This story is part of our series Science Matters, where we interview scientists about the practical implications of federal attacks on science jobs, funding, and education for everyday families and public health.
“It’s a little scary to dance with the devil,” says Dr. Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP) from 2009 to 2019. She’s referring to meeting with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at an event in April in Charlotte, North Carolina. Also in attendance were other scientists and advocates plus industry “bad actors” and plastic producers seeking alternatives to petrochemical-based plastics.
“Some of the things he says and does are inexcusable and absolutely wrong, but some of the things he’s interested in are up my alley and really important,” says Dr. Birnbaum, a self-described pragmatist. She’s currently thinking about opportunities to work with Kennedy on the important stuff. “I will move from something terrible to something not as bad. I don’t want perfection to be the enemy of the good. I will take steps as I can get them.”
Overlapping concerns
In Charlotte, Kennedy discussed concerns Dr. Birnbaum shares: food additives, food contaminants, toxic chemicals humans are being exposed to constantly from a variety of sources including consumer products like plastics, and the overuse of pesticides. “All of these are valid. At one panel, 80 to 90% of what he said was good. A couple of things … the statistics were way too loosey goosey,” she recalls.
Kennedy’s clear focus at the meeting was chronic disease and kids. Dr. Birnbaum took the in-person opportunity to stress to Kennedy that many of these chronic diseases are a function of early life exposures—in utero and infantile. “I also said, dads matter. Some exposures are a problem preconception. He was very responsive.”
Funding cuts and chaos can hurt opportunities
While Kennedy’s responsiveness is “nice,” without money, progress is unlikely. As NIEHS and NTP director, Dr. Birnbaum oversaw a budget of more than $740 million that funded biomedical research to discover how the environment influences human health and disease. The institute also supported training, education, community outreach, and more. NIEHS funded more than 1,000 research grants.
Since this administration took office, funding has been cut at an alarming rate—and these cuts will continue. “The proposed cuts for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are 35 to 40%, which will really hurt some of the environmental research. The epidemiology studies are very expensive.” Dr. Birnbaum, who served as a federal scientist for 40 years—before NIEHS she spent 19 years at EPA—says other agencies, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, are being gutted. Grants with any focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion have been shut down. NIH grants to universities have been drastically decreased. There are also hiring freezes and even rescinding of grad student and postdoc offers. Institutes on the chopping block include ones devoted to minority health and health disparities. The Office of Research and Development at EPA, which is not under Kennedy’s purview, is being “destroyed.” It’s difficult to imagine moving the needle on the toxic chemicals on Kennedy’s radar to safeguard public health without EPA support—and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s actions so far don’t bode well.
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“I think the institute directors really don’t have control over what’s going to be happening to their institutes. There is chaos. There is confusion. I don’t understand it. There is terrible concern about the future of research in our country,” says Dr. Birnbaum.
Opportunities: What RFK could still accomplish
Still, Dr. Birnbaum insists scientists doing environmental work can find ways to collaborate with Kennedy. “We need to look for opportunities when we agree with some of his concerns and try to support him and get his support for the work we want to do,” she says. These opportunities only include what he can control.
Dr. Birnbaum says Kennedy was explicit about this when they met. “His lane is what the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) covers, and the only part that has any regulatory authority is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),” she notes. Other agencies under Kennedy, like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), can put out policies that are recommendations, but not regulations.
“He doesn’t control EPA so he can’t regulate chemicals in commerce. He doesn’t control USDA so he can’t regulate pesticides in commerce but because FDA reports to him, he has made an agreement with the food industry to remove synthetic dyes from food. Let’s see how well it plays out.” This is a voluntary agreement, not an enforceable regulation.
Other areas scientists might be able to work with Kennedy on include endocrine disrupting chemicals (or chemicals that disrupt the function of hormones in our bodies) and PFAS “forever chemicals”—but only where he can weigh in, that is, in food packaging and cosmetics. “I am going to go in on the things where I think we can make a difference: additives in plastics. We can stress that we need to start reducing use of plastics. Certainly there is no rationale for single-use plastics,” she says.
Scientists can shift how they describe their work to meet Kennedy’s ongoing interests. Air pollution, for example, impacts a lot of parts of the human body and can easily be linked to his concerns about chronic disease.
What will the future hold?
Dr. Birnbaum is clear-eyed, even as she strategizes about ways to work with Kennedy. “The damage being done will take much longer to repair than it does to destroy. We will lose a generation of young scientists, and we are going to lose established scientists with the funding cuts,” she says. People are leaving the country to work elsewhere. Private industry, to her mind, isn’t interested in funding basic research, and while foundations will provide what they can, “they in no way have the budget of the federal government.”
Though not a lot will get done in the next few years, Dr. Birnbaum believes in time the scientific agenda will be able to resume. “At the moment, things are really rough,” she says. This does not mean anyone should accept the losses. “We need to fight judiciously for things. I wouldn’t be shocked that when some of the dust settles in a few months, some of the massacre will be over.”