“These attacks jeopardize medical and scientific progress and threaten the jobs of researchers across the country studying critical topics including climate change, renewable energy, cancer, viral pandemics, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. Not only do these attacks impede lifesaving care for millions of Americans, but delays in treatment are projected to cost the public billions of dollars,” the UAW said.

Key Remarks

“NIH is the bedrock of American health,” said Haley Chatelaine, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health and member of UAW 2750, which represents 5000 workers there. “I’ve spoken with patients whose lives depended on the groundbreaking research we do. Any delay – whether it’s due to pauses in grant funding or firings of federal workers – puts Americans’ health at risk. That’s why we, the workers who do the research, are standing up to protect it.”

“By cutting funds to lifesaving research and medical care, the Trump administration is abandoning families who are suffering and costing taxpayers billions of dollars,” said Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 4811, which represents 48,000 workers at the University of California. “These cuts are dangerous to our health, and dangerous to our economy.”

“Federal research funding is critical to my research into how neurons in our brains communicate, making it possible to develop better therapeutics for severe health conditions that range from cancer to depression to learning disorders,” said Dagan Marx, a Postdoc at Weill Cornell Medicine and member of the Weill Cornell Medicine Postdocs United-UAW Bargaining Committee. “Recklessly slashing funding that institutions like Weill Cornell depend on for medical breakthroughs and supporting researchers has devastating impacts on our research and our working conditions.”