NIH scientists go public to criticize Trump's cuts in public health research

WASHINGTON —

On Monday, scores of scientists at the National Institutes of Health sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, a frontal challenge to “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.”

It says: "We dissent."

In a capitol where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, more than 90 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line.

Confronting a ‘culture of fear’

They went public in the face of a “culture of fear and suppression” they say President Donald Trump's administration has spread through the federal civil service. “We are compelled to s