Science Must Go On: How Courageous Scientists Are Meeting the Moment

This Thursday, a group of technical experts will meet to develop independent, science-based advice to strengthen the U.S. Census Bureau. To a casual observer, it might look like an ordinary-dare I say, boring-scientific meeting, long and packed with wonky agenda items. But the significance of this meeting can't be overstated.

After the Trump administration dismissed the Census Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC), this group of experts, each of whom had served on CSAC, formed the all-volunteer Independent Census Scientific Advisory Committee. Its members are giving their time and expertise to ensure that they can inform decisionmakers-including submitting their recommendations to the US Census Bureau-and counter disinformation in the public sphere.

The disbanded Census committee is just one of many federal technical advisory committees gutted by the administration. In the wake of a Trump executive order, 51 (27%!) of almost 200 active science-focused Federal Advisory Committees have been shuttered, with more under review. This decision keeps science advice from reaching policymakers on real-world issues like vaccine effectiveness, air pollution protections, and food safety, and much more. Such committees play a huge role in driving government officials to make evidence-based policy decisions-and help hold them publicly accountable when they don't.

Science won't be silenced

Now scientists are stepping up to fill the void of science advice and scientific information being created by the Trump administration. The experts convening the Independent Census Scientific Advisory Committee this week are in good company:

• The University of Minnesota Vaccine Integrity Project will carry forward producing evidence-based childhood vaccination advice, in contrast to Secretary Kennedy's now compromised Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
• The former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration leaders that ran the now-shuttered Climate.gov have launched Climate.us to ensure reliable climate information-including timely data on sea level rise and other effects of climate change-continues to reach the masses.
• The National Academy of Sciences will fast track a study of climate impacts on public health in the wake of the administration's attack on the Endangerment Finding and their bogus Department Of Energy's "climate report."
• United by Nature will revive and reimagine the National Nature Assessment that was unceremoniously shuttered, producing the most comprehensive review to date of the importance of nature to humans.
• The American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society will publish papers on topics that would have been covered by dismissed authors of the National Climate Assessment. Historically, this report by the U.S. government has served as a guidebook for decisionmakers, providing the best available science on climate change and how to protect people and public infrastructure from its impacts.
• Medical associations like The American Academy of Pediatrics are creating their own guidelines and advice on policies and decisions that would in normal times be issued from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to provide science-based information despite the documented conflicts of interest within HHS and its sub-agencies and several U.S. states have committed to following evidence-based guidance.

As I wrote in an op-ed for Science magazine, efforts like these have many benefits for science and society at large. First, developing independent science advice preserves scientific truth in the public record, which can prove useful in legal and historical proceedings. It can also effectively counter disinformation coming from government officials and helps hold them accountable. Finally, independent science infrastructure provides reliable science advice for all levels of government and for future decisionmakers, who can move faster on the policy decisions when the groundwork of scientific advice and assessment has already been developed.

Importantly, history and evidence clearly show that the building of alternative institutions-such as independent scientific bodies and activities-is an effective tactic for fighting the rise of authoritarianism. The process democratizes access to scientific information, ensuring that everyone from decisionmakers to the broader public has the best available science and evidence about their health, safety, and security. Importantly, this tactic also lessens the power of an authoritarian regime by limiting its ability it to control the narrative and use lies and disinformation to justify and advance its agenda.

The value of this is evident, no matter what the future holds. If science-supporting federal leadership is restored, then independent science activities can be a short-term effort. If it takes longer for federal science to revive, the activities can continue to fulfill key science advice for the public and decisionmakers at other levels of government. To be clear, independent scientific committees and panels cannot fully replace federally funded and commissioned scientific activities, which have until now benefitted from the scale, stability, transparency, and authority of the federal government. But they are an important strategy to implement now.

Let's scale this

The scientific community now has the chance to apply this strategy at scale. Because the dismantling of the federal scientific advice apparatus has been so severe and wide-ranging, there are ample opportunities for the scientific community to step up-and we must.

The first Trump administration disbanded an EPA scien­tific panel charged with advising on air pollution standards. In response, the disbanded panel convened independently, hosted by UCS, to review the evi­dence and advise the agency on the science of the health effects of particulate matter pollution. The independent panel deliberated pub­licly and submitted their recommendations as a public comment, so it became part of the administrative public record. The panel's ac­tions later supported successful legal challenges to the EPA's choice to decline tightening the pollution standards.

Like the air quality scientists and the US Census experts, scientists everywhere can step up to help us ensure that science can prevail. UCS has developed a toolkit and hosted a webinar to get you started. It is easy to feel powerless in this moment, but scientists are giving me courage. I hope you'll join us.