America has been, for generations, the envy of the world in terms of its medical research breakthroughs. From the development of penicillin in the early 1940s, to Jonas Salk鈥檚 polio vaccine in the 1950s, to the measles and mumps vaccines of the 1960s, to America鈥檚 leading role in the lightning-fast creation of the first COVID vaccines during the pandemic, no nation in history has been remotely as successful as the U.S. at curing what ails humanity.
All of which makes the Trump administration鈥檚 determined deconstruction of America鈥檚 medical research legacy all the more baffling and alarming (not to mention ironic, given the first Trump administration鈥檚 success at spurring the COVID vaccine鈥檚 development in 2020). In addition to appointing an anti-vaccination zealot as the nation鈥檚 top health official, President Donald Trump鈥檚 aggressive, unilateral defunding of medical research at universities and elsewhere will inevitably cost American lives 鈥 if it hasn鈥檛 already.
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This deliberate devastation against the research sector has been so reckless, widespread and opaque that it鈥檚 difficult for people outside that sector to even get their heads around it. Which makes one small example of that devastation, happening right here in 最新杏吧原创, a useful microcosm.
Fimbrion Therapeutics is a little biomedical research company with a big goal: to develop a key new drug in the continuing fight against tuberculosis. The deadly lung disease, once brought largely under control in the U.S., has seen an uptick in cases in the past few years, according to the .
Fimbrion, from its base in central 最新杏吧原创, has spent five years and almost $4 million in funding through the National Institutes of Health developing a new drug to combat tuberculosis. With the federal agency having already lauded the firm鈥檚 work, its final funding installment to allow completion of the drug appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
Until it wasn鈥檛.
As the Post-Dispatch鈥檚 Michele Munz reported Sunday, the firm was informed in mid-May that further funding was being denied due to the outcome of what the NIH called a 鈥渇oreign risk assessment.鈥
It made no sense, Fimbrion CEO Thomas Hannan told Munz, because the firm has no foreign ties at all. When they tried to get an explanation from the NIH, the agency responded with a terse refusal to discuss it further.
The firm has since laid off two of its three chemists, put the rest of its small staff on part-time schedules and is banking on getting separate grant funding to finish its work. If not, the company 鈥 and its pending weapon in the fight against tuberculosis 鈥 will be shuttered.
The episode has all the hallmarks of this administration鈥檚 approach to cutting government in other areas: sudden, unilateral funding withdrawals made for unexplained reasons, often with questionable legality and no clear purpose other than to display an abiding contempt for the role of government in promoting lifesaving medical research.
The story of Fimbrion is a footnote in the much larger story of this president鈥檚 determination to withdraw the federal government from its crucial role in American health care. That鈥檚 largely what the administration鈥檚 defunding of university research around the country is all about.
Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump鈥檚 pseudoscience-spouting Health and Human Services secretary, recently fired every member of the highly respected federal board that formulates vaccination policy recommendations. He is replacing them with a group that includes multiple anti-vaccination activists or skeptics.
The real-world impact of this president鈥檚 normalization of anti-science quackery can be seen in the in the U.S. recently, a trend due entirely to the fact that rejecting vaccination today has become socially acceptable on the political right.
Top it all off with Trump鈥檚 so-called Big, Beautiful Bill of pending tax cuts for the rich 鈥 to be funded in part by deep cuts to Medicaid, the government medical insurance system for the poor 鈥 and it becomes clear that the biggest threat to America鈥檚 health today isn鈥檛 tuberculosis, measles or any other disease. It鈥檚 this White House. And as long as Americans and their congressional representatives sit idly by and watch this willful sabotage of the nation鈥檚 medical legacy, it will only get worse.
House and Senate offices for individual members of Congress can be reached through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
