Donald Trump’s US government has spent the last year dismantling various aspects of the country’s scientific research and regulatory functions. In many cases, decision-making that would previously have been grounded in scientific evidence now appears to be more strongly influenced by personal beliefs and political agendas.
Understandably, large tracts of the academic community have decried these developments. And even as companies in science-heavy industries such as pharmaceuticals are bending themselves around Trump’s policies – for example by queueing up to agree drug price reductions in exchange for protection from import tariffs – this assault on the country’s core scientific enterprise has also worried industrial scientists.
In an annual address, Noubar Afeyan – co-founder of Moderna and chief executive of venture capital and business building organisation Flagship Pioneering – said the administration’s slashing of science budgets and rejection of scientific debate and evidence risked ‘taking a sledgehammer to our miracle machine’. Not only will US science suffer, said Afeyan, but other progress will be undone: the country is already seeing the re-emergence of measles as a result of a decline in vaccination rates that is attributed to misinformation around safety.
Those who have struggled to resist the tide of politicisation within agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have reportedly found themselves bullied and intimidated into conforming. As veteran regulator and former FDA director Richard Pazdur laid out at an event run by STAT at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, the firewall between political appointees and drug reviewers at the agency ‘has been breached’. Pazdur highlighted a newly introduced system of vouchers to expedite drug reviews for treatments deemed of ‘national priority’. He explained that the whole process of awarding vouchers – and conducting the extremely rapid reviews attached to them – lacks structure and transparency, which could lead to serious questions about the rigour of such reviews if severe side effects emerge post-marketing, for example. ‘It’s terrible to see 25 years of work dismantled,’ said Pazdur, later adding: ‘I did not leave because I wanted to leave.’
How lasting will the legacy of the damage to US science be? Biopharmaceutical industry R&D has always built on foundations provided by strong basic science, and Trump’s trade policies have further encouraged companies to invest in expanding their US facilities. If academic focus migrates elsewhere, those new investments could see their foundations begin to crumble beneath them.
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