The US is losing its next generation of health scientists
The U.S. has held a global leadership position in public health and health science research for decades. In the past 75 years, this research has brought many diseases under control through basic research leading to vaccines, drugs, healthy lifestyles and public health initiatives.
These achievements are the result of a nationwide research infrastructure that includes many universities wherein the next generation of scientists is being trained, largely supported by grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.
In 2024, NIH provided more than $37 billion in funding across every state, creating more than 400,000 jobs and generating $92 billion in economic activity. This funding is used for laboratory research, research centers and, most importantly, the education of trainees, the next generation of scientists. Trainees greatly contribute to the research and discoveries even while they are in training.
But the U.S. research and training infrastructure is under attack by the Trump administration, and there have been destructive consequences. The future of public health and health science research is at grave risk.
The administration has issued a multi-pronged, anti-science attack on the health sciences. Possibly the most destructive is the recent slashing of research funding for both NIH and the National Science Foundation. Critical research in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, vaccine development and so much more will slow to a crawl and possibly stop as universities curtail health research efforts they can no longer support.
But the hidden and potentially most lethal cost is that training will cease.
NIH and NSF funding supports a great deal of training, from undergraduate through graduate and postdoctoral studies. The administration’s actions will result in the loss of the next generation of scientists, the very people who will carry on the quest for discovery, who will discover new treatments and cures and develop new vaccines and strategies for a healthier society.
This is not hypothetical; we are already seeing universities cut back on admission of graduate students for health science programs, even rescinding offers of admission that have already been sent. Postdoctoral training and clinical research training programs will follow.
And it’s not just the challenges on the university side; science-oriented high school and college students are already considering that a career in the health sciences and public health may be too risky. The number of U.S.-trained health scientists will grow smaller and smaller until the nation’s health science research and discovery becomes irrelevant.
It has been argued that industry will pick up the lost research and training. This is unlikely since the research funded by NIH and NSF is long-term discovery-driven research that is often high-risk. The early discoveries made with NIH and NSF funding are often licensed to private industry for final development, testing and marketing. This pipeline will be severed, and investor-oriented, profit-driven companies will be loath to take on the expense of such research.
Additionally, they could never duplicate the vast research infrastructure supported by NIH and NSF funding. Private industry also cannot confer degrees to trainees; universities provide this training to prepare their students for careers in either industry or academic research.
It has also been argued that other countries will do the work. While there is very good health science research going on in many other countries, particularly in China, the loss of the American research infrastructure and its worldwide collaborative nature will slow the world’s progress for many, many years.
The strong collaborations that U.S. scientists have with scientists all over the globe has arisen, in large part, from relationships formed when foreign students are trained in U.S. universities, a prospect that will dim as the country’s research training dries up.
We are facing the end of health research in the U.S. by eliminating the next generation of scientists. This will have terrible consequences in both chronic and infectious disease research as well as severe economic consequences.
It is time for all of us to speak out against the destruction of the health sciences. It is time for all NIH-funded universities and institutions, as well as all health and life science professional organizations, to come together and form a united front to push back with messaging and legal actions to restore U.S. health science research and training.
James Alwine is a virologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, a visiting professor at the University of Arizona and a fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Elizabeth Jacobs is an epidemiologist and professor emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of the advocacy group Defend Public Health.
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