Making Sense Of Federal Cuts To Science—And What Comes Next

Last week, some 3,500 people from across scientific fields gathered in Boston for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The organization’s CEO, Dr. Sudip Parikh, gave a rousing speech to attendees.

“Destruction for the ill-conceived notion of cutting costs didn’t put an American on the moon, and it didn’t wipe smallpox from the face of the Earth,” Parikh said in opening remarks.

He was referring, of course, to the huge funding cuts and mass firings happening across federal science and health agencies under the Trump administration. Over the last few weeks, news of these cuts has been frequent—along with the cancellation of grants that include certain prohibited words and the disappearance of data from agency websites.

So what’s happening, and how should the scientific community respond? Host Flora Lichtman sat down with Dr. Sudip Parikh to discuss the importance of this point in time for American science and technology, what cuts for “efficiency” are getting wrong, and what’s at stake in the next few weeks.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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