Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Verses.

We are busily working on new episodes for our next season, which kicks off in March.

We've got some awesome episodes coming up on ADHD and squirting.

But before the fun games and waterworks, we just really wanted to update you on

what was going on with science in the US right now. So Trump has said that he's trying to cut

government spending. And last year, the US federal government deficit was $1.8 trillion. But still, scientists say that what is happening

right now is unprecedented and insane. They're telling us that it's scary. One person told us

that they've been crying every day. And to be honest with you, while following this attack on science, I've been crying too.

I mean, it's mostly just shocking.

It just can't believe that this is happening.

This is Jocelyn Kaiser, a reporter for Science magazine.

We talked about how in the past few weeks,

thousands of federal websites have had information pulled from them.

Thousands of people at agencies like the CDC,

National Institutes of Health and the EPA have been fired,

clinical trials, really important clinical EPA have been fired. Clinical trials. Really important

clinical trials have been halted. Funding for research was stopped and then possibly restarted.

There's just a lot of confusion. Jocelyn has been a journalist for over 30 years.

And she told me that the changes she's seen since Trump became president are

startling.

You know, because we covered the first Trump administration and it was nothing like this.

It is just like nobody, I mean, you know, it goes far beyond science, but it's like nothing

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