Defend Public Health Urges Appropriations Committee to Probe Destruction of U.S. Health Research

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the Senate Appropriations Committee prepares for tomorrow’s hearing on Biomedical Research: Keeping America’s Edge in Innovation, Defend Public Health urged the committee to look deeply into what the group termed the “wholesale destruction” of the U.S. biomedical research infrastructure.

Yale University (* affiliation listed for identification purposes only) epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, a member of Defend Public Health’s coordinating committee, said, “We welcome this urgently needed hearing. Our nation’s global leadership in biomedical innovation is a direct result of bipartisan, long-term investments in our nation’s cornerstones of biomedical research: the NIH, CDC, and FDA.  

“The Trump Administration, through the departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Education, and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has essentially declared war on America’s health and the biomedical science that protects it. Their weapons include reckless budget cuts, workforce purges, and dangerous policies. Congress has the power to stop this destruction, and we urge it to use that power before this public health malpractice costs lives.”

DPH reminded the committee of the critical role of the National Institutes of Health, noting that “NIH has funded the country’s most innovative research and has been the source of as many radical and groundbreaking treatments as industry, if not more. Every revolutionary drug that innovators have developed can trace its beginnings to NIH funding.” 

DPH also focused its critique on the way in which budget cuts and firings have interrupted life-saving cancer research and delayed urgently needed clinical trials of new therapies. It also highlighted the potentially chilling and destructive impact of the Trump administration’s targeting of universities and medical journals and the impact of the “brain drain” that has already begun, as U.S. researchers facing firing and attempts at political intimidation begin looking for jobs overseas.

“This administration has declared war on public health,” Gonsalves said. “Congress must stop it before people die from the administration’s recklessness.”