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Many top scientists in the United States no longer have a job.
Health Minister Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to reduce 20,000 jobs in agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration FDA).
Not all of them are scientists, but Canada could play a role to ensure that American scientists can continue their research, researchers say on both sides of the border.
Anecdotically, Canadian academics say that they hear every day from American colleagues looking for employment opportunities in Canada.
An example: Dr. Madhukar Pai, the director of the McGill Global Health Programs, told CBC News that he would expect a record number of applicants for a new tenure track job in his department and opened in the coming weeks. It is a field goal that is particularly heavy in the middle Cone cuts at the US Agency for International Development, which imposes life-saving programs around the world to combat diseases such as HIV and Malaria.
Scientists who monitor cancer research, vaccines and drug authorities have also been dismissed by public health and tobacco regulations under 10,000. Experts in public health say that the mass fires could have catastrophic effects on the USA and the world.
“Some of the best experts in public health in the world have just lost their work,” said former CDC director Dr. Tom Peace.
Without the CDC, more people get sick of infectious diseases and may die in the USA and all over the world – including Canada, he said.
“There are risks for Canada – and opportunities for Canada to increase.”
Kevin Griffis, a former director of CDC communication, resigned in protest two weeks after three years ago. He said the mass shots could be felt and unexpected consequences.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine critic who has committed to combating chronic diseases, was appointed US health secretary on Thursday, after he had overcome the resistance of the medical establishment and the members of the congress with promises to restrict his role in vaccination policy. Dr. Joss Reimer, the President of the Canadian Medical Association, says, “misinformations respect no limits” and adds that a misinformation is very worrying.
If the agency had to keep a press conference on a great threat from public health today, “there is no one who knows how to run the sound at all. Because they fired the studio team,” he said.
Reasures for US research financing will also lead to gaps in evidence, since overall less research is financed and carried out, says Kirsten Patrick, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). That is why it is all the more important for Canada to improve your research financing, she says.
“If we have a situation in which research is not financed as well as it should be and some research results are not even carried out, we have to have a strong research system in Canada,” she said.
The provinces’ rolls out the welcoming mat ”
The Canadian provinces are already trying to suddenly get American health experts out of work.
Manitoba “rolls out the welcome mat for us trained doctors, nurses and researchers who are affected by the cuts, the Minister of Health Uzoma Asagwara said in a statement to CBC.
The province is currently talking to over a dozen doctors in the USA who are interested in making moving, said Aagwara.
They are also in the process of developing a “fulsoms US recruitment campaign” in the coming weeks.
British Columbia also says that it keeps an eye on the latest developments in the USA. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said in a statement that American colleagues would provide “the support (IT)) so that they can continue their decisive work. BC also actively recruits US relatives.
In Toronto, the University Health Network will also announce its strategy to attract top scientists on Monday.
However, other groups are also trying to recruit the same scientists: Peace, the former CDC director, has already had an offer for a dismissed government scientist for the non-profit organization, which he is now operating, an offer to save life.
Local and state governments in the United States also try it snap Dismissed federal worker – not to mention universities around the world.
But Canada is well positioned in the competition. With regard to research, we are already storming about our weight, says Stephanie Michaud, CEO of Biocanrx, a research network that focuses on the development of immunodapics to combat cancer. Between 2015 and 2019, it received a federal financing of 40 million US dollars -and 109.5 million US dollars of funds from others, e.g. B. industrial partners, provinces and charity organizations.
“We have excellent researchers and excellent clinicians who are already working here,” she said, pointing out that Canadian researchers tend to publish themselves without any problems.
Where Canada could do better, it serves to put discoveries in treatments through clinical studies and finally into practice.
“What is necessary for investments to obtain a discovery that was found that was published in a Canadian laboratory and takes over it in a clinical study. Canada has a more difficult time here,” she said.
Since American scientists look at other countries to continue their work, it is an opportunity for Canada to tackle this weakness by listening to scientists and clinics and investing in more research investments – Canada becomes more attractive for top talents.
Canada finances much less research than the United States per capita, it is said analysis From the Canadian association for neurosciences. From 2020 to 2021, the NIH financed around 55.7 billion dollars in research. The Canadian Institute of Health Research financed $ 1.44 billion. Even if you consider that the US population is approximately nine times larger than Canada, this is a 39-fold difference.
“I think we all have the right ingredients, we just have to bring all parts together,” said Michaud.
Increasing research financing
Another strategy that Canada could require: researchers who work in Canada, easier to keep the light in their laboratories, says Dr. William Ghali, Vice President for Research at the University of Calgary.
If a researcher receives a federal grant in Canada, the government also puts some money aside to cover costs such as the setting of support employees, the operation and maintenance of laboratories or the payment of computer/data servers.
However, it is paid out annually at universities that no longer enter into individual researchers or grants – and in the end it is not enough money to cover the costs of everything that research enables according to Ghali.
Ghali says it is a good moment for Canada to rethink our approach. He says that these indirect costs make a big difference for researchers – and the guarantee of good indirect financing from outside of Canada will attract.
This will again benefit all Canadians, he says: Scientific growth leads to economic growth.
A research partnership, changed
But there is also mourning to underpin the opportunity feeling.
But scientists who leave the United States because they do not feel safe or supported in their country are sad, according to Ghali, that it feels like a blow to global cooperation.
Dr. Pai, the director of the McGill Global Health Programs, says he feels uncomfortable with the idea of poaching American scientists.
“American scientists deserve to work in their own country, not to leave their families, to feel safe in their own country, to be adequately financed (and) respected and rewarded,” he wrote about bluesky.
But it is a new reality with which the world expects: the USA cannot be dependent on the role that it has for decades. It is a lesson that learn economists after the “liberation day” tariffs. Scientists warn that the same lesson is waiting in health and medical research.
“Canada gives the opportunity to redesign its global partnerships, maybe gain closer to Europe, possibly become stronger in terms of cohesion in Canada,” said Ghali.
