Dozens of doctors, researchers, and students walked out at the University of Cincinnati Friday as part of the nationwide "Stand Up for Science" protests.
In a small park between UC鈥檚 College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children鈥檚 Hospital, people held signs reading 鈥渟cience saves lives鈥� and chanted, 鈥淲ho's the powerhouse of these halls? Workers are.鈥�
Scientists organized the rallies in response to the Trump administration鈥檚 and and actions banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Attendees said those directives are impacting their work locally.
鈥淭he NIH funding cuts threaten to drain tens of millions from UC and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, endangering critical research and jobs,鈥� said Brian Griffin, executive secretary-treasurer of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council.
Federal dollars support research at both UC and Children鈥檚, ranging from developing Alzheimer鈥檚 treatments to identifying risk factors for alcohol use disorder.
President Trump鈥檚 banning DEI programs is also , causing federal agencies to pull funding from certain projects.
鈥淐utting the funding for research on diversity will definitely have a very negative impact on personalized medicine, since it denies the fact that males and females have different physiologies and different ethnic groups have different genetic susceptibilities to disease,鈥� said UC Professor Emerita Zalfa A. Abdel-Malek.
Abdel-Malek says she had three decades of support from federal agencies to research how skin color related to likelihood of skin cancers. She says the chances of similar research getting funded now are slim.
The national Stand Up for Science movement had three goals:
- Secure and expand scientific funding
- End censorship and political interference in science
- Defend Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in science
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