Three major United States executive branch intertwined threats to science for the public good and the public’s health are looming — but they all can be stopped by an informed public exercising its political power. At issue is not simply a partisan battle: It is about what it takes for science and public health work to be trustworthy and allow the public’s health to thrive.
Threat One
Threat number one is the proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule, a 400+ page dense document that aims to put executive branch-appointed political operatives in charge of all federal grant funding decisions, regardless of whether they have knowledge about the work proposed. The rule authorizes them to terminate grants at will — effectively a line-item veto.
As one of the first health researchers to have a National Institutes of Health R01 grant terminated by the current President Donald Trump administration on purely political grounds, I know what is at stake. Affecting all federal grants, the potential harms extend well beyond science and broaden to include towns, cities, states, and reservations across the U.S. Everyone will be impacted because economies and people depend on federal grants for infrastructure, transportation, libraries, health care, food security, the knowledge economy, and the very knowledge needed to protect well-being.
Making clear its opposition to an informed public, the proposed rule deliberately forbids research on disparate impact, preventing research on diverse communities’ differential risk of exposure to health-harming pollutants or policies.
Issued on May 29 with a stated goal of being implemented by October 1, the proposed rule elicited, in a crimped 45-day comment period, a record-breaking number of comments — nearly 500,000, with 95% critical. Underscoring the deep concerns expressed, ten days after the comment period ended, A New York Times headline covered the story, saying, “Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states ‘based solely’ on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.”
Reflecting bipartisan concerns, the Senate budget bill passed on August 8 included language to delay implementation of the OMB proposed rule until December 11. The same delay was included in the House budget bill passed on September 1. These bills together expand opportunities to challenge and quash the proposed rule during the impending post-November midterms budget battle.
Threat Two
Threat number two is the new executive branch vision for science, published on July 21 and titled “Science: A New Golden Age.” This document casts science solely as handmaiden to profit-making commercial endeavors and narrowly promotes AI, extractive industries (on Earth and in space), and military technologies.
Counterpart to the OMB proposed rule, it pointedly ignores sciences concerned with social needs, environmental health, and how people’s living and working conditions shape their health status. It denigrates peer review. And it deems the concentration of expertise and training at universities an impediment to scientific advancement. All are highly problematic claims.
Threat Three
Threat number three is the new executive decision by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to stop funding research on how policies affect people’s health. Its justification? A claim that policymakers aren’t among the NIH’s stakeholders. Tell that to the members of Congress — all policymakers — who decide on the NIH appropriations!
Case in point of what will be lost: NIH has funded critical research demonstrating the health and economic value of early childhood education programs over the course of people’s lives, from childhood to adulthood — is that evidence suddenly no longer important?
Adulating executive power, all three threats render the U.S. federal government both an unreliable partisan funder and a source of harm. At risk are not just people in the U.S. but globally, given that the NIH is “the world’s biggest funder of biomedical research and widely considered the gold standard for a research-funding agency.”
Every person and every community needs to have access to the evidence they need to protect their health and thrive. Crucial input is needed from not only scientists and public health professionals, but also those most harmed by preventable exposures, along with the very public whose taxes fund publicly-supported science and elected legislators with power to enact policy and set budgets.
Myriad groups are mobilizing to inform scientists, policymakers, and the general public about constructive ways to challenge these executive branch threats, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, Research!America, Stand Up for Science, Defend Public Health, and the American Public Health Association, acting in solidarity with the National Association of Counties, the American Bankers Association, the National Council of Nonprofits, the National Housing Law Project, among others.
None of these three executive branch power grabs are a fact foretold. Scientists can give voice and oppose these threats, guided by already-existing and more accountable and inclusive approaches to bolstering science and the public’s health.
Dr. Krieger represents solely her own views in this op-ed, does not represent her institution, and has no conflicts of interest to report.
