Evidence abandoned: Trump’s cabinet and the fallout for science

Scientists need to stand for up science as the US administration shifts to deliberate attacks on evidence and evidence-based policy.

This post is adapted from my Bluesky thread and an article in The BMJ that came out this week, written by me, Martin McKee and Kent Buse.

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President-Elect Trump's cabinet picks are a horror show for science. People who minimise climate change and environmental protections at the environment, Putin & Assad apologists in Defence & intelligence, vaccine & 5G conspiracy theorists at health. This a potential cabinet full of people who don't just ignore evidence, but actively reject it.

The potential consequences for US policy are dire. But the fundamental issue isn't just the policy choices but how they are arrived at. Because even the more palatable touted policies (e.g. tackling the processed food industry) are based on ideology and/or self-enrichment and not evidence.

When policymakers at the highest levels flatly deny well-established evidence, embrace conspiracy theories, and weaponize culture wars to undermine scientific discourse, chaos and disaster ensue. How do you implement any policy coherently if you ignore the available evidence on what works? And what is true?

Trump and his cabinet represent a profound threat to both science and to scientists. His new, and seemingly closest advisor, Elon Musk and others have been targeting Fauci for years, who helped steer the US Covid-19 response as best he could in Trump’s first term.

Several others have called for action against universities. RFK Jr has medical journals in his sights.

The Trump team are moving quickly to undermine or dismantle important bodies like the Food and Drug Administration, The Centers for Disease Control, the Environment and Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This will have consequences far beyond his term.

As we discovered with Brexit, it's far easier to break something than to fix it - especially if done in haste and in anger.

So, with the coming administration, US scientists & professional bodies face stark choices. Do they try to get along with those in power and influence from the inside? Do they praise the policies they can live with and ignore the policies or rhetoric they can’t? Well, history from previous anti-science / ideological political regimes tells us what will likely happen.

Some scientists will become cheerleaders for the new administration and its policies. Some, perhaps most, will keep their heads down, carry on quietly with their teaching and research, and hope to wait it out. University leaders will feel enormous pressure to keep quiet. Other scientists will quietly shift their research away from blacklisted topics, perhaps encouraged to do so by their universities.

We saw this with gun violence research in the US since the 1990s, after federal funding was throttled following the 1996 Dickey Amendment. Will climate science, infectious disease research, social determinants of health go the same way? Universities have already started shutting their misinformation research programmes under attack from Republicans.

Finally, some scientists will keep pursuing crucial research areas that are unpopular with the US government, but at some cost to their careers and likely with less funding. Some scientists too will keep advocating loudly for evidence, but many will understandably withdraw from the public sphere in the face of attacks and trolling.

What can we in the UK do to support US science and scientists?

1. Support our US colleagues. This could be amplifying their work, including them on international grants to maintain funding for their research, hosting them on research visits, or even supporting job moves.

2. We must keep working to ensure that evidence is at heart of UK policy - and remains there. How can we build robust research-policy pipelines that are resilient to changes in government?

3. We must continue to critique and debunk US guidance and policy that goes against evidence and is not scientifically rigorous. We will face far fewer consequences than our US colleagues for doing so.

4. We must confront dinsinformation and more, disdain for science, wherever we encounter it. We cannot afford to “stay in our lane.”

Scientists in the UK and elsewhere must move beyond producing evidence; we must become its advocates and protectors.

Populist extremists around the world will be watching the US and adopting its strategy. Science is on the chopping block and we can't let that happen.