'Formula for destruction': Experts detail what it takes to rebuild institutions 'hobbled' by Trump

Columnist Michael Hiltzik reports in the State that the phrase “this too shall pass” does not easily apply to the damage to the state done by President Donald Trump.

“I reached out to some of my most trusted contacts in science, medicine, labor and other fields, hoping to hear encouragement that the current situation will be fleeting and it isn't too soon to look ahead. … I ended up with a string of the gloomiest conversations in my long career — and I've covered two foreign civil wars and more stock market crashes and economic slumps than I can count.”

Vaccinologist Peter Hotez tells Hiltzik that, "We're still in free fall and people are still in a 'shock and awe' phase,” speaking on the Trump administration's cuts in biomedical research funding and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s disdain for accepted science. "Even if these things stop tomorrow, you've got a pretty demoralized physician and scientific workforce."

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"How easy is it to rebuild a lab that's been hit by cuts?" asked John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, where Hiltzik says labs “have been hobbled” by the administration. "The answer is it's very difficult, once you lose key members of a research group, who are often the senior technicians who have institutional memory and keep a program going day to day. At a certain point, a freeze or a termination is not reversible."

An anti-science attack from a nation’s topmost position can do generations of damage, say scientists. Russia is still trying to recover from Trofim Lysenko, the charlatan who reigned over Soviet science during Stalin's regime from the 1930s to the 1960s, killing millions.

"The Soviet Union did everything they could to invest back in science and genetics and molecular biology, but it was still stagnant," says Angela Rasmussen, a leading American virologist now working in Canada.

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And scientists say the Supreme Court is doing its part to aid the destruction by allowing Trump to continue challenged or illegal policies while the underlying issues are litigated through courts.

"Instead of letting the status quo to prevail until we adjudicate the issues, they're letting Trump prevail until they adjudicate. That, to me, is a formula for destruction. How do you rebuild then?" asks David Weil, a labor expert at Brandeis University.

Meanwhile, Hiltzik points out that new hiring has ground to a screeching halt, according to the latest government statistics, and Trump's rampage through science, health and economic agencies has left the kind of damage that might require a new Cabinet-level post to fix. Rebuilding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where five top officials resigned or were forced out late last month, will practically be a start from scratch.

"The best-case scenario is that we limp along for the next three and a half years," says Jonathan Howard, a New York University neurologist. “… But that's just a hope."

Read the State report at this link.