Last week featured a big “whoopsies” moment by an Andreessen Horowitz-funded cyber security unicorn and rumblings that Trump is ready to reveal his new plan for Healthcare reform, but the biggest story in healthcare this past week centers around the March for Science held on Saturday, April 22nd.
All around the globe, thousands of people took to the streets to show their support for evidence-based research and the scientific method while also protesting the recent wave of “anti-science” legislation. Science and healthcare are inherently intertwined, and the success (or hindrance) of one means the same for the other. The water where these two fields meet can get a bit muddied, so join me as I explore how the march came to be and what role the healthcare community plays in all of this.
How did we get here?
How the March for Science came to be is a case study for activism in 2017. Following the enormously successful Women’s March, Jonathan Berman, a postdoc at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, was reading Reddit when he saw a comment that caught his eye:
One domain, one Facebook account, and one Twitter account later, Berman had officially branded a movement. Soon after setting up the accounts, Berman began collaborating closely with Valorie Aquino, an anthropology Ph.D. student at the University of New Mexico and Caroline Weinberg, a health writer and educator. The three are cited as the leaders of the March for Science movement and have spent most of the last three months using social media and support from volunteers to organize the April 22nd March.
Why exactly are people marching?
As with all grassroots movements, the March means different things to different people.
To some, the March represents an opportunity to protest proposed budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. To others, it is a protest against a growing willingness to label things “fake” without any logic or scientific analysis. To others still, it’s about giving the scientific community a cohesive voice to advocate politically.
While the scope of “why people are marching” is too vast to distil into one simple sound bite, the overarching spirit is outlined by Berman, Weinberg, and Aquino:
“The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest. – Source
How big was this thing?
All told, people in over 600 cities across 6 continents participated in the March for Science. It was nowhere near as large as the Women’s March, but it was still an impressive public showing in a time where most “protesting” means retweeting or liking something. The most impressive showing? I’m going with Chicago which had an estimated 40,000 people show up.
What does this have to do with Healthcare?
The news that got the scientific community up in arms was the proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) budget. The most recent proposal has the organization losing $1.2 billion in funding this year, primarily money allotted for research grants, and $5.8 billion in funding for 2018.
The NIH is the arm of the US Government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. It’s the largest biomedical research institution in the world and represents a huge portion of the money spent annually on medical research. It’s an enormous organization with 27 institutes and an annual budget of $31.7 billion.
The proposed cuts, just under 20% of its annual budget, put recent initiatives like the Cancer Moonshot and Precision Medicine Initiative in jeopardy. It also goes against the recent 21st Century Cures Act, which was passed with bipartisan support (94-5 Senate, 392-26 House) and saw funds being allocated to the NIH for these specific causes.
The impact of these cuts are best summed up by Arthur Bienenstock, a professor at Stanford and expert on science policy:
“The net impact would be a significant decline in biomedical research, and its centralization in a small number of universities. Research would shift away from public universities and less well-endowed private universities, toward well-endowed private universities like Harvard and Stanford.” -Source
Where do we go from here?
It will be interesting to see what kind of lasting power the March for Science has. With such a broad scope and varying motives by participants, it is likely to splinter into factions that are focused on supporting one area or another.
From what I’ve read, I think the organizers and participants are alright with that. What this march represented was the ability for a huge number of people to come together around something deeply important to them. It represented an awakening of the scientific community as an entity that has the power to advocate on its behalf and defend its ideals.
When it comes to the health of medical research, this awakening couldn’t have come at a more critical time. However things shake out, we’ll keep our eye on current events and make sure to keep you in the loop.