Cambridge, mass. (AP) – The research by Harvard University Professor Alberto Ascherio is literally frozen.
Epidemiology and nutrition scientist have collected from millions of American soldiers for two decades with millions of dollars from taxpayers.
The samples are the key to his award -winning research, which is looking for a cure for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months Ascherio has not been able to work with the samples because he lost $ 7 million to federal research financing, a victim of Harvard’s fight with the Trump administration.
“It is as if we have made a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we have no money to launch it,” said Ascherio. “We have built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that can influence millions of people in the world and then:” Pouf. You are cut off. “
Researchers fired and science appeared
The loss of an estimated $ 2.6 billion in federal financing at Harvard has led to some of the world’s most prominent researchers dismissing young researchers. They shelves for years or even decades of research, in everything Opioid addiction to cancer.
And despite Harvard’s lawsuits against the administration, and Settlement interviews Between the warring parties, researchers confront the fact that part of their work may never resume.
The financing reductions are part of a month -long battle that the Trump government has led against some of the country top universities included Columbia” Brown and northwest. The administration has adopted a particularly aggressive attitude against Harvard, who freezes financing after the oldest university in the country a series of government requirements rejected Published by a federal anti -Semitism Task Force.
The government had demanded radical changes in Harvard with regard to campus protests, academics and recordings-intended to tackle the allegations of the government that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and had tolerated anti-Jewish intimidation.
Research in danger, even if the lawsuit prevails
Harvard responded by one federal lawsuitAccusing the Trump administration of performing a retaliation campaign against the university. In the lawsuit, the reforms had constructed it to tackle anti -Semitism, but it also promised not to “surrender his independence or to give up its constitutional rights.”
“Make no mistake: Harvard rejects anti -Semitism and discrimination in all its forms and actively spends structural reforms to eradicate anti -Semitism on campus,” the university said in its legal complaint. “But instead of responding to Harvard with regard to those continuous efforts, the government announced a major freezing of financing for medical, scientific, technologicalAnd other research that has nothing to do with anti -Semitism. ‘
The Trump government denies that the cutbacks were made as a retribution, and said that the subsidies were assessed, even before the requirements were sent in April. She claims that the government has a great discretion for policy reasons to cancel federal contracts.
The Harvard research community has left the financing reductions in a shock state, the feeling that they are unfairly focused in a fight has nothing to do with them. Some are forced to close laboratories or clambering in order not to find government financing to replace lost money.
In May, Harvard announced that it would yield at least $ 250 million of his own money to continue research efforts, but university president Alan Garber warned of “difficult decisions and sacrifices”.
Ascherio said that the university was able to bring financing together to pay the salaries of his researchers until June. But he is still left without resources needed to finance critical research tasks, such as laboratory work. Even the delay of a year can reduce his research five years, he said.
Lost knowledge in the financing freezing
“It is really devastating,” Rita Hamad agreed, the director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at Harvard, who had three multi -year subsidies of a total of $ 10 million canceled by the Trump administration. The subsidies financed research into the impact of School separation About Heart Health, how the policy of the Pandemic era in more than 250 provinces influenced mental health and the role of neighborhood factors in dementia.
At the School of Public Health, where Hamad is based, 190 subsidies have been terminated, which will affect around 130 scientists.
“Just think about all the knowledge that will not be gained or that is actively lost,” said Hamad. She expects significant dismissal in her team if the financing access continues for a few months. “It’s all just a mixture of frustration and anger and sorrow, every day.”
John Quackenbush, a professor in computational biology and bioinformatics at the School of Public Health, has spent cuts on several fronts in recent months.
A multimillion dollar subsidy was not renewed in April, which endangers an investigation into the role of sex in the disease. In May he lost around $ 1.2 million in federal financing for the Harvard Freeze. Four department fairs worth $ 24 million that the PhD students have financed, were also canceled as part of the battle with the Trump administration, Quackenbush said.
“I am in a position where I really have to think:” Can I breathe new life into this research? “He said.” Can I restart these programs, even if Harvard and the Trump administration have reached a sort of arrangement? If they reach a scheme, how quickly can the financing be displayed? Can it be displayed? “
The researchers all agreed that the cutbacks have little or nothing to do with the struggle of the university against anti -Semitism. However, some claim that changes at Harvard were long late and the pressure of the Trump administration was needed.
Bertha Madras, a Psychobiologist from Harvard who lost financing to create a free, parent -oriented training to prevent overdose of teenage opioid and drug use, said she is happy to see what they called “politically motivated social sciences studies.”
White house busy a good thing?
Madras said that the pressure of the White House has catalyzed much needed reform at the university, where various study programs “really got off the wall in terms of orthodoxy that is not representative of the country as a whole.”
But Madras, who served for opioids during the first term of the president of the president, said that the investigation of the research financing by scientists as a negotiating ship is not logical.
“I don’t know if the reform would have happened without the president of the United States points the bony finger at Harvard,” she said. “But sacrificing science is problematic, and it is very worrying because it is one of the most important pillars of the country.”
Quackenbush and other Harvard researchers claim that the cuts are part of a Greater attack on science By the Trump government that endangers the reputation of the country as the global research leader. Support for students and postdoctoral fellows has been reduced, visa for foreign scientists threatened, and new guidelines and financing reductions at NIH will make it much more difficult to get federal financing in the future, they said. It will also be difficult to replace federal financing with money from the private sector.
“We all go to this future in which this is 80-year cooperation between the government and the universities Is endangered, “said Quackenbush.” We are confronted with real challenges to continue to lead the world in scientific excellence. “
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