“Science is for Everyone.” That’s the mantra of the group planning Standup for Science 2025 rallies nationwide on Friday, March 7.
The Washington D.C. rally will be held on the National Mall from noon to 4 p.m. Other protests will occur in major cities from Boston to San Francisco and include heartland locations like Chicago, Jefferson City, Missouri and Little Rock.
MCM interviewed organizer Samantha Goldstein who wanted to speak out against the current political atmosphere which seems to devalue the importance of science. “…I think if we just continue to allow this administration to attack science with funding cuts censorship or just sort of continue to allow them to delegitimize science as a pillar of public good, then we’re just going to move backwards instead of forwards. And we’ll lose our footing not only nationally, but I think as a global leader, and it’ll endanger lives at a massive scale and it impacts the economy.”
In Montgomery County, science-dedicated governmental agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) have been stripped of hundreds of federal employees.
Goldstein also noted “…funding coming in to researchers in Maryland is 2.74 billion (dollars). And the supported activity from that is 5.7 billion (dollars) going out and it supports 23,000 jobs.”
And that doesn’t begin to account for impacts closer to home as Goldstein explained. “In Maryland there’s a pretty high rate of heart disease deaths and cancer deaths. And we know that the National Cancer Institute, so through the NIH, is deeply impacted by having to put pause on lifesaving, potentially lifesaving clinical trials and funding to do research that could save lives and for heart disease. I mean, think about all the medications that people use to manage those chronic illnesses that was given through science.”
Standup For Science 2025 sees the rallies as a first wave of protest. “It’s just to provide folks who like us are concerned and confused with an outlet to make their voices heard and stand up for science through collective action. ”
To learn more visit Standup For Science 25.
