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In Pursuit Of Willful Ignorance [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-15
There’s no percentage in being an idiot.
Yet somehow that sound bit of thinking seems to have eluded the decisionmakers in the administration of four-time indicted, twice impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, wannabe fascist dictator, convicted felon, Russian puppet Donald Trump.
Forget their myriad screwups and dumb decisions. Those are just the byproducts of corruption, incompetence and stupidity. It’s one thing to be stupid and incompetent, it’s another to make the dumbing down of an entire country one of the key pieces of your agenda.
We used to be a country that understood the value of science and the importance of study and research. Over the decades we’ve make great discoveries that saved lives and changed the way we live.
Fun times. Looks like they’re going to be over for at least a while.
Trump and his former co-president Elon Musk made slashing scientific research one of their priorities when they took office. Folks like brain-worm-addled, dead-animal-collecting, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought an anti-vaccine, anti-science, pro-voodoo (okay I made that last one up) mantra to his new, grossly undeserved position.
How do we get a grasp on what these people are doing? Well, ProPublica recently ran an excellent piece called “Shattered Science.” It’s a look at how the Trump administration has steamrolled the grant programs of the National Institute of Health.
The NIH is responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s grant investment in biomedical research, giving out more than $30 billion in grants every year, ProPublica reported. This funding has led to countless medical breakthroughs and plays a fundamental role in the development of pharmaceutical drugs.
Trump has terminated more than 1,450 grants since he took office, withholding more than $750 million in funding, ProPublica said,. The government claims it’s addressing wasteful spending and what it calls “unscientific” research.
This isn’t to say that an honest, thoughtful review of spending is wrong, but this administration wouldn’t know real science if it bit it in its collective ass.
There’s a rumor going around that Professor Clyde Crashcup and his assistant Leonardo are advising these clowns. Is there any reason to doubt that?
As a result of this carnage, hundreds of former NIH staffers published a declaration cosigned by thousands of scientists around the world, including more than 20 Nobel laureates, criticizing the politicization of science and urged reinstatement of the grants, ProPublica reported.
ProPublica reached out to more than 500 researchers, scientists, and investigators whose grants were terminated. More than 150 responded to share their experiences. Spoiler alert: they aren’t good.
Let’s take a look.
Here are some findings from the investigation:
*ProPublica heard from more than 70 researchers who said that they were unable to continue their projects due to the terminations.
*At least 30 researchers told ProPublica that the termination of their grant forced them to end clinical research or a trial abruptly, leaving participants in limbo.
*More than 550 of the terminated grants were focused on health disparities or inequities, attempting to understand why some groups have different health outcomes.
*More than 300 of the grants terminated by the NIH were focused on LGBTQ+ health care. About 40 of those grants were researching ways to prevent suicide in adults and youth.
*More than 50 researchers told ProPublica that the funding cuts would harm the next generation of scholars, discouraging them from practicing in the United States.
Here’s a list of terminated grants reported in the ProPublica story:
*A project to improve recruitment of participants in Alzheimer’s clinical trials.
*A study to increase vaccine uptake in underserved populations.
*A study investigating in-utero exposure to contaminants in public drinking water.
*An examination of consequences of abortion restrictions.
*A study to prevent sexually transmitted infections with common antibiotics.
*A study to increase access to kidney transplant evaluations.
*A clinical trial to understand the effectiveness of flu and Covid-19 vaccine text message reminders.
*A study to test protocol to prevent HIV transmission.
*A study investigating how discrimination affects the mental health of Latino youth.
*Research examining maternal behavior health conditions of Black women.
*An examination of the effects of structural racism on people at risk of kidney disease.
*A study investigating why women of color disproportionately die from cervical cancer.
*A study to improve the delivery of behavioral health care to LGBTQ+ youth.
*Research to address substance use in young men who are at risk for or living with HIV.
*An evaluation of disparities in mpox vaccination rates among men who have sex with men.
*An investigation of why LGBTQ+ adults are dying by suicide.
*A grant to train researchers and public health professionals on HIV science.
*A program to support the development of early-career scientists and researchers.
*A grant to support Ph.D. students from historically underrepresented groups.
*A program to train the next generation of pediatric research scientists.
You can read the ProPublica story here.
***
As you can see, some of these cuts are an extensions of the administration’s war against women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community. More of its anti-diversity-equity-and-inclusion campaign.
We’ve already seen that people suffering and dying due to his actions is no sweat off this president’s nose. Blatantly immoral people tend to think that way.
There’re so many bad things going on in our country that it’s hard to keep up. This assault on science – both in limiting future work and the attempts to discredit established discoveries – has the potential to cause immense damage, death, and suffering.
It has to stop. But will it?
***
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