from the East Hampton Star (Guest words)

By David Posnett

June 26, 2025 

As a retired scientist, with past faculty appointments at Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine and over 35 years of experience in the field of biomedical sciences, I am greatly disturbed by the shortsighted dismissal of science by White House executive orders that target science in general and the National Institutes of Health in particular.

When I first entered the laboratory of Dr. Henry Kunkel at Rockefeller University, I was instructed to “find the T cell antigen receptor” (or TCR). At the time, around 1979, this was the holy grail in immunology: It was the receptor at the very base of any immune response, responsible for recognition of foreign antigens and an immune response to a virus like the flu, or a vaccine like the Covid vaccine.

I was lucky, along with a list of other investigators in this field, and I published some early papers on the subject. The importance of the finding earned Jim Allison a Nobel Prize. Rightfully so.

The N.I.H. was the main source of funding for all the competing laboratories. The money funding my postdoc salary ($17,000 per year) and consumables (approximately $10,000 per year) came from research grants funded by the N.I.H. Monoclonal antibodies against T cell antigen receptors were the tools we used, and they led to a lifetime of work and funding of a laboratory at Weill Cornell with junior faculty, postdocs, and technicians, all of them paid by N.I.H. grants.

The discovery of the TCR led to major breakthroughs in medicine and patient care. For instance, “immunotherapy” for various cancers is now a term that we read about in the lay press and recognize as an exciting novel cancer treatment. The molecules that are targeted by immunotherapy are related to the TCR. Think of them as accelerators or brakes for the immune system, just like in a car. The new immunotherapy drugs can inhibit the brakes of the immune system and thus boost a dormant immune response to cancer cells. All of this was not known back in 1979. But in 2016, Time magazine named immunotherapy the most important discovery of the year.

Many people’s lives have been saved by immunotherapy, but few of us realize how early investments, by the N.I.H., for example, have paid off. A current A.I.-generated overview states: The immunotherapy industry, particularly in cancer treatment, is experiencing rapid growth driven by advancements in technology, increased research and development, and supportive government initiatives. Key players include companies like Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and BioNTech, with collaborations and partnerships fueling innovation.

I am not the only one who has noted the frankly unfriendly reception science and scientists are receiving these days.

There are two related issues. First, N.I.H.-funded grants and other government grants are simply being cut, stranding research personnel and universities. Supposedly this is, in line with the Department of Government Efficiency, namely, to cut “wasteful” spending?

Second, the State Department is revoking J-1 visas often issued to foreign workers on a temporary basis, and mostly for postdocs and junior faculty. Lack of funding and a hostile work environment imposed by the government are the main reasons that talented young scientists are considering leaving for Europe. A recent Reuters report by Olivia Le Poidevin, et al., dated April 11, reads “Brain drain? Trump cutbacks force scientists to seek jobs in Europe” and describes how E.U. countries are attempting to attract U.S. researchers.

A Cornell colleague, who is a world expert on epigenetics as related to cancer and leukemia, currently in New York, is moving to Barcelona, Spain, with his entire laboratory. Another friend is retiring and moving to Europe. Other scientists are leaving or thinking of leaving in droves.

I am most disturbed by the exodus of young aspiring scientists, the next generation.

After finishing undergrad studies at Berkeley in math and computer sciences, a friend’s gifted son is moving to Zurich, Switzerland, to pursue graduate studies at the top-notch ETH Zurich, where Albert Einstein studied.

“U.S. scientists’ lives and careers are being upended. Here are five of their stories.” So reads the title of a special article by Sara Reardon, et al., in the journal Science, published on May 2. “I don’t think I can do a career where there’s no future,” says Barbara Benowitz, who studies brain mechanisms underlying pain. Hers is one of the five stories.

In regard to visas for foreign researchers in the U.S., I suggest a simple glance at the names of the authors on a random scientific paper such as a paper in the prestigious journals Nature or Science or Cell. The majority of these names suggest they are foreign students, often with J-1 visas, working at American universities. They generate the primary data that is the engine of scientific progress. These people are now leaving their U.S. jobs because of a toxic environment in the host country, lack of funding, or fear of losing funding.

What to do about this? Scientists are not usually interested in sharing their political views. It can only get them into trouble. However, there is an interested pharma industry. I should know, as we collaborated with major pharma companies for much of my career. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry contributes significantly to the nation’s gross domestic product, accounting for 1.6 percent. Globally, the pharmaceutical industry’s contribution is 0.7 percent of the G.D.P. I imagine the pharma industry, too, will be looking to transfer grant operations to more science-friendly countries.

The damage done is not easily reversible. Think of the scope of the damage. According to a Harvard spokesperson, the university will stop funding of 570 awards for research at affiliated institutions across 32 states, with ramifications across the country.

Mass terminations of federally funded grants by the Trump administration total $2.7 billion since April. Researchers at the Mass General Brigham hospital system, probably the top hospital system in the country, have been instructed to stop all activity and spending.

Consider for a moment the contribution of N.I.H. funding to new drug approvals. From 2010 to 2016, there were 210 new molecular entities (or NMEs) discovered and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. N.I.H. funding contributed to every one of the NMEs approved, resulting in 84 first-in-class drugs.

Do we really want to discard such a productive engine of new drugs?

Most readers of The East Hampton Star will not be scientists, but many are accomplished in their own fields and many have received an education at our top universities. It is my hope that they will see the madness of the current direction this country has taken.

David Posnett, M.D., is emeritus professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan. He lives in Springs.

This is from WaPo by By Maegan Vazquez and Sarah Ellison, July 27, 2024 at 6:54 p.m. EDT

Some Democrats say Trump’s comments, directed at a Christian audience, signaled his plans to be a dictator. His campaign says he was talking about ‘uniting’ the country, and experts point to his ‘deliberately ambiguous’ speaking style.

Democratic lawmakers and Vice President Harris’s campaign joined a chorus of online critics in calling out remarks Donald Trump aimed at a Christian audience on Friday, arguing that the former president and current Republican presidential nominee had implied he would end elections in the United States if he won a second term.

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At the conclusion of his speech at the Believers Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. … You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

Democrats and others interpreted the comments as signaling how a second Trump presidency would be run, a reminder that he previously said he would not be a dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is running for Senate, shared the clip of Trump’s speech on X, writing, “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called Trump’s comments “terrifying.” And Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said, “The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator.”

The Trump campaign, however, says the comments, made at the event hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action, were about how Trump would unite the country. Asked to clarify what Trump meant, Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement on Saturday that the former president “was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.”

Trump, who has continued to assert without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged against him, preceded his comments about not having to vote again by telling the audience that Democrats “don’t want to approve voter ID — that’s because they want to cheat. But until then, Republicans must win. … We want a landslide that’s too big to rig.”

The Harris campaign is calling Trump’s remarks “a vow to end democracy.”

“When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it,” Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a news release on Saturday. “Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America.” (Project 2025 is a think tank document outlining policy priorities for the next Republican president. Many Trump allies and former administration officials were involved in drafting the document, but his campaign has sought to distance the former president from it.)

Trump’s comments also drew some concern among those on the Christian right.

David Lane, an organizer of conservative Christian pastors, said in a text message that Trump “may have gotten a little over his skis” with what he said because it could discourage conservative Christians from shaping the outcomes of future elections.

“Evangelicals in 2028, 2032, and 2036 must raise their civics game to a new level if America is to return to the Judeo-Christian heritage and Biblical-based culture laid out by the founders,” said Lane, the founder of the American Renewal Project, whose mission is to help elect more Christians to office. He added that “somebody’s values will reign supreme in the public square,” and if Christians don’t vote, their values will not be reflected in their elected officials.

In front of a different Christian audience last month, Trump made a similar suggestion about Christians not needing to vote after this year’s election.

At a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Washington, the former president said Christians “don’t vote as much as they should.”

“Do you know the power you have if you would vote? … You’ve got to get out and vote, just this time. I don’t care — in four years, you don’t have to vote, okay? In four years, don’t vote,” he said. “I don’t care by that time, but we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.”

But if Democrats were to come into power, he said at the time, “they’ll ruin it [and] we’ll have to do this all over again.”

Erica De Bruin, a professor of government at Hamilton College whose research focuses on civil-military relations, civil war and policing, said, “Trump frequently makes these kinds of deliberately ambiguous statements that can be interpreted in multiple ways.”

But she added that “to understand what another Trump presidency would involve, I think it is more useful to look at his past behavior than to attempt to parse what might be the ‘true meaning’ of any individual set of remarks he makes.” She pointed out that the last time he was in office, “he attempted to subvert the outcome of an election and remain in power longer than the American public voted to keep him there.”

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University, and co-author of “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” also said that while he didn’t think Trump’s recent comment was “indicative of an organized plot to end elections in the United States,” it did represent yet another sign that “the guy has got authoritarian reflexes.”

“Over the course of 10 or 15 years,” Levitsky added, a growing number of Republicans “convinced themselves that they weren’t going to be able to win elections in this new, multiracial America. I’m not so sure that’s true, but they were deeply fearful that was true. And so Trump, I think more than anything else, he senses… where they’re going and they’re feeling.”

Christian conservatives — White evangelicals, specifically — make up a substantial part of the voter base that Trump has been courting since his 2016 campaign.

In both 2016 and 2020, a third of Trump’s support came from White evangelical Protestants. So 1 one in every 3 votes Trump received came from White evangelical Protestants, a group that the Public Religion Research Institute estimates constitutes 14 percent of the population.

Levitsky’s co-author, Daniel Ziblatt, also a professor of government at Harvard, put a finer point on the significance of Trump’s comment. “I can’t think of a major candidate for office in any democracy on Earth since at least World War II who speaks in such overtly authoritarian ways,” said Ziblatt. “Not Victor Orban in Hungary, not Recep Erdogan in Turkey. Nowhere.”

Jennifer Mercieca, a communications professor at Texas A&M University and author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” said in an email that she interpreted Trump’s comment as an attempt to address the “double bind” that supposed “strongmen” leaders face.

“They narrate a world of chaos and promise that they are strong enough to fix it in order to win elections, but they frequently don’t actually solve the problems that they’ve said that they could easily solve if given power,” said Mercieca, whose research focuses on the relationship between democracy and American communication practices. “I think Trump is here promising Christians that he will actually solve the problems that he has promised them he’ll solve (a full abortion ban … and various ‘culture war’ issues) and so with all of the problems solved, they won’t feel like the world is so chaotic that they have to vote to save the nation.”

“It’s a big promise,” she added, “and he doesn’t give specific details here.”

By Maegan VazquezMaegan Vazquez is a politics breaking news reporter. She joined The Washington Post in 2023.

By Sarah EllisonSarah Ellison is a staff writer based in New York for The Washington Post. Previously, she wrote for Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, where she started as a news assistant in Paris.

Dear MoveOn member,

Yes, these are extremely difficult and painful times. People are demoralized.

The presidential debate a week ago Thursday was a disaster. Trump lied, lied, and lied. Biden did not successfully defend his record or expose Trump for the fraud that he is. Further, he did not bring forth a strong agenda for his second term.

Trump told us that “everybody” wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Lie! More than 60% of the American people disagreed with that horrific Supreme Court decision.

Trump told us that illegal immigrants are destroying Social Security because of the benefits they receive. Lie! Illegal immigrants do not receive Social Security benefits. In fact, they put some $10 billion a year into the program that they do not benefit from.

Trump ignored the question on climate change. Maybe it’s because he has the unique and insane view that climate change is a “hoax” created in China.

Trump refused to answer the question about whether he would accept the election results if he lost. Maybe that’s because he won’t, and because he doesn’t believe in democracy. In the last election, he told the world that the only way he could lose that election was if there was fraud—to be determined by him. His views haven’t changed.

Friends, I do not possess a crystal ball, and I have no brilliant political insights as to what the campaign might look like over the next few days or weeks.

But this I do know: Democrats will not win this election, for the White House or Congress, unless they focus on the very real and pressing concerns facing working families. Yes, the president has established and should defend a good record during his first term. But much, much more needs to be done to address the economic, social, and environmental crises facing the working class. That agenda must be articulated NOW. The policy contrasts with the Republicans must be made clear.

Republicans are proud to have overturned Roe v. Wade. We must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade and guarantees women the right to control their own bodies.

Republicans think climate change is a hoax. We must create millions of good jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel.

Republicans want to cut Social Security. We must strengthen and expand Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income.

Republicans want to cut Medicare. We must expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision.

Republicans want to give tax breaks to billionaires. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we must make the wealthy finally pay their fair share.

Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage to a living wage. We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage—at least $17 an hour.

Republicans ignore the crisis in low-income and affordable housing. We want to end homelessness and build millions of units of affordable housing.

Republicans want to make it harder for workers to join unions. We must grow the trade union movement, end illegal anti-union actions, and pass the PRO Act.

Republicans want to spend even more money on the military-industrial complex, as though $1 trillion were not enough. We must stop defense companies from war profiteering and, like every other agency of government, run the military more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Yes, I, and I suspect many of you, have had significant disagreements with the Biden administration. But I do know that time and time again he has been willing to support and sign progressive legislation … but only if we were able to get it to his desk.

So our job this November is clear: First, we must defeat Donald Trump, the worst president in modern American history.

But we must also elect as many progressives to Congress as we possibly can so that we can get legislation to the president’s desk that will improve the lives of working people.

That is what I intend to focus on between now and November, and I hope you will join me in that fight. During the past few weeks, we’ve had great meetings in Ohio and Wisconsin. And that’s just the beginning.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

donate here!

http://forcemultiplierus.org

A note from Anna Skrenta (Democratic Party of East Hampton):

From: Anna Skrenta
Date: Wednesday, June 26, 2024 at 11:55 AM
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Avlon wins Primary with 70% of the vote!

Thank you so much to everyone for your hard work and enthusiasm!! John told me last night that he is extremely grateful for it and we are working on finding a time for him to come and celebrate with us and thank you all in person. I’ll keep 

Thank you so much to everyone for your hard work and enthusiasm!!  John told me last night that he is extremely grateful for it and we are working on finding a time for him to come and celebrate with us and thank you all in person.  I’ll keep you posted.  

The results last night proved that our fears about the impact of Nancy’s negative ads and mailers was unfounded.  Bob Wick – you called it!  John won with an unheard of 41% margin of victory.  Total landslide!

Here’s how it all breaks down. The unofficial results from the Board of Elections this morning show that with 100% reporting from all 561 election districts, John had 19,026 or 70.26% of the vote and Nancy had 8,053 or 29.74% of the vote.  District wide, 27,079 out of 182,886 eligible voters cast their ballot (14.81% turnout).  In East Hampton, 1985 of our 9500 registered Democrats voted with 1708 of them voting for John.  This is a 21% turnout.  We would have liked it to have been higher but given that turnout was low statewide for this election and that it was ~15% for all of CD-1, I’m very pleased with our 21%.  

John is an exceptional candidate and his campaign has a lot of momentum and energy going into the general election but we can’t take anything for granted.  This is going to be a tough fight.  Cook Political Report has CD-01 in the Likely Republican category of their list of competitive House races.  With the new redistricting lines, the 1st District tilts slightly right, with 185,377 registered Republicans against 182,699 registered Democrats as of last month, according to the Board of Elections. However, there were 165,001 unaffiliated voters, or “blanks,” which is the largest number of independent voters in any of the state’s 26 congressional districts.  And this is where John can really shine.   As a moderate Democrat with a broad range of support from progressive democrats to Independents to Anti-MAGA Republicans, he is very well positioned to win a good portion of those Blank voters and I remain cautiously and stubbornly optimistic.    

Now lets join the party:

Access to reproductive health care should be a right and not dependent on what state you’re living in.  Research shows that U.S. women of reproductive age are sicker, more stressed, die younger, and have the highest rates of maternal deaths compared to women in other countries. Black women are nearly 3 times more likely to die than white women – all largely due to a lack of adequate reproductive health care. 

Incredibly, 26 states have either completely taken away a woman’s right to a safe abortion, are waiting for judges to lift a block, or have imposed gestational limits when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant. Idaho wants to make it a crime with a 2-year imprisonment, if someone helps a person leave the state for an abortion. Not having open, adequate health care is putting people’s lives at risk every day, every hour, and every minute.

We need to message the issues at risk: birth control, safe and legal abortions, and open discussions with providers to ensure safe protocols are in place to protect a mother’s life. More than ever, the importance of getting out the vote during this upcoming election is crucial for women’s health, autonomy, and our very lives. 

By Susan Salinger

Mr. LaLota (congressman for NY CD-1) voted for Mike Johnson as speaker of the house. Johnson is an extremist on the issue of choice: an adamant opponent of abortion, he holds that life begins at fertilization and favors a total ban on abortion, which he has described as “a holocaust.”  In the past, Mr. Johnson threatened “hard labor” for doctors who perform abortions.  VOTE HIM OUT.