Detecting tuberculosis can be tricky.
The time between getting infected and presenting with symptoms can span months or even years. To trace this contagious disease, Melanie Chitwood, a postdoctoral associate who studies the epidemiology of microbial diseases, worked with colleagues at Yale University to sequence the bacteria’s genomic data, using that as a signal to detect transmission.
Generations ago, public health workers in the United States had snuffed out most tuberculosis transmission. To study this illness Chitwood’s team collected samples for more than a decade from places where the disease is more common, including Moldova and Malawi. Their work has contributed to understanding how to get one step ahead of the disease.
But now, the federal grant funding that had supported Chitwood’s yearslong research is gone.
Weeks after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, his administration began to cancel grants to reduce what it called “fraud, waste and abuse.” Researchers who pursued anything that appeared to contradict his agenda in global health, race, gender identity, climate change and topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion saw their grants terminated.
READ MORE: What happens to health research when ‘women’ and ‘diversity’ are banned words?
Chitwood said “it’s starting to feel like the walls are closing in” as opportunities to continue her research in the United States disappear. Like a growing number of scientists and experts, Chitwood is asking herself if she needs to pursue her research outside the country.
“It feels like I need to either change what I do or change where I do it,” Chitwood said. “Neither of those options are pleasant.”
The administration’s cuts to federal funding and hiring freezes at colleges and universities come at a crucial time. While cures exist for tuberculosis, public health experts are concerned those tools could be losing their edge. Evidence shows the bacteria that causes the disease is increasingly resistant to antibiotics that were once effective treatments.
Cases of tuberculosis are reported occasionally in the U.S., where a century ago, it was a leading cause of death. For nearly three decades, the disease’s prevalence has fallen, but that is changing. Last year, more than 10,000 U.S. cases of tuberculosis were confirmed, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking an increase over recent years.
As U.S. funding dries up, some researchers told PBS News life-saving answers are at risk of slipping through their fingers.
Experts face a ‘blitzkrieg against science’
Throughout history, intellectuals have found themselves considering whether to flee a hostile environment.
Before World War II, physicist Albert Einstein, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and other scientists fled Europe to escape persecution and death during the Holocaust, finding refuge in the United States. Purges also consumed the educated class in the Soviet Union and Cambodia in the 20th century.
Once in the United States, the work of these refugees contributed to the nation’s post-war prosperity and helped make it a global leader in innovation, said Robert N. Proctor, a science historian at Stanford University. U.S. investments in research, he said, are “really the seed corn of future knowledge.”
Trump’s targeting of intellectuals will disrupt more than grant cycles, Proctor added, upending scientific infrastructure that took decades to build only to usher in “the golden age of ignorance.”
“It really is a blitzkrieg against science,” he said.
So far this year, roughly 2,400 grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been terminated, according to Grant Watch, a project that has worked to chronicle the Trump administration’s efforts to slash research funding. Some of the most common words in these terminated grants included “hiv,” “biomedical,” “risk” and “disparities.”
READ MORE: READ MORE: NIH scientists publish letter criticizing Trump’s deep cuts in public health research
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during his May 14 testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, “We will fund cutting-edge research at the NIH while cutting risky or non-essential services.” He added that the administration would “eliminate DEI funding and redirect resources toward real poverty reduction.”
When Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked why the Trump administration had cut $18 billion from NIH, Kennedy repeatedly said that if Congress appropriated the funds for NIH, he would spend those funds that were required by law.
“We have!” DeLauro shot back.
Since Trump’s second term began, some widely respected scholars have left the U.S., including philosopher and fascism expert Jason Stanley from Yale University. Many more are considering leaving, according to a March 27 survey published in the journal Nature. Among more than 1,600 U.S. scientists, three-quarters said they have thought about leaving the country. Many said they were looking at Europe and Canada.
In school, Chitwood had learned about Europe’s World War II-era “brain drain,” including the downstream effects of those losses, such as less innovation in medical care.
“There are real and lasting consequences here,” she said. “We’re standing on the precipice of that.”
Other nations are capitalizing on U.S. loss
While the U.S. is pulling back on its investments in innovation and research, other nations are eager to gain advantages through attracting a highly skilled workforce.
The European Union announced the Choose Europe for Science initiative last month, devoting 500 million euros in grant funding to attract American scientists and scholars to Europe, where they can continue their research unfettered by political agendas. This expanded on a program established in 2017 by French President Emmanuel Macron during the first Trump administration.
“This is a call to all free minds who want to advance science and stand up for a certain model of society,” Macron said at the May 5 announcement of the initiative at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
The uncertainty that these cuts generate is devastating for young people on the cusp of starting their careers in research, Proctor said. Many “idealistic people who want to change the world” will be driven to the private sector, he added.
David Paltiel, a professor of public health at Yale University, said he is near the end of his career and can fall back on savings if he needs to.
“I will be able to weather the storm,” he said. “I’m much more concerned about junior faculty who are just getting started.”
Chitwood never planned on leaving New England. Born and raised in Rhode Island, she said the family of her husband, a physician, lives in Boston. In the last year, they had been talking about buying a house, starting a family of their own and living close enough so grandparent visits would be easy and frequent. Those plans are now frozen as Chitwood and her husband work to figure out if they must uproot their lives and start again elsewhere.
“If the goal is to root out anyone who thinks that diversity is good, that equity is good, that we should fight injustice, then what do I do?” she said.
Maybe Canada is her next step. Or the Netherlands. Chitwood knows her work still matters and that it holds the power to help improve the health of people around the world, no matter where she lives.
