Francis Collins blasts Trump administration’s ‘slash-and-burn’ actions at science agencies
Francis Collins: The Trump administration is “basically taking ‘move fast and break things’ and applying it to our nation’s medical research enterprise."
Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, excoriated the Trump administration’s efforts to upend federal scientific agencies on Wednesday, saying the logic behind the moves “escapes any possible explanation.”
Speaking on a panel about trust in science and scientific institutions, Collins also expressed a degree of regret for public health officials’ failure to explain their own uncertainty and the fast-changing landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic. But he laid the blame for the current fear and unrest within U.S. scientific circles squarely at the feet of the Trump administration, criticizing it for canceling research grants, pulling back on efforts to wield mRNA vaccines as cancer therapies, and dismissing “thousands of capable scientists” from government agencies.
