Research funded by the NIH which our government is actively gutting
Yep, this effort is the culmination of 50 years of research. Could be the last harrah of the NIH with the amount of cuts we've had and the scientists who are taking jobs in other countries.
Unfortunately a staggering amount of research in other countries is largely funded by the NIH/USA.
What a shortsighted view.
The technology used on this same article was funded by Max Planck (Germany), Sweden and the NIH to a french and a USA scientist. Should those collaborations stop?
That may be partially true, but it's also important to understand that the US benefited a lot from that. Scientists from all over the world moved to work in the US, students looked forward to studying there and working in US companies, etc.
That is changing. Children in my country are moving from learning English to French and German in order to study in European universities. This started after Brexit and will accelerate now.
And those grant awards need to demonstrate how they benefit the USA. Many are (were) related to disease surveillance in developing countries to prevent pandemics, or collaborations with countries that are more advanced than the US in niche areas.
Terrible take. Do all scientists who make breakthroughs that we might benefit from live in the US? CRISPR itself was a US-German collaboration.
The reason for this is very pragmatic actually. We don’t have enough researchers of a particular specialty in one country alone. When you get that specialized the air is very rare.
By pooling our funding / effort we can create a larger body of collaborators to solve problems faster and better.
It could be that the organizations are funding wild stuff that isn’t salient. I’ll concede that.
However, in basic sciences there are so few specialists it is important to share resources. The funding is worse than ever (hello 2006!), and that trend is unlikely to reverse for a while.
Source: I worked in bioenergetics for 10y, my collaborators were from Hungary, Chile, Canada, Israel, Italy, and more! At a major conference on mito energetics they all fit in one big lecture hall (100ish?)
And so what?
Indeed - does it matter who performed the research? If the CRISPR reasearch were performed in another country, would that change the outcome for the infant?
That means that it's not going to happen anymore.
Unless those other countries step up and fund it themselves.
They might. They might not.
Not to mention the long arcs of the careers of scientists and support staff involved in this breakthrough, who were also supported by federally funded research grants.
Interesting view as many people were so anti-MRNA vaccine because "it was created too fast" oblivious to the years/decades of study in that field that allowed for that "too fast" to happen.
I guess it's still too early in this story's news cycle for the people with anti-views to be making noise yet. No GMOs, but human gene modification is okay. No cloning either. The boogeyman is gonna get us no matter what we do
Also, several of the key doctors and researchers were not born in the US. I'm sure plenty of researchers are now thinking twice about working in or moving to the US.
Edit: Still reading the article, but so far researchers working in the US have come from India, Russia, born to Taiwanese immigrants, and more.
As the father of a 5 year old boy with a genetic degenerative muscular disease whose lifespan will depend directly on how fast these technologies progress, I have difficulty responding in a civilized manner to the pointless, cruel, and stupid actions of the Administration in this regard. Rage is the word.
It is breathtaking to consider how the members of the Administration and their children, parents, and grandparents have benefited from NIH-funded research in innumerable ways that they are shamefully unaware of, every time they visit the doctor or the ER.
I have the same rage. But it extends equally to those who voted them in and donated to their campaigns, including my own family members.
They have created a huge rift in this country and I am still trying to figure out if I will forgive my family members and what they'd have to do to set us on a path towards reconciliation.
When there's a contract in place to conduct pediatric cancer research, and the government decides one day to break that contract, and it takes courts to rectify the situation, and then the government defies the courts, and the voters are cheering on the illegal actions of the politicians, well, rage is a mild word for what I feel.
The complete lack of self awareness is always breathtaking. Demanding empathy from others while being completely incapable of it yourself is always a stunning thing to encounter.
Government? Republicans. Republicans are the ones fighting against government funded research. Let’s put blame where blame belongs.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is a conspiracist that doesn't believe in vaccines and swims in sewers with his toddler to prove a point about "natural immunity" [1]. The new Surgeon General prayed to the stars and the trees and took mushrooms to "get ready for partnership" [2]. This is the party of so-called "rationalists".
Fascism has a long history of rejecting rationalism and science, and of embrassing esotericism [3]. Something our representation of nazis in media did a terrible job at conveying. We always see nazis as cold, calculating and rational when they are anything but.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/rfk-jr-rock-c...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/trumps-new-surgeon-gener...
> Something our representation of nazis in media did a terrible job at conveying.
Indiana Jones and Hellboy are pretty explicit about this.
> This is the party of so-called "rationalists".
Eh?
Republicans pride themselves in this "facts over feeling" aesthetic, when they let vibes alone dictate the entirety of their decision making process.
See: Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro...
> "facts over feeling" aesthetic