Federal funding for science and medicine has been cut by 30 percent to 80 percent - to the lowest level in decades - and even steeper cuts are on the horizon.
We are alumni of Kittatinny Regional High School, pursuing careers in medicine and science. We have depended on federal funding for every step of our training and research and have firsthand knowledge of the disastrous and far-reaching consequences of suspending this level of funding to our disciplines.
We are fearful for our hometown should these cuts stand and are asking you as our friends, families, neighbors, teachers and community members to help us fight against these cuts for our futures and yours.
Government funding for science and medicine directly impacts New Jersey residents. Cuts to fields, such as biomedical research, lead to job loss, particularly in places like New Jersey and the tri-state area where medical research institutions and hospitals are concentrated.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided decades of grants for New Jersey STEM education from kindergarten through graduate school and STEM education research, totaling more than $600 million.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has awarded more than $72 million to our region since 2018 for programs such as flood reduction and recreational areas through the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund.
We depend on the NSF, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USFWS and other federal agencies to fund our training and research, which has launched meaningful careers for us and is a stepping stone to high-paying jobs.
Children growing up in our state now stand to lose access to these resources; a high school student graduating from Kittatinny this year will not have the same career opportunities we did if these cuts stand.
Indirect benefits
Meanwhile, there are uncountable indirect benefits to New Jersey residents of federal funding for science and medicine. More than 99 percent of all new drugs approved from 2010 through 2019 had some antecedent research funded by the NIH.
NIH cuts mean less funding for treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s, asthma and cancer - all prevalent in New Jersey - and sometimes requiring oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address and prevent.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection monitors water quality and cleans environmentally contaminated sites impacting air and water quality in the state; activities for which it receives federal funding.
The U.S. Geological Survey and the National Weather Service are losing funding for activities critically important for predicting natural disasters, such as flooding and hurricanes, despite Hurricane Sandy-like disasters on the rise.
Mapping dilapidated mines under the Route 80 sinkhole required cooperation of experts with an understanding of complex geophysics.
So many of these systems we take for granted rely on federal funding or on individuals whose training and research depends on federal grants and are under threat of dissolution without cause.
Return on investment
Government spending on science and medicine accounts for only about 1 percent of the federal budget; if all government funding for these disciplines was eliminated, the median American taxpayer would save just a little more than $100 a year in federal taxes.
Yet, the return on investment for this spending is astronomical - for every federal dollar invested in the NIH, $2.50 of value is added to the economy. For every federal dollar spent on nondefense scientific research and development, between $1.50 and $3.00 of value is added to the economy.
These cuts aren’t sensible budget trimmings. The current and proposed cuts to NSF, NIH, EPA, USFWS and other government agencies will save you almost nothing and cause your health, safety and quality of life to decline.
Damage caused by cuts now cannot simply be reversed in a few years - we’re losing our jobs, planning escape routes and moving away every day these funding cuts go unchallenged.
Our colleagues who are moving on now will not flock back to their old positions should funding be restored years down the line; the current and proposed cuts are so steep that they threaten to dismantle the very infrastructure of science and medicine in the state and in the country. Effects from this wanton destruction will last for decades if not immediately corrected.
We are asking you to call your representatives in Congress and tell them how important science and medicine funding is to you. We can’t imagine the devastation these cuts will cause to our fields of expertise, our research and our budding careers; much less the havoc they will wreak on our state and our homes.
Carly Gerth is a biotechnician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She is passionate about habitat conservation and solving the climate crisis.
Cara Giovanetti is a physicist studying dark matter and the early universe at New York University.
James “Jimmy” Thurston is an ambulatory clinical pharmacy manager at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of Connecticut.
Kelly Witzl is a data analyst at Myriad Genetics, using bioinformatics to analyze hereditary cancer genes.