Protesters ‘Stand Up for Science’ at Georgia Capitol

And they want to see funding restored to the National Institute of Health, which finances a significant portion of scientific research across the U.S.

In Georgia alone, more than $100 million in NIH funding was slashed before a federal judge intervened. But even with the judicial order halting the Trump administration, the cuts have created mass uncertainty for Georgia’s researchers and universities, who don’t know if and when their research budgets will be restored.

Neuroscientist Raymundo Hernandez, for instance, isn’t sure what the future holds for him or his work. Researchers like him often rely on NIH grants. But even for those who haven’t lost their grants, or at least haven’t lost them yet, it’s not clear there will be enough grants available for researchers down the road.

“I know I’m funded until September, but I don’t know what happens after that,” Hernandez said at the Atlanta protest. “I don’t know how my research is going to continue if this funding gets pulled out from under me.”

The cuts and question marks at the federal level have resulted in job losses for some Georgians, and students nearing graduation see dim job prospects.

“In pretty much any field of biology, no one is hiring post doctorates because no one has funding,” Georgia Tech grad student Katie Leatherbury said.

Beyond the job impacts, scientists say the disruption to their work endangers public health. Jennifer McQuiston, who retired from the CDC in February, told the audience that the organization was built in Atlanta because the South was once a hotbed of malaria, yellow fever and other deadly mosquito-borne diseases.

“They didn’t disappear magically. Those deadly diseases were stopped by science and are now being held at bay by public health professionals who are working on behalf of all of us,” McQuiston said.

Georgia Tech professor Joe Lachance was among those in the crowd. Scientific research, he said, needs to be funded without interruptions. Even a brief pause in the work can derail years of research.

“You need to have continued funding nonstop for that to work. You break that, it ruins the study,” Lachance said. “The full impact of (the funding freezes) we won’t know until a few years from now.”

McQuiston said the pauses cause inefficiencies and will leave the U.S. ill-prepared.

“You can’t snap your fingers and make a vaccine or new treatment. You need the work to be done in advance, so the drugs are ready and approved at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “That’s not going to happen now.”

Organizers urged the crowd to take their concerns to Georgia’s legislators. Otherwise, they said, more job losses could be coming.

“If you don’t go and show them that you’re a person too and not just a person in some lab coat that they can just cut, they’re going to cut you,” Amy Sharma of advocacy group Georgia for Science said. “They already have.”

State Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta, made a similar plea, arguing that the cuts by Trump’s administration will not only affect federal workers.

“They can do the same kind of damage here,” Esteves said. “If we let the virus that is infecting Washington come down here to Georgia, there will be a bigger price.”