STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Trump administration forced a lot of change in medical research. Some voters may judge the effects in the states we're visiting today - North Carolina and Georgia. Atlanta is headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose employees used to include Greta Massetti. She said to meet her at a bakery called Little Tart.
Oh, man. Really flaky croissant. This is great.
GRETA MASSETTI: Yeah. This Little Tart bake shop is really - it's a gem here in Atlanta.
INSKEEP: We went there to hear a difficult story. Massetti was once the principal deputy director at the CDC Injury Center. It works to reduce the harm from car accidents, sports injuries, child abuse, even opioid addiction, which she described this way.
MASSETTI: Leading cause of death for Americans ages 1 to 44 in the United States.
INSKEEP: Last year, the Trump administration eliminated 40% of the jobs in her department. Massetti resigned as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services refocused on areas including vaccine skepticism.
MASSETTI: You're conscious of, what am I going to be asked to do, and what is that line that I'm not willing to cross?
INSKEEP: She found a new job at Georgia State University, though she is one of thousands who left the CDC headquarters here.
MASSETTI: Public health is one of the main industries in Atlanta. We have the CDC headquarters. We have schools of public health at Emory and Georgia State, the headquarters for the American Cancer Society, and these losses have really affected our community.
INSKEEP: Like, if I was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, like some steel town...
MASSETTI: That's right. That's right.
INSKEEP: ...And a bunch of steel workers were laid off. You'd feel it all through the community. You'd see another person laid...
MASSETTI: That's right.
INSKEEP: ...Off in the store.
MASSETTI: That's right.
INSKEEP: Has it been like that at all?
MASSETTI: Absolutely. Lots of neighborhoods. Everybody knows someone - their next-door neighbor, their across-the-street neighbor or somebody who's a member at the same pool. Everyone knows someone in this larger area who either has been laid off or is still at CDC but making do as best they can.
INSKEEP: So far as you know, do you think this has affected people's political opinions or political activism?
MASSETTI: You know, the Atlanta metro area tended to lean blue, and I think it is part of the larger context that has energized the electorate here in Atlanta and outside it.
INSKEEP: We heard of a slightly different political effect this month in North Carolina, in the Research Triangle, where universities and research firms are a big part of that local economy. They lost many millions of dollars in federal grants last year. People managing the aftermath include Penny Gordon-Larsen, vice chancellor of research at the University of North Carolina.
What's it like to be at an institution that is seen as, like, the center of the community and the center of the local economy, and then someone rebrands you as the bad guy?
PENNY GORDON-LARSEN: Well, I think going through the pandemic, there has been a little bit of a crisis of trust, and some of that is necessary reform in the way that we think about our research. We have, as institutes of higher education, have not done the best job at articulating our missions and how research plays into those missions.
INSKEEP: North Carolina research universities are still receiving grants, though many have been delayed.
GORDON-LARSEN: So on the one hand, the uncertainty is a killer. It's really hard for universities to plan, and it's hard for individual investigators to plan. On the other hand, I'm quite optimistic. There's tremendous bipartisan support for research.
INSKEEP: Gordon-Larsen is trying to see this moment as an opportunity for researchers to better communicate what they do across party lines. Though a Republican administration slashed funding, she singled out one Republican for supporting research - Senator Susan Collins of Maine. She's one of many lawmakers whose jobs are on the line in the elections this fall. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
