After several years of labor strikes by various groups in the United States, current and former federal employees stood up yesterday for their own.
Hundreds rallied in Washington, D.C. outside the headquarters of Department of Health and Human Services, as reported by the Associated Press, in protest of recent firings and the effect on American public health.
Much of the protestor’s frustration was aimed at Elon Musk and his pseudo Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which have been making sweeping cuts to various federal departments and agencies.
“We are here today to fight for the future of science, to fight for your family’s future, to give the American people hope. Consider the medications you rely on for diabetes, heart disease or cancer. These were developed in large part due to NIH and NIH-funded researchers. Is destroying years of progress into research really serving the American people? No,” Ian Fucci, a cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health, said Wednesday to the crowd of protestors.
Despite freezing temperatures and a light snow, participants chanted “Funding, not freezes” and “Stand up, fight back.” They carried signs that said: “Protect civil servants because they protect you!” and “In science we trust.”
“Are we going to shut down the illegal Elon Musk takeover of the government? Yeah, you bet we are. We’re going to fight this in the courts. We’re going to fight this in the Congress. And there can be no business as usual in the Congress. And we’re going to fight this in gatherings like this all over the country,” Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said.
Former NIH scientist Ellen Bak said she was terminated last weekend. Her research into stem cells and blood cancer is essentially lost.
“The sheer amount of money and time and testing and care and effort. Is it all just gone?” Bak asked.
Florida student Jenna McGrew, 18, attended because her older brother, Ethan, suffers from a rare autoimmune disease. He is in the NIH’s intensive care with a serious bacterial infection. She called the “level of uncertainty” inside the NIH “a risk to his life.”
“What [Trump] is doing is not only affecting my family, it is affecting every citizen in America, and everyone outside of America. The NIH is one of the best hospitals in the world. And they research everything. And so the funding cut for them is not only affecting America, but it’s affecting the rest of the world,” McGrew said.
Multiple lawmakers pledged to continue the fight against Trump’s policies as they viewed the rally within sight of the Capitol.
“These are the people who are fighting the viruses that threaten the American people. But fascism is a virus, too,” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said. He furthered his analogy by referring to the protestors and lawmakers like himself as the antibodies to the virus.
Related stories:
Trump directs federal employees to return to office
Trump’s federal hiring freeze could delay benefits for veterans
‘NIH is mission critical’: Lawmakers call out Trump for endangering medical research
National Park Service to exempt some jobs from hiring freeze
Democratic lawmakers, federal employee groups unite against Trump
Layoffs, rehires, complaints, oh my: Trump fires thousands of federal employees
Share
Rebecca Barnabi
