Dr. Steven Woolf:
Well, to start with, by cutting the funding for these agencies and dismissing thousands of federal scientists from these agencies, we’re also seeing a sharp reduction in the funding for the research that occurs at universities and research institutions across the country.
The net effect of this is to slow the process of a discovery, so that we’re slower in identifying new treatments for cancer, new ways of treating heart disease, and starting to seed the edge, the advantage to other countries, like China and other countries, that are investing heavily in our research.
So we’re going to lose our edge, and the implications are ultimately going to affect everyday Americans.
