Thomas Lu
Appearances
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
I don't know, our show talks a lot about unanswered scientific questions, you know, what we don't know. And I feel like a lot of questions might end up unanswered that didn't need to end up that way. And this might be a case where we don't know what kinds of things we're going to end up not knowing.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Yeah, Elon Musk is playing a big role here through his Doge cost-cutting mission. And I know he's criticized what he sees as the inefficiency of a lot of scientific research. Like, he had this quote where he said something like, most scientific papers are pretty useless. And I guess...
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
It seems to me like maybe he is misunderstanding how science works, that if you're going for efficiency, you may end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
But we're dealing with a situation here where questions might start going unanswered because of attacks on science itself. It's feeling pretty unprecedented. So this week on the show, I'm going to do my best to tell you what's been happening and what it might mean for the future of scientific research. If you haven't been able to keep up, here's a quick recap.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Yeah, I mean, GLP-1s like Ozempic, you know, they come from saliva we got from Gila monsters.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
I know we're right in the middle of all of this and, you know, it could change in two days. Yeah. What's your sense of alarm when it comes to this whole situation right now?
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
On Inauguration Day, Trump issued 26 executive orders. But the ones on gender and DEI really set off alarms at science agencies.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
In response to those orders, the National Science Foundation started circulating a list of keywords that could cause grants to be pulled. And the Centers for Disease Control told their scientists to retract and revise research that included terms like gender, pregnant person, LGBT, biologically female, all kinds of things.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
The day after that executive order, a memo went out to all the health agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, the NSF, the CDC, and it banned all external communication unless it had been approved by the Trump administration. Next, the government issued a blanket ban on all federal grants.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Two judges blocked that grant freeze, but on Monday the 10th, one of them ruled that some of that money still hadn't been released. The order had been ignored. And researchers, like one clinical psychologist we spoke to, they're worried about the future of their funding.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Even after the judge's order, agencies like the NSF specifically said grants would be awarded, quote, in the context of recent executive orders, which has a lot of people thinking about that list of forbidden terms, especially when it comes to research on things like MPOCs or reproductive health. Like one researcher said in an interview with Katie Couric.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been telling researchers at the CDC what to study and what not to study. They've withheld research on bird flu and told scientists to do more research on the health effects of wildfires, at the same time that the president has been criticizing California's response to those wildfires.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
And then finally, at the end of last week, the NIH announced its own major funding cut.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Like lots of things these days, that decision was temporarily blocked by a judge. But scientists, doctors, university administrators, they're confused. They don't know what kind of research is permitted. They're not sure how they're allowed to communicate. They have no idea if they're going to get paid.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
That's Derek Lowe. He's been working in pharmaceutical research for over 30 years, and he writes In the Pipeline, which is one of the most influential and longest-running science blogs out there. Derek's got kind of an insider-outsider perspective on all of this.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
He's super well-connected to researchers on the inside of the national science agencies, but because his research isn't funded by the NIH or the NSF, He's not financially tied to what happens. He doesn't have government grants that are going to get canceled here. And as someone who works on the applied side of science, he knows what can happen when basic research gets disrupted.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
So he's been following the disruptions over the last couple weeks extremely closely.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
So have you talked to people on the inside? Have you talked to people at the NIH or the NSF and what it's like over there?
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Do you think this might lead scientists and researchers to try to go do their work in other countries?
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Why do you think it matters whether the research is coming out of the US or somewhere else?
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
I'm curious if you think there are any inefficiencies in these agencies.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
So there's a lot we don't know here, a lot of confusion. We don't know how much of this is going to get walked back. Some of it already has been walked back. Right. I'm wondering what kind of damage has been done already, like even if more things get walked back.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
Thank you to the researchers who spoke with us about everything that's going on right now. Coming up in a minute, the ripple effects of a potential war on science.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
It's been three weeks since President Trump was inaugurated. And in that time, America's health and science institutions have been thrown into chaos. There's been funding freezes, communications gag orders, censorship of research. Things are moving really fast, and we still don't have a complete picture of exactly what's going on here.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
So Derek, if this stuff doesn't get walked back, what do you think the future of scientific research in America could look like?
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
I wonder if you can give me an example, maybe, just to drive this home for the audience, of something that came out of the NIH or the NSF in the last few years that maybe we wouldn't get if the agency was cut by a half or a quarter.
Today, Explained
Is science in danger?
But a lot of scientists are concerned about their research and their careers. Normally on Unexplainable, when we talk about why questions are still unanswered, it's because they're particularly hard to solve, even when scientists have all the time and the freedom in the world to work on them.