Across the United States, scientists and advocates rallied to call attention to billionaire Elon Musk’s dangerous cuts to federal research programs and institutions.
In Raleigh, hundreds of scientists, educators, and supporters warned about the generations-long impact of gutting scientific and medical research.
“Clinical trials for cancer, diabetes, addiction, among others, have been stopped,” Nyssa Tucker, a Ph.D. student at UNC-Chapel Hill, told WRAL. “Essential demographic studies that span decades have been abruptly halted.”
On behalf of the Trump administration, Musk is taking away funding from crucial medical research studies, grants, and programs – resulting in thousands of individuals losing their jobs, students losing funding, and losses of research for life-saving medications.
Crucial federal programs such as the EPA, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are being targeted. Musk’s cuts will hit states like North Carolina the hardest, as the state is home to numerous research and medical institutions.
The National Institutes of Health is a federal agency that helps cover the overhead costs for universities and institutions conducting and supporting research. It is the largest biomedical research in the world, which has helped support advances in numerous life-saving medications, drugs, and scientific advancements.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s cuts to institutions in North Carolina, and around the country would mean setting back years of scientific research and widespread economic fallout.
“Without those researchers being funded by the NIH, that whole next generation of scientists won’t exist,” Mike Cutlip, a concerned North Carolinian, told WRAL. “Private industry does not train the scientists that work. It’s the researchers at the universities that do that.”
RTI International, a Durham-based research nonprofit and one of the Triangle’s largest employers, confirmed a second round of layoffs with more than 80 North Carolinians losing their jobs due to the Musk cuts. According to The News & Observer, RTI International may lose millions through the Trump administration’s gutting of USAID and NIH.
Research universities like Duke and UNC are facing grant and funding losses as well. Seven USAID-funded research programs at UNC have already been terminated, according to UNC Media Relations.
Duke University, which took in $580 million in NIH grants and contracts to support medical research, laboratory equipment, Ph.D. students, and staff, will face significant losses. Duke University is 11th among the country’s research institutions but without funding from NIH, the future of science research and life-saving medical advancements are at risk.
“Our next generation of researchers are now poised on the edge of this cliff, not knowing if there’s going to be a bridge that’s going to get them to the other side, or if this is it,” Beth Sullivan, who oversees Duke’s 17 biomedical Ph.D. programs, told AP.
Earlier this month, a judge blocked billionaire Musk and Trump’s administration from carrying out the dangerous cuts to NIH and medical research. According to Reuters, a district judge in Boston issued a nationwide injunction at the request of 22 state attorneys general, medical associations, and universities that argue the National Institutes of Health’s planned funding cuts were unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley noted that the policy creates an “imminent risk of halting life-saving clinical trials, disrupting the development of innovative medical research and treatment, and shuttering of research facilities, without regard for current patient care.”
