Trump cuts the next generation of scientists and public health leaders

The opinions came all weekend, landing in the reception boxes of federal scientists, doctors and public health professionals: your work is no longer necessary.

At the National Institutes of Health, the country’s first biomedical research agency, around 1,200 employees – including promising young investigators scheduled for larger roles – have been rejected.

In the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two prestigious training programs have been emptied: one which incorporates recent public health graduates in local health services and another to cultivate the next generation of doctorate. laboratory scientists. But the agency’s epidemic intelligence service – the “detectives of the disease” which follows epidemics worldwide – has apparently been spared, perhaps because of an uproar among the former members were informed on Friday that they would be released.

President Trump’s plan to reduce the size of federal workforce has been subject to thousands of officials in recent days. But cuts to the Ministry of Health and Social Services – on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic, the worst public health crisis – were particularly shocked. Experts say that layoffs threaten to leave the country exposed to new shortages of health workers, endangering the Americans in danger if another crisis bursts.

Public health officials, for example, have followed a deadly stump of flip -in birds which, according to them, remains a low risk for Americans. In recent weeks, however, he claimed his first victim in the United States-a patient in Louisiana who had been exposed to a flock of backyard.

“It is not canceled,” wrote Elon Musk, the billionaire in charge of reducing workforce, on social networks in response to the return of flame on the alleged dismantling of the epidemic intelligence service.