portion of the United States population.
The cutbacks would also have a significant impact on the nation’s resilience to possible future threats, as historically federal and private funding have played a crucial role in medical breakthroughs on treatments and vaccines for diseases as recent as Covid-19 or as old as Smallpox.
These national-level changes even have an impact on local communities cultivating future scientists. The Nyack High School Science Research Program is an opportunity for students who have an interest in conducting research based on their interests in various fields that include topics like medicine, psychology, and climate science. These students use online resources and articles to search for information and communicate with scientists actually conducting research to help propel their understanding of their topics. Students from Mrs. Kleinman’s 9th period Science Research class were interviewed to discuss their thoughts on the potential impacts on national research funding cuts.
When asked about the impact of potential medical research cuts on Nyack High School, the students shared similar ideas. Senior Sydney Edmonds explained that students in the program are searching for mentors so the lack of funding can “make it harder for students to find researchers to work with and projects that they can work on which are both crucial parts of this program…it can have a detrimental impact on high schools students’ ability to conduct research before entering college.” Edmonds is also concerned that the government won’t stop at medical research. As her project focuses on climate research, she states her concern is that the current administration “ha[s] no regard for the current human impact on the climate,” impacting the future of human populations.
Zoe Reiss is a high school junior in the Science Research program. She discussed the crucial role that the professional science community plays in high school science research programs, explaining that students rely on the “generosity from researchers working on high level research, oftentimes in a lab.” Reiss also describes the importance of students having the opportunity to gain lab experience, an opportunity that may become nearly impossible if funding cuts continue to be made to national, professional research. “Not having opportunities within a science research program could have an impact on the future of scientists and the science community,” says Reiss, “because these are often formative experiences for future scientists to determine their goals and interests within research.”
Ella Rakhlin, another senior, expressed concerns similar to Zoe. Rakhlin spent her summer learning about Alzheimer's research in a lab environment through the Science Research program. She worked with three other high school researchers and says that “if we had significant cuts to medical research then they might not have had the space of funding to support me – a high school student -- or other high school students.” Rakhlin goes on to explain that without federal funding, programs like the one she participated in would “otherwise be a program likely exclusive to college researchers or professionals” and that “these types of programs are so important because they help people understand what kinds of doctors they want to be and what research they want to pursue.”
Multiple schools across the country house their own science research programs similar to the one here at Nyack High School. These threats to medical research programs would not only have immediate impacts on national lifesaving medical understanding, but they can also have significant impacts on future scientists’ access to crucial research experience. Currently 22 states have sued Trump’s administration over their proposed cuts to research funding.
Sometimes it can feel like we are just high school students, and we don’t have any power or say in what happens to us. But fortunately, there are still things we can do to oppose the cuts to medical funding and speak up for the causes that are important to us during this time of rapid political change. We can call our representatives, write to them, or donate our time or money to causes that we care about. As young people, we are the future of more than just science research and we should have some influence in the way that these decisions are made.