Just a short note this morning to highlight the outpouring of opposition to the Trump regime’s attempt to impose its political priorities on federally-funded scientific research, which I called modern-day Lysenkoism in this GoozNews article in early June when the rule was first proposed.
Who was Trofim Lysenko? He was the political hack Josef Stalin put in charge of Soviet science in the 1930s because the dictator agreed with his theory rejecting Mendelian genetics in favor of his pet theory that learned behaviors could be inherited. Russia’s contributions to medical and biological science never recovered.
An Office of Management and Budget rule proposed in late May would require all federal grants (including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and virtually every agency of the federal government) gain approval from political appointees at the granting agency. The regime’s attempt to impose political control by executive order was rejected by the courts for failing to follow the federal law that requires rulemaking with public comment to make such a change.
An administration spokesperson gave Axios this boilerplate explanation for the proposal: "Federal grants were politicized under the last administration to promote a far-left DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) agenda.… That ends now."
The unspoken agenda is the Trump regime’s desire -- epitomized by Health An Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- to fund pseudo-scientists who back quack theories opposing vaccines and water fluoridation, and support scientists who claim efficacy for drugs and devices never subjected to clinical trials.
Significantly, Big Pharma has finally weighed in on the gutting of science that is the basis for their entire industry (something it has so far failed to do regarding the regime’s undermining of the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates its products). “The proposed changes to research funding decisions could introduce a level of unpredictability that would weaken the scientific ecosystem,” a spokesperson for PhRMA, the industry trade group, told Axios.
“At a time of intense global competition, creating uncertainty in research funding risks driving talent, discoveries and investment to other countries, ultimately slowing the development of lifesaving treatments for American patients and ceding U.S. leadership.”
The comment period remains open until next Monday, July 13. You can weigh in by clicking here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance.
Merrill Goozner, the former editor of Modern Healthcare, writes about health care and politics at GoozNews.substack.com, where this column first appeared. Please consider subscribing to support his work.
Reprinted with permission from Gooz News
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- The New Lysenkoism in Washington | The Nation ›
- The Lysenko effect: undermining the autonomy of science - PubMed ›
- Lysenkoism 2.0 in action: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abuses his power to bully journal editors over a retraction | Science-Based Medicine ›
- Before Crackpot RFKism There Was Crackpot Lysenkoism ›
- RFK Jr., America’s Lysenko - The Boston Globe ›
- America's Lysenko - The Hamilton Monitor ›
- “Make America Healthy Again”: The new Lysenkoism | Science-Based Medicine ›
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