Katie Phang

The Trump administration put research participants and public health at risk when they abruptly terminated NIH studies.

By halting these studies, they also wasted taxpayer resources.

When you halt a study, a five-year study, a $5 million study, four years in, you don't save $1 million, you waste $4 million.

And they continue to this day to censor research in violation of the courts, erasing people from science who don't fit their vision.

Black people, Hispanic people, immigrants, LGBTQ plus people, all Americans who deserve to have their unique research needs addressed.

They are creating a science that serves the few instead of a science that serves all of us.

When this began, I knew that speaking up was my right, but I also believed that it was my duty.

I first spoke up inside the National Institutes of Health, but when my concerns were not addressed by leadership at NIH, I felt that I had no choice but to join with hundreds of my colleagues at NIH to take those concerns to the public.

Tonight, you are hearing from those most affected by the Trump administration.

But civil servants like me are not the only ones affected.

The lawlessness at the National Institutes of Health affects all of us.

Last year, the Trump administration funded 24% fewer new research studies with about the same amount of money.

That means fewer future cures for all of us.

The Trump administration also funded 20% fewer early career researchers, creating a brain drain that will damage our economy and end American leadership in science exploration as our best and our brightest seek positions abroad.

The Trump administration tried to silence us by putting me and other federal employees who have spoken up on retaliatory administrative leave.

They do not want you to know how they are destroying your government, our government.

But we will not stop speaking up.

Let's get loud together.

This is our country.

And when we come together, we are powerful.