Detroit, MI — Thousands of people across the country came together yesterday for Kill the Cuts, a national Day of Action to raise awareness and fight back against the Trump administration’s devastating attacks on research, health, and higher education. The events (see the full list here) were sponsored by a coalition of education, labor and health advocates, including UAW, SEIU, AFSCME, UE, NEA, AFT, CWA, AAUP, HELU, Labor for Higher Education, the Debt Collective, and more.
Researchers and educators who have had their funding cut spoke about the effects this assault on publicly-funded research is having at their institutions and across the country. Below is a collection of remarks and associated photography:
“NIH is the bedrock of American health,” said Haley Chatelaine, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health and member of UAW 2750, which represents 5,000 workers there. “I’ve spoken with patients whose lives depended on the groundbreaking research we do. Any delay–whether it’s due to pauses in grant funding or firings of federal workers–puts Americans’ health at risk. That’s why we, the workers who do the research, are standing up to protect it.” (Photos here, credit UAW)
“By cutting funds to lifesaving research and medical care, the Trump administration is abandoning families who are suffering and costing taxpayers billions of dollars,” said Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 4811, which represents 48,000 workers at the University of California. “These cuts are dangerous to our health, and dangerous to our economy.” (Photos here, credit UAW)
“Federal research funding is critical to my research into how neurons in our brains communicate, making it possible to develop better therapeutics for severe health conditions that range from cancer to depression to learning disorders,” said Dagan Marx, a Postdoc at Weill Cornell Medicine and member of the Weill Cornell Medicine Postdocs United-UAW Bargaining Committee. “Recklessly slashing funding that institutions like Weill Cornell depend on for medical breakthroughs and supporting researchers has devastating impacts on our research and our working conditions.” (Photos here, credit New York City Central Labor Council)
“I’m proud to be researching ways to better detect ovarian cancer after losing my mom to the disease two years ago. There are still no routine screening tests for ovarian cancer, which would save lives. Without funding from the NIH, breakthroughs won’t happen and that’s a tremendous loss for research and the general public,” said Mari Hoffman, an Academic Student Employee in Molecular & Cellular Biology at the University of Washington and member of UAW 4121. (Photos here, credit UAW)
President Trump has recently issued Executive Orders attacking the NIH, NSF, while dismantling the Department of Education. These attacks jeopardize medical and scientific progress and threaten the jobs of researchers across the country studying critical topics including climate change, renewable energy, cancer, viral pandemics, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. Not only do these attacks impede lifesaving care for millions of Americans, but delays in treatment are projected to cost the public billions of dollars.
More information about the National Day of Action and a list of rally locations can be found at www.killthecuts.org.
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