[Perspectives] A death foretold

For weeks on end, I had been waiting for the bad news, obsessively checking my emails for the dreaded message. As a global health researcher funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), my work was a prime target of the new administration. Weeks passed, and as I read about such messages being delivered to colleagues around the country and at my own institution—Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA—I secretly harboured thoughts that the devastation would spare me. My project was the exception.