23 Apr Handelsman calls federal cuts to science funding ‘appalling’ and damaging to economy
A life sciences coalition chaired by Wisconsin Institute for Discovery Director Jo Handelsman is rallying against “unprecedented disruptions” caused by cuts to federal science funding.
Handelsman spoke yesterday during a Wisconsin Technology Council meeting in Madison, where she said the Trump administration’s moves to withhold and cancel funding for health research and other areas are already doing damage.
“The uncertainty is devastating,” she said. “The effect on morale is horrible. I think I spend more of my time just trying to keep people’s spirits up, the young people in particular, than just about anything else because people are just so demoralized.”
She noted cuts to National Institutes of Health funding aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI have been indiscriminate, in some cases targeting unrelated research that happens to have the word “diversity” in the topic. In other cases, funding has been cut for efforts to understand health differences between various populations, which Handelsman called a “critical” area of research.
Handelsman, a former White House science advisor in the Obama administration, says the cuts have been “appalling.” She argued the abrupt end to federal support for ongoing projects leads to waste as funding has already been invested and work is underway.
“It’s massively destructive to student training, because all of a sudden the student or postdoc is left without support,” she said. “And then it’s also particularly problematic for clinical trials because patients are left without the care that comes along with many clinical trials … that can be very dangerous and even fatal.”