As one engineer-turned-scientist noted, “we just stopped this grant, and you have to stop working on it today” nature.com .
These disruptions are widely seen as undermining innovation. Experts point out that no private funder can replace basic research. As NYU Professor Sabrina Howell explained, industry “would not have iPhones if universities… hadn’t worked on lasers” and “no private company would take on [high-risk research] on their own… only government can fund that kind of work” npr.org . Shalin Jyotishi of New America think tank warned that if government “gets out of this business, industry cannot and will not pick up the mantle” of R&D npr.org . Harvard President Alan Garber emphasized that federal science dollars have been “a springboard for ambitious ideas…manifested in an ever-growing list of life-saving treatments for heart disease, cancer and genetic diseases” technologynetworks.com . By contrast, critics say Trump’s haphazard cuts send a warning shot: even libertarian scholar Richard Vedder noted it is “not the ideal way” but perhaps an attempt to force reform of spending npr.org .
Impact on Public Health Programs & Surveillance
Public health agencies have lost critical personnel and capacity. The CDC reduced field programs across the board. In the first months of 2025, roughly 1,300 CDC staff were axed npr.org – including specialists in injury prevention, lead poisoning, tobacco control, etc. washingtonpost.com . Key CDC units were disbanded: all first-year Epidemic Intelligence Service (“disease detectives”) were laid off npr.org (a move later reversed amid outcry healthpolicy-watch.news ), and the Public Health Associates Program (which places trainees in local health departments) was canceled healthpolicy-watch.news . Even central offices lost expertise: Peter Marks (FDA’s top vaccine regulator) and other career scientists were forced out washingtonpost.com reuters.com .
Officials warn these cuts gut public-health infrastructure. A current CDC employee lamented that the layoffs are “absolutely tragic – if we lose these people we lose important capacity and in a very real sense we lose our CDC future” npr.org . APHA executive director Georges Benjamin called the CDC reductions “indiscriminate, poorly-thought out layoffs” that are “very destructive to the core infrastructure of public health” npr.org . Disease surveillance suffered: lab scientists monitoring drug-resistant gonorrhea and hepatitis were cut washingtonpost.com , leaving doctors with “much less information” to stop outbreaks washingtonpost.com . In sum, prevention programs aimed at chronic and infectious diseases have largely been halted washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com .
These cuts have already affected outbreak responses. During the 2025 measles surge, CDC support was stretched thin. CDC senior scientist David Sugerman reported “funding limitations in light of COVID-19 funding dissipating” and “quite a number of resource requests coming in…from Texas” washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com . Texas officials “are pulling resources and staff from other parts of [their department] to respond” to measles washingtonpost.com , while the CDC must “scrap to find” enough personnel for assistance washingtonpost.com . One CDC outbreak response team member noted that two of 15 deployed staff had themselves been laid off in the cuts washingtonpost.com . Even FDA experts fear agency collapse: former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf warned “the FDA as we’ve known it is finished…most of the leaders with institutional knowledge…no longer employed,” calling the purge “a huge mistake” that may take years to fix reuters.com .
Impact on Pandemic Preparedness and Health Security
By canceling pandemic-related funds, the administration has weakened future readiness. CDC’s unilateral cancellation of $11.4B in COVID grants stripped states of testing, vaccination,