When Science Becomes the Enemy
The Trump administration’s systematic dismantling of American research, and what happened when diabetes doctors tried to hand out a flyer
On the morning of June 5, 2026, five scientists arrived at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. They were attending the American Diabetes Association’s annual scientific sessions, one of the most important gatherings in their field. They had a simple plan: hand out copies of a published editorial criticizing federal funding cuts to biomedical research.
Among them was Dr. Steven Kahn, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, the ADA’s own flagship peer-reviewed journal, and one of the most prominent publications in the field.¹ Also present were Dr. Aaron Kelly, a pediatric obesity researcher at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Justin Ryder of Northwestern Medicine, along with two other colleagues.²
Within minutes, they were surrounded by security guards and police officers. Kelly later said he was “chest-bumped by a police officer several times.”³ The researchers were escorted out of the building. Their conference badges were taken away. The American Diabetes Association then banned all five from the rest of the conference, citing a “code of conduct violation.”⁴
The editorial they were distributing, published in Kahn’s own journal, accused the Trump administration of “rapidly destroying what generations have built” to improve American health care.⁵
The NIH director scheduled to deliver the keynote address that morning, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Trump appointee, canceled his appearance at the last moment.⁶
This incident is a small but telling symbol of something much larger. Over the past 18 months, the Trump administration has undertaken what can only be described as a systematic dismantling of the United States’ scientific research infrastructure. The breadth and pace of the assault have been without precedent in modern American history.
The money
Start with the numbers. The administration cut or froze over $3 billion in previously approved research grants from the NIH and the National Science Foundation — grants that had already been awarded and budgeted. Around $1.4 billion remained frozen or canceled as of early 2026.⁷
In February 2025, the NIH announced a $4 billion reduction in so-called “indirect cost” reimbursements, the overhead funding that pays for laboratory equipment, support staff, and the basic infrastructure without which research cannot happen. Universities and hospitals had built their entire operational models around this funding.⁸
The administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 called for a 35% cut to all non-defense research and development. On top of that, it asked Congress to reduce scientific research budgets by a further $44 billion — roughly 22% — in a single year.⁹
A Senate committee found that NIH had terminated or frozen over $560 million in grants across the four leading causes of death in America. Of that, $83 million had been cut from 68 diabetes research grants alone, despite Congress having fully appropriated the money. Those terminations disrupted 304 active clinical trials involving hundreds of thousands of patients, including 69 trials for children.¹⁰
The people
Behind the dollars are people. Across federal science agencies, more than 25,000 researchers and public health workers departed in 2025, many of them early-career scientists, through a combination of mass layoffs and buyout schemes.¹¹ The EPA’s Office of Research and Development faced plans to eliminate over 1,000 scientists.¹² Remaining staff at agencies like NIH and NSF report being unable to keep up with the basic work of reviewing and approving grants.
For many junior researchers, 2025 marked the effective end of their scientific careers. Labs that had taken years to build were dismantled in weeks. Researchers let go of colleagues they had trained, scrambling to help them find work elsewhere.¹³
The control
Perhaps the most consequential development, and the one that has attracted less attention than the headline cuts, is the administration’s attempt to put political appointees in direct control of all federal research grants.
A 412-page proposal issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget in May 2026 would, if enacted, place political appointees above peer review in determining which science gets funded. It would restrict international research collaborations, limit publication support, and — in the words of critics — introduce a loyalty test: agencies could consider an applicant’s “history of questionable practices based on publicly available information,” meaning any public statement a researcher has made that the administration might find objectionable.¹⁴
The CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science called the proposal “a brazen power grab” that “will make future discoveries less likely.”¹⁵
The silencing
Parallel to the funding cuts has been a quieter but equally disturbing campaign to suppress scientific speech. The CDC’s communications were placed under a “pause”, delaying publication of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a cornerstone of public health information, for the first time in the agency’s history. A measles forecast was suppressed during the country’s worst outbreak in decades. HIV prevention data was removed from government websites. The findings of an NIH study on ultra-processed foods were blocked from publication, prompting a senior researcher to resign.¹⁶
In March 2025, the Trump administration formally rescinded the NIH’s scientific integrity policy — the very mechanism designed to protect federal scientists from political interference and retaliation.¹⁷
Researchers report widespread self-censorship. Those who depend on federal grants have learned to avoid certain topics, certain words, and certain conclusions. “People are scared,” Dr. Kelly said after being removed from the New Orleans conference. “They’re nervous to do anything or say anything.”¹⁸
What this means
The United States built its post-war scientific dominance on a compact between government, universities, and researchers: public money, allocated through peer review and protected by academic freedom, generating knowledge that benefited everyone. That compact was imperfect, slow, sometimes bureaucratic, occasionally captured by established interests, but it produced the vaccines, the treatments, the basic science that underpinned decades of medical progress.
What the Trump administration is doing is not reforming that system. It is replacing the logic of scientific merit with the logic of political loyalty. It is transforming research funding from a public good into a lever of ideological control.
The scene in New Orleans last Friday was almost absurdly literal: doctors with an editorial, police with their hands on their chests, a keynote speaker who thought better of showing up. But it captures something real about the direction of travel. In America, handing out a scientific critique at a scientific conference has become grounds for removal from the building.
The question is not only what research will not be done, which diseases will not be understood, and which treatments will arrive years later than they might have. The question is also what kind of institution science will be when this is overand whether the trust that makes it work can be rebuilt once it has been broken.
Severin de Wit is the founder and host of TrustTalk (trusttalk.fm), a podcast on trust in business, politics, and society.
Notes
¹ Bloomberg, “Scientists Sharing Anti-Trump Editorial Kicked Out of Conference,” June 5, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-05/scientists-sharing-anti-trump-editorial-kicked-out-of-conference
² The Spokesman-Review, “Police remove UW diabetes researcher and other experts from conference,” June 5, 2026. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jun/05/police-remove-uw-diabetes-researcher-and-other-exp/
³ Star Tribune, “U of M professor removed, banned from diabetes conference for contesting federal policies,” June 5, 2026. https://www.startribune.com/u-doctor-booted-from-conference-for-handing-out-editorial-opposing-trump-health-policies/601853829
⁴ American Diabetes Association statement, as reported by Bloomberg and Star Tribune, June 5, 2026.
⁵ IBTimes UK, “’I Was Chest-Bumped by Police’: Lead Journal Editor Thrown Out of Diabetes Conference,” June 6, 2026. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/scientists-ejected-diabetes-conference-trump-criticism-1801094
⁶ Washington Post, “Diabetes researchers ousted from conference after criticizing Trump,” June 5, 2026.
⁷ American Association for the Advancement of Science, estimates cited in multiple press reports, 2025–2026.
⁸ NIH announcement on indirect cost reductions, February 7, 2025, as reported widely.
⁹ Trump administration FY2026 budget proposal, as reported by the AAAS and major outlets.
¹⁰ Senate HELP Committee report, February 2026, as cited in IBTimes UK, June 2026. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/scientists-ejected-diabetes-conference-trump-criticism-1801094
¹¹ Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Minority Staff Report, “Trump Administration Attacks on Scientific Integrity,” September 9, 2025. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025.09.09-PSI-Minority-Report-Trump-Administration-Attacks-on-Science.pdf
¹² EPA Office of Research and Development workforce reduction plans, as reported in 2025.
¹³ Senate PSI Minority Report, September 2025.
¹⁴ White House OMB proposed rule on federal grants, May 2026, as reported by multiple outlets.
¹⁵ AAAS CEO statement on OMB proposed rule, May 2026.
¹⁶ Senate PSI Minority Report, September 2025.
¹⁷ NIH scientific integrity policy rescission, March 28, 2025.
¹⁸ Star Tribune, June 5, 2026. https://www.startribune.com/u-doctor-booted-from-conference-for-handing-out-editorial-opposing-trump-health-policies/601853829
I wish there was an option to assign this post a broken heart emoji - the story of the malevolent attack on science and the institutions that support it has been heart-breaking to see.
Thank you for this diagnosis. Now we need a treatment plan.