How Will a Trump Presidency Affect Science and Healthcare?
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We don’t know if the incoming Trump administration will make science, medicine, and healthcare a priority. So far, it doesn’t look good. The new President’s cabinet picks include a man who has denied climate change exists and a man who led a company that concealed their knowledge about the science of climate change. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who believes the false theory that vaccines cause autism, is reportedly set to lead a new commission on vaccine safety. Motions to repeal the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) and replace it with a new healthcare plan are already underway. The specifics of this new plan are currently unknown. A lot is unknown, really.
We talked to a climate scientist, a Ph.D. candidate and the leader of a reproductive health rights organization about how science and health funding could change under this new administration, and how people can fight back.
Kim Cobb is one of more than 800 scientists who signed a letter following the election that urged Trump to take actions to address climate change in the U.S. She also participated in the “Stand Up For Science” rally last month in San Francisco, where thousands of scientists had gathered for the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. A professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Cobb studies the history of El Niño and whether the climate cycle is changing today in response to greenhouse gases.
Paste: Besides protests and talking about the importance of climate change science on social media, is there any other way you’re taking action?
Kim Cobb: Obviously, for people like me, who have been doing this for a long time, more of the same is not going to cut it for me. I am talking with colleagues right now about what other structures and mechanisms we need to invent in this surprise world that we find ourselves in, to be more effective, whether that’s through backdoor channels or through protests or through coalitions.
Paste: Are you troubled by any of Trump’s cabinet picks? Why?
KC: I definitely was hoping for a more balanced set of leaders in respect to climate change in particular. The deck seems heavily stacked towards the climate denial side of the spectrum right now. It should be worrying to every American that Scott Pruitt [Trump’s pick to lead the EPA] has repeatedly gone on record saying that climate change is a hoax and that scientists don’t agree. This is someone who not only holds climate change science in a dim view, but many other aspects of environments preservation and conservation and protection that we all rely on to keep our environment clean, safe and beautiful.
Paste: Is your research affected by government funding?
KC: My lab is 100 percent federally funded. So yes, my lab and all my students would be affected if climate change science is somehow explicitly targeted for cuts, which is a possibility right now. It really goes beyond our own skin and the skin of the young people, knowing that young people will bear the brunt of the pain that is caused by any targeted cuts to climate change science. It really is about the choices that we make as a nation in the next five years or 10 years. We’re starting down a—some would say—modest but clear path with the policies from the Obama administration and agreements in Paris. While some of that, they say, cannot be undone, I think those of us who have been studying this for a lifetime recognize that time is precious and these delays are going to be costly.