Speaking at the March for Science in Boston Saturday, George Daley, MD, PhD, dean of Boston-based Harvard Medical School, said he was "terrified" of President Donald Trump's proposed cuts to the nation's health and science-related research budgets.
Dr. Daley reportedly spoke to a crowd of more than 500 individuals who gathered on the medical school's campus before making their way to Boston Common for the city's March for Science Saturday. He emphasized his outrage and his fear of what such drastic budget cuts will mean for the future of medical research and for the scientific profession.
"Make no mistake[,] like a slow-growing but ultimately malignant cancer, the metastasizing doubt of science will lead to harmful decisions and reckless policies. The attack on science is the result of a schism in our society that is more fundamental and far deeper than any political divide. The attack on science is a rift that signifies a dangerously widening chasm between critical thinking and rigid ideology … If it stands, the proposal to slash nearly one-fifth of the NIH budget will be devastating to American biomedicine [and] I fear the effects over the long-term could haunt us for generations … Millions of people, even billions around the world, are alive today because of life-saving, life-sustaining and life-altering treatments that emerged from curiosity-driven research … These cuts will not just destabilize the economy, they will essentially eliminate a generation of young scientists."
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