Knowledge Under Threat
It's Gilead And It's Real
What do the following American universities have in common?
· Harvard
· Cornell
· Northwestern
· Brown
· Princeton
· Univ. of Pennsylvania
· Columbia
These are all blue chip learning institutions with either top medical schools or top scientific research institutions engaged in highly useful, if not outright vital research.
They are also universities that have had their federal grant money and numerous government contracts cancelled. In the case of Harvard, to the tune of 2.2 billion dollars in grant money alone.
The official stance is that they have violated new federal policy on antisemitism and DEI policies primarily but the real reason may be that they are just too “woke” for the current administration.
It’s interesting that many, many parallels are being drawn between the Trump administration and authoritarianism. One of the targets of authoritarians is the so-called intellectual class, in other words, institutions of higher learning.
Let’s just say that authoritarians aren’t very smart and they fear anyone who is demonstrably smarter than them. Of course, Trump is, by his own words, “a very stable genius” so why would he be worried (that’s rhetorical)?
Apart from the obvious attack on the intelligentsia in the U.S., what really makes this deplorable is not the way the administration has forced universities to bend to the will of a small group of IQ-challenged individuals, but that critical scientific and medical research has all but been halted at these institutions.
Why does that affect Americans?
Well, take, for example, the work that’s been done at Tulane University whose own funding for medical research is threatened due to deep cuts at the NIH (another “woke” institution).
Tulane University scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence-based method to more accurately detect antibiotic resistance to deadly bacteria such as tuberculosis and staph. The breakthrough could lead to faster and more effective treatments and help mitigate the rise of drug-resistant infections, the latest growing global health crisis.
Who is most at risk for these sorts of drug-resistant infections? You may have already guessed it: older adults.
There is one infection that is extremely drug resistant, especially among Americans aged 65 and older and that’s tuberculosis. The death rate is enormous; if you get it, even in the 21st century, you will likely die from it.
Why? Because TB has become resistant to most drugs available today.
Apart from TB, the most common form of staph infection in older Americans is SAB which stands for Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia - in short, a staph infection in the bloodstream.
Back in 2017, roughly 120 thousand older Americans came down with SAB. 20 thousand died.
These infections most often occur in hospitals as a result of various devices and tubes inserted into the body to deliver medication (ironic, no?)
Many staph infections have also become immune to current drug therapy.
Tulane’s pioneering study revolves around using AI to pinpoint with greater accuracy genetic markers of antibiotic resistance in both TB and staph.
By utilizing GAM (Group Association Model) machine learning, the Tulane researchers have been able to more accurately discover which genes in someone’s DNA might trigger antibiotic resistance.
This can then allow the medical profession to determine in advance the chances of resistance to a particular drug therapy.
The study’s author, Tony Phu, PhD., puts it this way. “Think of it as using the bacteria’s entire genetic fingerprint to uncover what makes it immune to certain antibiotics.”
So, pretty important work.
But with the Gilead-like approach being used by the current administration, the work at Tulane is under threat.
The threat exists elsewhere in Louisiana, as well.
This story in the Louisiana Examiner states, “Research could be paused on new drugs that stimulate the immune system to fight off viruses. Another grant [at LSU] in the works would help LSU and the University of Alabama-Birmingham medical school study disparities in breast cancer.”
Of course, the greatest fear for all the universities under threat, is that without funding to conduct the research, the scientists will leave and, frankly, follow the money.
In the current “if it moves, defund it” environment that exists, the brightest will probably leave the United States.
In fact, in Tulane’s case, a junior faculty member at the university’s Cancer Center who is married to a foreign national is very worried. The couple is considering emigrating because of the political climate.
So, let’s leave you with this question: what’s more important for the United States: coal mining or scientific research?
Here’s another question: Who is leading the world in technology? China or the United States?
And one more: Who is the real enemy? China or Knowledge?