James' World 2

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In the wake of the Second World War, US leaders adopted the view that scientific progress is an “essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress”. And for the next eight decades, government officials on both sides of the political aisle agreed to invest in US science. Just one month into the second administration of Republican President Donald Trump, scientists fear that that long-time consensus is disintegrating.

Acting with unprecedented speed, the administration has laid off thousands of employees at US science agencies and announced reforms to research-grant standards that could drastically reduce federal financial support for science. The cuts form part of a larger effort to radically reduce the government’s spending and downsize its workforce.

Although US courts have intervened in some cases, Republicans in both chambers of the US Congress — which largely blocked Trump’s efforts to cut science funding during his first term as president from 2017 to 2021 — have mostly fallen in line with the agenda for Trump 2.0. For many researchers, this first month signals a realignment of priorities that could affect science and society for decades to come.

These actions are all “unprecedented”, says Harold Varmus, a former director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) who is now a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “No one has ever seen a [presidential] transition in which one of the most valuable parts of our government enterprise is being taken apart.”

The Trump White House did not respond to Nature’s request for comment.

Here, Nature unpacks the Trump team’s blazing-fast actions on science so far (scroll to bottom to see timeline ‘Science impacts: one month of Trump 2.0’) and talks to policy watchers about what’s next.

Fast and furious

The overhaul of US science kicked off within hours of Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, when he signed dozens of executive orders, which are presidential directives on how the government should operate inside existing laws.

Some of those orders had been anticipated, including pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement to rein in global climate emissions and terminating the nation’s membership in the World Health Organization. Others had surprising and immediate ripple effects through the scientific community.

One order erroneously attempted to define only two biological sexes, male and female, and banned federal actions “that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology”. Biomedical-research agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scrambled to respond by, among other things, taking down data sets from their websites and pulling back manuscript submissions from scientific journals to purge terms including ‘gender’ and ‘transgender.’

Another executive order banned what Trump called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI)”. Any federal employee who did not report colleagues defying the DEI orders would face “adverse consequences”, according to an e-mail sent to government workers. To many scientists’ dismay, agencies began terminating DEI programs, including environmental-justice efforts, which are programs aimed at protecting low-income communities vulnerable to pollution and climate change. Even some scientific societies and private research organizations scrubbed DEI mentions from their websites. In one of Trump’s orders, he called for the investigation of foundations, non-profit organizations, and other private entities not in compliance.

On 27 January, just one week into the new administration, Trump’s budget office froze all federal grants and loans, saying that it needed to review government spending to ensure that it aligned with the executive orders. Chaos erupted as agencies, including the NIH and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) — both major funders of basic science — halted grant payments, canceled review panels for research-grant funding, and paused communications. A federal judge temporarily blocked the order, but disruptions and confusion continue.

Principal investigators who lead research teams are suffering in this environment, says a university scientist who requested anonymity because their research is funded by multiple US agencies. “Everything is on you to manage your grants and your team,” they say, adding that “there’s a lot of fear of people not wanting to say or do the wrong thing” and therefore lose financial support for their work. “It’s completely chaotic; I’m losing sleep.”

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Parents who claim to never lie to their children are liars. It begins with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Then it’s, “Yes, all kindergartners go to bed at 7 o’clock” and “No, the chickens on the farm and the chicken on your plate are not the same kind of chicken.” Most of these untruths are harmless — white lies, we call them. But there are some lies we tell as parents, however well intentioned, that do more harm than good.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

When I was 11, I underwent a complex procedure to correct a

discrepancy in the length of my legs. Surgeons spent 13 hours drilling through my bones and attaching an external metal frame from my hip to my toe. It took them the next two years to stretch my leg three inches. The pain was so severe that morphine, other opioids, Valium, and muscle relaxants were all standard protocol. Yet, before the surgery, when I asked if it would hurt, the only thing I remember being told was “Don’t worry, we have ways to manage any unpleasantness.” The difference between what I was told and what I experienced shattered my faith in doctors and left me questioning whether I could trust adults at all. Now, as a parent — and through my years working in health care — I’ve made the conscious decision never to lie to people about pain. Even with something as small as a routine vaccination, even before they see the needle coming toward them. Yes, I say, it may hurt.

Many parents opt instead to reassure their children. Since they can’t stop the needle from hurting, they believe the next best thing is to offer comfort. But when the pain does inevitably come, it’s accompanied by a heaping side of betrayal. Lies that mislead children about their experiences are not white lies. Though they may appear innocuous, they erode the fabric of the fundamental

and necessary trust between parent and child. They create an emotional wound not easily healed. The pain of discovering you have been deceived by a trusted adult can cut deeper and last longer than the pain of an unavoidable medical intervention.

In any case, although sugarcoating might make us feel better, it doesn’t help our children — it can actually intensify their discomfort. In an experiment on how parents communicate with children before immunizations, children showed more fear and had to be restrained more after their parents reassured them. Children fared better when their parents were randomly assigned to distract them, or even do nothing. Before the shots, the parents who provided reassurance felt the least upset and the most helpful. But afterward, they felt the most distressed; they realized their attempts to help had actually hurt.

Researchers advise against statements like “This won’t hurt,” “There is nothing to worry about” and “Don’t cry” because they can backfire. Children may interpret them as a warning sign, and they may end up experiencing more distress and pain than they would have otherwise. Lying to children robs them of the opportunity to learn to express difficult emotions in healthy ways and can contribute to future anxiety.

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Alma Haser

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