AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump continues to whittle away at federal science funding. And now his administration is attempting to put the decisions about what gets funding under tighter political control. The move is upsetting many researchers and activists like Cole Donovan from the group Stand Up for Science.
COLE DONOVAN: This would be the end of American science as we know it, and we are going to make sure that it doesn't fade quietly into the night.
CHANG: NPR's Katia Riddle has been reporting on the rule change behind this latest development and joins us now. Hi, Katia.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so tell us more about what changed exactly in these rules, like why it's such a big deal here.
RIDDLE: Well, you know, it's a bureaucratic rule change. And it sounds small, but it really carries a significant potential to disrupt the way we fund science in the United States.
CHANG: OK. Yeah.
RIDDLE: Quick review of how science funding works - Congress approves money for agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and then those agencies are empowered to make grants to scientists to do things like cancer research or, you know, make earthquake early warning systems. Last week, the administration proposed a new rule that's now under review. It makes a lot of different changes, but one big one is it would give political appointees and the White House a much larger role over what kind of science gets funded. Scientists and advocates are very upset about this. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, for example, issued a statement yesterday that was titled, quote, "Proposed Rule Would Replace Scientific Merit With McCarthy Era Politics," unquote.
CHANG: Wow.
RIDDLE: That's a reference, of course, to a period in the 1950s when government officials scrutinized people's ideology and politics rather than their credentials.
CHANG: Oof. OK, so based on that, how do scientists think this rule change might play out?
RIDDLE: Well, first of all, it literally could affect any kind of federally funded science in the United States - public health, vaccines, biotechnology, social and behavioral science, climate. And one thing that's really animating people - under this new rule, senior political appointees, not just scientists, would review grants in order to assess whether they align with the president's priorities before awards are made. I talked to Elizabeth Ginexi. She's a former federal scientist, and she has a lot of objections to empowering Russell Vought - he's the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget - with this kind of authority.
ELIZABETH GINEXI: When we're designing a study to a new cancer therapeutic, do you want Russell Vought, who is not a scientist, to determine which immunotherapy is ready to go into a phase 3 trial?
RIDDLE: A phase 3 trial, by the way, is the kind that determines if a drug is safe and effective in humans.
CHANG: Right - very, very important - OK, so then what is the rationale behind these changes, at least from the Trump administration's point of view?
RIDDLE: Right. So the White House and OMB officials declined a request for interview for this story, but they sent a statement over that said this rule change will, quote, "improve the ability of agencies to identify and respond to waste, fraud and abuse and align with agency priorities." Critics say there's no evidence that the existing peer-reviewed system needs such sweeping changes.
CHANG: I mean, this rule change is just a proposal right now, right? Like, how soon could it be a reality?
RIDDLE: Yeah, we're in an open period comment, where the public has 45 days to weigh in. Congress could, in theory, block this rule, and no one I spoke with thinks that is likely. Like I said, it's raised a lot of resistance from folks in the science community, and they plan to continue organizing amongst themselves and the public to push back.
CHANG: That is NPR's Katia Riddle. Thank you, Katia.
RIDDLE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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