America’s largest scientific society gets tough on Trump

The leadership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has expressed serious concern that the Trump administration is disregarding science advice. This claim was made at a press briefing that kicked off the organisation’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas on 15 February. ‘As we changed our government in the US, the position of science adviser to the president and the positions of science advisers in most of the agencies across Washington DC remain open,’ said the AAAS’s president Susan Hockfield, who is also a professor of neuroscience and the president emerita of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ‘It is terrifying that our government is operating without the advice of scientists,’ she said.