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Rural cancer patients may miss out on cutting-edge treatments in Utah. Therapies for intellectual disorders could stall in Maryland. Red states and blue states alike are poised to lose jobs in research labs and the local businesses serving them.
Ripple effects of the Trump administration’s crackdown on U.S. biomedical research promise to reach every corner of America. It’s not just about scientists losing their jobs or damaging the local economy their work indirectly supports—scientists around the country say it’s about patient health.
“Discoveries are going to be delayed, if they ever happen,” says Dr. Kimryn Rathmell, former director of the National Cancer Institute.
It’s hard for patients to comprehend how they could lose an undiscovered cure.
Yet “all the people out there who have, you know, sick parents, sick children, this is going to impact,” says neuroscientist Richard Huganir of Johns Hopkins University.
Among the biggest blows, if it survives a court challenge: Massive cuts in funding from the National Institutes of Health that would cost jobs in every state, according to an analysis by The Associated Press with assistance from the nonprofit United for Medical Research.
That’s on top of mass firings of government workers, NIH delays in issuing grants and uncertainty about how many already funded studies are being canceled under the president’s anti-diversity executive orders.
