Throughout a tight US presidential race, scientists and research advocates across the country enthusiastically backed current vice president Kamala Harris, expressing dire warnings about Donald Trump’s re-election. Just days before the votes were cast 82 Nobel laureates – including 18 who won the award for chemistry – mobilised to support Harris and warn that her opponent is a threat to the US scientific enterprise.

Robert F. Kennedy shaking hands with Donald Trump at a political rally

Source: © Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Robert F Kennedy, who in the past has linked vaccines with autism and made other unfounded claims, could serve in the Trump administration

But such an endorsement may have backfired – Trump decisively won the race on 5 November and he will return to the White House on 20 January. As US-based drug discovery chemist Derek Lowe told me: ‘The fact that a bunch of Nobel prize winners said that Harris should be elected is, for many Trump supporters, reason to get your butt to the polls as fast as possible and vote for Donald Trump.’

And already, it is becoming clear that a big shake-up is coming with serious research funding cuts on the cards and it’s unknown just how bad things could get. Science policy watchers are also expecting specific fields, such as climate change, renewable energy and reproductive health, to be deprioritised. Robert F Kennedy Jr, a very public vaccine critic and a conspiracy theorist, also seems poised for a role in Trump’s new cabinet and has even been floated as a potential head of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). During a Madison Square Garden rally before the election, Trump said he would allow Kennedy to ‘go wild on health’, as well as food and medicines.

The day after Trump’s re-election, Kennedy was already telling media outlets that there are entire FDA departments ‘that have to go, that are not doing their job’. Leading up to the election, he posted on social media: ‘FDA’s war on public health is about to end … If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.’ A nephew of John F Kennedy, he had been an environmental lawyer and apparently has no scientific background, having graduated from Harvard with an undergraduate degree in American history and literature.

With folks like Kennedy on board Trump’s team, it will be very hard to find scientists or technical experts of any calibre to join his administration. But that seems to be just fine with the president-elect. He does not appear interested in high quality, independent data or scientific advice, unless they conveniently corroborate his own agenda.

But chemistry Nobel laureate Frances Arnold says she hopes Trump will recognise that investing in science is investing in the US’s future. She cites her own words last June when the US non-profit Aspen Institute sought her advice to the next president: ‘Without science, we lose the opportunity to guide the future.’

Rebecca became the US Correspondent for Chemistry World in September 2014, based out of Washington, DC, after writing for the magazine on a freelance basis since 2007.View full profile

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