Out of the lab and into the streets, researchers and doctors rally for science against Trump cuts

WASHINGTON — Researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters ventured out of labs, hospitals and offices Friday to stand up to what they call a blitz on life-saving science by the Trump administration.

In the nation’s capital, several hundred people gathered at the Stand Up for Science rally. Organizers said similar rallies were planned in more than 30 U.S. cities.

Politicians, scientists, musicians, doctors and their patients were expected to make the case that firings, budget and grant cuts in health, climate, science and other research government agencies in the Trump administration’s first 47 days in office are endangering not just the future but the present.

“Science is under attack in the United States,” said rally co-organizer Colette Delawalla, a doctoral student in clinical psychology. “We’re not just going to stand here and take it.”

“American scientific progress and forward movement is a public good and public good is coming to a screeching halt right now,” Delawalla said.

Health and science advances are happening faster than ever, said former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, who helped map the human genome. The funding cuts put at risk progress on Alzheimer’s Disease, diabetes and cancer, he said.

“It’s a very bad time with all the promise and momentum,” said Collins.

Friday’s rally in Washington was at the Lincoln Memorial, in the shadow of a statue of the president who created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Some of the expected speakers study giant colliding galaxies, the tiny genetic blueprint of life inside humans and the warming atmosphere.

Nobel Prize winning biologist Victor Ambros, Bill Nye The Science Guy, former NASA chief Bill Nelson and a host of other politicians, and patients — some with rare diseases — were expected to take the stage to talk about their work and the importance of scientific research.

The rallies were organized mostly by graduate students and early career scientists. Dozens of other protests were also planned around the world, including more than 30 in France, Delawalla said.

“The cuts in science funding affects the world,” she said.

She said the administration’s campaign to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion have delayed and threatened her grant because the National Institutes of Health is scrubbing proposals with words such as “female” or “woman.” Her research focuses on compulsive alcohol use in people, which is different for men and women.