My partner works in a cancer clinic at a major university hospital. The staff is terrified of what is to come and this looks like the first domino. Without research grants a critical stepping stone in medicals careers will go missing, along with research into new medicine and treatments. Relying on pharmaceutical companies to take on this research doesn't make sense - a lot of research isn't even about treatment but managing side affects, improving quality of life, testing existing medicines, etc. Very concerned for what will happen here.
My friends in Bio are actively being recruited by "Europe in general", and the big pitch is that there aren't any Republicans or school shootings. America has no answer to that.
Of course it works. Every young couple considers the deal.
The salary for work in the US is $0.00 if NIH grants don’t get approved.
Even if grants were resumed tomorrow, the fact they ever paused, at all, for capricious political reasons, means there isn’t good job security, even if the salary is good.
Salaries are a bigger problem for European industry. Relatively speaking, the academia is more competitive in Europe than in the US, because the gap between industry salaries and academic salaries is lower.
European academia is usually constrained by the lack of funding and permanent positions. Many European researchers end up in the US, because it's easier to find a job there. Partly because it's a big country and the right kind of opportunities are more likely available at the right time. Partly because American researchers are more likely to end up in the industry, because the salary gap is higher. And partly because the American immigration system makes it easier for foreigners to get an academic job than an industry job.
But we also like to joke that we are in the US, because we are not good enough to get a job at home.
Not everyone is purely money-motivated. And while salaries for some things may be lower, the cost of some things is also lower (health care being a major one).
I don't know what the salaries are in Bio, but with regards to developer salaries you can live a very comfortable life on a "low" European developer salary (excluding perhaps a few countries with deeper structural problems such as Portugal).
I was going to say, it is a common story for many academics to be living at basically poverty wages. Living in Europe where the baseline level of support is significantly higher sounds like a terrific deal.
A friend was doing her post doc in Switzerland (still Europe but of course an outlier). She got some job offers in top pharma companies in the UK. Her notional salary was lower than her post doc one, and tax would have been higher.
Adding to that — the mission of academic research centers is to train the next generation of researchers. PIs use this money to fund grad student and postdoc positions in their labs.
Just a short pause to your circulatory system, clearly it's the system at fault.
A weakness in a system that can only be exploited by malice from those in power isn't necessarily something we can always expect to protect against, and at most only mitigate.
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Then why not point out the flaw in the argument instead of gesturing vaguely at a metaphor.
It seems you only want to go after points like that instead of engaging with the central point of anyone's actual arguments. Reducing every argument to a lab on "it's last legs", or a mismatch in a metaphor that's not central to the point being made.
If you want to argue to quiet that little voice in your head I suppose it might work, but if you actually care about the truth of the matter or even just understanding why people are saying what they're saying then you've lost the plot entirely.
Here I can spell it out for you. The second sentence from my first post:
> malice from those in power isn't necessarily something we can always expect to protect against, and at most only mitigate.
That's the central point/argument. To drag out the conclusion here, do we even want government institutions that continue to function once the executive pulls funding from them? Ignoring whether it should be expected, are we really at a point where we are saying "look I know I intentionally pulled the funding but I want it to keep working anyway!"
By hey if you want to go back to speaking to the ad homs (of which I've delivered many that you clearly deserve at this point), or continuing to fail to understand metaphors, be my guest, but don't pretend you're actually engaging with the argument.
My partner is trying to start a career in intensive care research and submitted for a major NIH grant a few months ago that was given a high score (= would probably be funded). Because of the “pause” we’re now unsure if it will get funded at all. These things take months of prep (years if you consider all of the prior publication work) and if you miss your window it could just sink your career before it gets started.
Anyone doing medical research can easily make more money as a clinician in private practice. If we force these people out, it’s the taxpayers loss. Unless you believe medical research as a whole is a waste of money, which… I would disagree on. If it’s simply a matter of changing research priorities, there are already mechanisms to influence that without shutting down the whole system. This is just ham-handed incompetence as a show of force.
Unfortunately, this is happening at a lot of agencies. Stop work orders have been issued from the state department for pretty much anything relating to international aid at my partner's large USAID-focused contractor. It's so severe the contractor is sending out emails that, to me, look like they're strongly considering shuttering the company ("prioritizing meeting payroll" was one of the things mentioned, and I can't imagine they're going to find new revenue streams in time).
A lot of people are reliant on this aid. A lot of people are going to die within weeks.
Given trends in media (social and otherwise) will have to take a wait and see approach. But sudden cancellations with limited communication is definitely not a strong indicator of a well thought out or executed plan.
I don't know anything about the specifics, but a thought that came to mind is:
If you're trying to thin down agencies to reduce costs so the government can significantly reverse or slow its financial trends to buy more time, shaking things a little and seeing who complains could certainly get quick feedback about what to prioritize or what to cut.
If your job is so unimportant that you aren't willing to reach out and make a case to the relevant people for why it is important, maybe the mission won't be deemed strong enough to justify spending tax payer dollars on.
For work that does produce actual value, assistance could be provided in converting that mission to a private company if the entities that depended on it existing will realistically pay for its services. If it's important and nobody would pay, maybe keep or test viability for converting to a non-profit organization that relies on donations. If it's both unimportant and nobody would pay, probably cut.
Existing employees working on it can then be given time/finances to help deal with any transition deemed necessary.
The existing government URLs or resources for it could then redirect to the privatized group, which can carry on its legacy.
It wouldn't surprise me if we see some more agencies facing various kinds of disruption just to see who gets noisy to gather data.
It's worth keeping in mind that government shutdowns are probably far more disruptive and have lasted from 16-35 days.
> If your job is so unimportant that you aren't willing to reach out and make a case to the relevant people for why it is important, maybe the mission won't be deemed strong enough to justify spending tax payer dollars on.
"If you don't complain, maybe your job is not important".
"If you complain, your job is important".
Do these takes sound reasonable to you?
> For work that does produce actual value, assistance could be provided in converting that mission to a private company if the entities that depended on it existing will realistically pay for its services.
If the solution is to privatize anything that produces value (and I think we can agree that cancer research does produce value), why do we need the government again? That scenario doesn't even sound realistic as it assumes the transition would be done seamlessly, but that can't happen when the existing entity is shut down abruptly.
I think it's blatantly obvious that removing funding from NIH is a negative thing for regular people (not only for Americans), but naive people still try to spin actions like this as something that is being done in their best interest. Please think instead in terms of "how can benefit the people that made the decision", and you'll soon find the real reason why it's being done.
If you firmly believe that your job is important and helping people, then it seems reasonable that you would complain and try to get an exception or other people who know of the program would complain. It's not perfect, some people would just be defeatist and assume things are happening at a higher level that they have no control over, even if they think their role is important.
The solution would not be to privatize anything that produces value, the solution would be to assess whether privatization would be a good fit for some of the things that do have value, but don't strictly need to be run by the government.
I'm not assuming anything seamless, but the process would occur before something gets shut down, not after. I didn't get the impression from the article that anything was totally shut down, just some kinds of activities were paused? I'm not really responding specifically to this, so much as just the general critical need to reduce costs.
That said, cutting government costs and people's dependencies on the government down to within a reasonable threshold is in people's best interest.
In China and Russia, so many people work for the government. Keeping people not just employed, but ideologically on the side of the status quo of the government can get out of control. It's convenient in some ways, because you can just create jobs out of thin air if the job market is struggling.
The best interest of the people is definitely not infinite government growth.
Government spends a lot of money too. Spending some money can be in the interests of the people. Spending too much money can flip over to not being in their interest. Spending too much can reduce both the value and the trust (necessarily linked) in the US Dollar, slowly weakening our economic leverage for doing things on behalf of US citizens and our allies.
So just spending infinitely like there's no cost to creating money is also not in people's best interest.
Some projects could fail, some things that were valuable might fall apart, I don't know. Ideally it's done with some finesse and important things are either kept or found a new home. But the logic of compassion significantly favors cutting government spending and government dependency when it gets past some threshold.
Absolutely, governments should work for the people. Sometimes in order to do more for someone, you do less for them. There's a balance. Sometimes what you or the country needs is not what you want.
A lot of people don't necessarily want us spending a lot on military and defense, but we need to. By spending on it, we maintain the private industries even in times of relative peace so that when we do need them they're still there and we don't have to build them up from scratch again. It also becomes an expected necessary cost, so any other initiatives we try to fund have to contend with that part of the budget already being spent. This way we don't accidentally tie up what used to be military funding in all kinds of other programs so that not only do you have to rebuild production, but you have to sort out the financial problems too.
Governments make all kinds of decisions based on calculations from analysts, politicians, geopoliticians and so on. What people want is a factor, but not necessarily the most important one.
With our government shutdowns, congress and the president both have to agree on where to appropriate funds and how much funding to appropriate for the government. This funding has to occur, because there are critical programs that everyone agrees on, so there's actual pressure to get it passed. At the same time, there are other things that different representatives want to get funded or programs they disagree about and they'll leverage the pressure to appropriate funds before a shutdown or to shorten a shutdown in order to squeeze out decisions that are normally delayed/ignored.
That said, there is a critical culture in the US around hassling the government and not treating it as your friend. The government may work for you, but it is not your friend. Governments are bears. Do not feed the bears. Respect them, accepting their co-existence and the value they offer in an ecosystem, sure. Just don't train the bears to come to you when they're hungry, because some day you'll find that it's not a good idea to have a hungry bear in front of you.
Even though this is historically true and deeply wise, people find themselves steadily expanding the government despite the government being in debt. We also get people in congress that will vote no on almost anything, because they believe in small government with limited power and are concerned every time it expands.
So the shutdowns kind of happen as they haggle over these kinds of issues.
Sure, but as long as he's giving the crypto industry exactly what they want, it's all worth it, right?
Anyway, he's kicking over sand castles. Not because it's going to improve anything, but because he can. Purest expression of power. The cruelty is the point. Etc.
It's wild the number of people who think this behavior a good thing...
This is how you accelerate the end of the US empire. It's bad for us, but tbh, good for the world. The pulling out of America from international institutions and disrupting the scientific pipeline will erode America's ability to perniciously influence world institutions and reduces our ability to brain drain the rest of the globe for the benefit of 4% of the world population (and really, the major benefits go to the top 20% of that 4% and the bulk of that goes to the 1%... 0.1%....).
The world won't really be any better off because there are other empires vying for the top spot, and they will simply replace US if the latter drops the ball.
It's not really clear that the situation that has been in place since WW2 that was mainly due to the destruction of Europe and Europe and America's intentional underdevelopment of the rest of the world is a situation that will persist. Most likely the new world will be multi-polar, which has its own challenges but also opportunities.
What difference does it make, though? In any given place, you're either under the heel of one of the empires, or (worst case) in a place where they contest for control via proxy wars.
Perhaps not in the strict legal way[1], but if you say "I'm going to do X" as a government then you kind of have an obligation to actually do X unless there's a really good reason not so, because people's livelihoods depend on it.
This includes actions taken by a previous government: generally successive governments fulfil the obligations of the previous ones, even those it disagrees with. That's the only way you can run a reasonable long-term stable and reliable government.
Of course a new government can change things, but this is often a long process which also includes meeting previous obligations.
[1]: Or maybe it does, I don't know. I wouldn't assume anything from the person trying to abolish citizenship birthright in a way that's clearly and obviously unconstitutional.
Conferences and the like are often scheduled a year out, so while I don't know if the NIH has firm legal obligations to hold such events it would not surprise me if this will create contractual issues.
I'm consfused. Is this an indefinite or a very temporary thing?
The article says the move is part of a roughly 11 day pause in communication (till the first of Feb) but also describes the reviews as "suspended indefinitely"
It should be resumed on Feb 1st. I understand why they’re concerned (everyone wants more money) but from what I can tell this is just grant approvals, and it will resume on the first.
Oh good, it’s just grant proposals so only some people will lose their labs due to the idiotic politicization of the NIH. This pushes back study sections by months even if they do resume on Feb 1. You can’t just schedule x leading researchers to review a grant on a whim, it’s planned months in advance.
I agree with the other guy, usually funding is dispersed in months or years at a time, so this shouldn't impact anyone in a meaningful way (unless they're doing gain of function research, in which case their lab will likely stop receiving funding).
If someone had a study section next week, it could take months to reschedule which could absolutely put them deep in the red if this was already a desperate effort to save their lab. Look, I know you have some pathetic agenda to carry out and that is blinding you to real problems, but for heavens sake just keep your damn mouth shut.
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So some lab on its last legs anyway might go under? That's the best you've got? Sounds like when a company can't raise funds, which has happened to me 3 times. We all lose our jobs and get on with our lives, so I won't be joining your pathetic little pity party for when it happens to people in another industry which is apparently full of entitled brats, because at least when it happens in the tech industry we don't cry about it.
What I’m describing is most labs for first-time PIs and there will not be a path to recovery for most of them. It’s not like tech where you can just come up with the next shitty idea and try again. PIs don’t get to fail 3 times like you. So stop being a fragile little snowflake tech douche when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Grow some empathy for others; history will never forget your kind even long after it forgets you.
My industry? My industry is tech, where I got paid 7 figures for years and years doing fuck all to benefit society. It’s pretty telling that you just assumed someone defending a marginalized group was a member of that cohort.
Are there improvements that could be made in the grant process? Sure, just like there are improvements that could be made in any process. That is not a justification for taking a sledgehammer to the existing institution and affecting thousands of our brightest and hardest working residents who generally are not in it for godforsaken money but to better society. The ends in your kindergarten example do not justify the means. This is political, it’s not a merit-based cleansing.
I’m sure someone such as yourself would never see medical research as a public good so I guess we’re done here. The ideological bridge is too vast and frankly I have lost complete interest in the drivel on the other side.
The pause itself is temporary. But if a study section is canceled, the next possible date is likely months in the future. Tens of busy professionals from other organizations are probably not willing to drop their other commitments. Especially because the cancellation was your fault, not theirs. If decisions are delayed, funding will also be delayed. And if funding is delayed for months, some projects will be canceled and some people will lose their jobs.
Unpopular opinion - grants have gone wild in the past decade and these need to be realigned. Now the way is done is variable and may not be ideal - but the work is necessary.
"Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site."
The person deleted their comment before I got a chance to respond, so this is more of a response to them than to you.
I really hate this sort of "faux long term" shit that I keep hearing about how "it's really a good thing because maybe the DNC will get better!!!!!!!!", because it sort of makes this assumption that the election of a demagogue isn't going to have any long-term, permanent damage.
My wife is a Mexican immigrant. She does have a green card, but as it stands I'm slightly worried that the dipshit in office is going to try revoking those, meaning we might be stuck moving to a different country. I think we will be ok, but frankly I do not care about someone's completely unearned opinion about how we're going to get a leftist utopia "eventually".
Assuming you're an US citizen or permanent resident they shouldn't be able to do anything? I mean, obviously Trump has shown he has zero respect for the law, but there's no way he can make it legal to deport the wife of a citizen?!
I think we are safe, and we are currently in the process of waiting for her citizenship status to be approved, but it’s tough to say. I could see Trump hearing some insane rambling from Fox News and decide to issue an executive order revoking all green cards.
We will be alright. I tend to land on my feet, and if I have to get a job in another country, I’ll do it.
It’s just frustrating, because I love the US. Despite everything, I love living here, I grew up here, I don’t want to leave. My wife was brought here when she was eight years old, she’s 31 now, and the current presidential administration has just decided that that’s not enough.
I live in NYC, which is fairly progressive, and while we have been looking to leave this city, I think it might be a good idea to stay here until she’s a fully naturalized citizen.
Why is it always "blame the choice of candidates" and not "blame millions of ignorant voters who despite being told exactly what would happen said "nah, I bet prices for things will drop" or "blame the media billionaires who gave one candidate infinite free air time and never fact checked anything they said while complaining that the other candidates detailed policies were never quite detailed enough to make the media happy"?
He's literally the despot that Benjiman Franklin warned the US about:
“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it...”
> despotic: characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty
I would say that ignoring the Constitution [1] and trying to undermine every institution in order to increase your own power is actually very despotic.
I have no idea how successful he will be at this, but considering that the Supreme Court basically said "the president can do whatever he wants with no consequences as long as he says it's for an official act", it sure seems despotic, even if he was elected.
[1] In regards to trying to end birthright citizenship and ignore the 14th Amendment.
If you say "Martin, I'm coming to your house next week and kick the living shit out of you" then I'm going to know it's coming.
I'm also going to be confused and anxious when you show up at my door.
This is not hard to understand.
And what were they supposed to do about it to prepare? Change careers on a dime (even though most spent years in university for this)? That's not realistic.
This is among the most unemphatic posts I've seen on HN. Absolutely mental.
Maybe anxious, but confused? You know it's coming. Also, if you make a plan and are prepared, you should be much less anxious.
> This is among the most unemphatic posts I've seen on HN.
I think we need to stop empathizing with people acting like victims in this situation. The danger and stakes far outweigh their personal emotions. People have a reponsibility to stand up and act.
Do you expect people with decades of experience in medicine to just up and switch jobs over 3 months? A doctor can't prepare for something like this, all they could do was hope for the best. And now that its beginning, yes - its confusion and anxiety.
I'd really like us to not continue creeping down this dividing line of "I don't give a shit about this entire group of people", which started up at the billionaires, down to the top 1%, down now to just anybody with something like a medical or legal degree.
You will see this pattern these days - people insisting they are helpless, as if that's valid belief or behavior or communication. I don't know how it became normalized, but it's false, and it's highly irresponsible.
You need courage, planning, preparation, and leadership.
I don't know that they do, and I see no indication that they do. Uncertainty and confusion are very different things. The article talks about confusion, not plans (thought I might have skimmed past that) and adjustments.
Experienced NIH personnel should know exactly what is possible, what possible counter-measures are, and have prepared and prepared others for them. They should be organized and prepared.
> Certainly mainstream media was actively discounting any argument that this level of disruption was likely.
Where have you been seeing that? The media I've been reading for a year has been anticipating and discussing it. Plus, you've watched this guy and his movement for 8 years, and the GOP for many years before that. How could you not anticipate it? Remember Project 2025 - they wrote it out for you.
Honestly, I feel they should have gone ahead and published the weekly mortality and morbidity report anyway. When inevitably criticized, they could have pointed out that it's essential public health info and specifically reports on emerging health risks (which is why it hasn't missed an issue in 60 years).
Would this have led to a bunch of people being fired? I would guess yes. But preemptively going along with the diktat practically means that when some sort of continuity resumes, the general public will assume the problem is solved and forget about it, even if the new status quo is objectively worse. The general public has only limited cognitive capacity and one reason Trump has been such a successful politician is that he gives large numbers of people the simplicity and epistemic closure that they crave.
They weren't actively discounting. I heard one mainstream media (maybe 538) say how they thought it was like a 10-20% chance that Trump would actually end democracy in the US. So not likely, but still incredibly scary odds for something so catastrophic.
I think the US public discounted it. 10%? So you mean, 90% won't happen? And even in the 90% case what else unfolds...
That may be your impression, but what does it mean beyond that? It's not my impression. In fact, many of the (formerly) serious journalism publications have bowed to Trump and normalize what he does: Washington Post, Politico, many others.
One problem is 'media' is an incredibly large landscape. Who are you referring to?
You're assuming that if the senior goes you're all in the clear. Most regimes of this sort have succession plans. I was born the year of the Iranian revolution. If I was from there I'd be staring at spending essentially my entire life under the regime of the Ayatollahs.
Nah, I'm making no such assumptions. On the contrary, we're all fucked for generations to come, and I assume we'll be essentially parted out to China and India. The conservative whackos who have been trying to destroy the USA since 1963 have finally gotten literally everything they wanted in terms of power -- though probably the originators would be appalled at the form it's taking.
