I come from a family of physician-scientists who endured Soviet-era communism. My family left Romania as refugees and came to the United States for careers in medicine and science. Now, as a first-generation Virginian, MD-PhD student at Yale School of Medicine and a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded scientist, I am bracing for history to repeat itself as the Trump and Musk regime threaten American innovation, safety and health.
My great-grandfather, Dr. Ion Jovin, founded radiation oncology in Romania, establishing the country’s first cancer treatment center after training with Nobel laureate Marie Curie. At age 48, upon the Communist takeover of Romania, he was abducted, imprisoned for a year and sent to a labor camp for four years. His “crimes”? Providing medical care to the former prime minister and opposition party leader. Political persecution and tyranny trumped treating patients and his right to due process. His son, Gheorghe (my grandfather), became a pioneer of ultrasound in Communist Romania, supporting its introduction a decade after it was available in the U.S.
Ion’s grandsons, my father and uncle, grew up in Communist Romania and studied medicine. The instability from the fall of Communism forced them to the West as refugees. They landed in the U.S. in the 1990s looking for liberty, the opportunity to excel in their field and a better life. My father has been a cardiologist in Richmond for almost 20 years, where he treats veterans with heart disease. Now, in my PhD, I study the mechanisms of cholesterol plaque formation responsible for heart attacks and aim to become a cardiologist and lead my own research lab. The failures of the autocratic Soviet era delayed innovation and have driven a brain drain for decades, as the U.S. offered potential for scientific discovery not currently supported in Eastern Europe.
In February, the NIH announced funding changes that would cripple research and threaten thousands of jobs and facilities essential to supporting research, including over 1,000 jobs and $238 million in Virginia’s economy. Additionally, new misguided and harmful funding directives are flagging research for political reasons and have already hurt research on autism at UVa and research on suicide prevention and domestic violence at Virginia Tech. Some of the research at risk includes transformative, patient-specific cancer vaccines to help patients fight their tumors. When politicians meddle in science, they delay cures for cancer patients by stopping important research and ending careers for talented trainees.
Trump’s attacks on universities guts over $4.5 billion of research funding and training for future scientific leaders. NIH-funded MD-PhD programs help hundreds of students each year become doctors with expertise to lead scientific research. Physician-scientists were critical in discoveries necessary for treatments like Ozempic, cancer immunotherapy and cures for sickle cell disease. NIH funding has helped produce world-leading scientists and seven American physician-scientists with Nobel prizes in the past 15 years. While the NIH is not perfect, it is essential. The NIH produces over 150% in value in the economy for every research dollar spent. It is the best system we have for investing in the scientific training of new researchers and physicians and for promoting drug discovery outside of investment by big pharma.
Virginia is not immune to these dangerous policies. The MD-PhD programs at VCU and UVa are both funded by NIH training grants. UVa’s School of Medicine receives nearly $180 million in research funding from the NIH. Likewise, VCU is one of the top 50 most funded public research universities in the country and receives over $100 million in NIH funding. Virginia Tech, George Mason, Old Dominion, Hampton University and Eastern Virginia Medical School received an additional $79 million combined in NIH funding in 2024. Musk and Trump will Make America Sick Again with Soviet style policies and NIH cuts killing disease prevention, clinical trials, medical discovery and scientific training. Instead, Americans need more investment in the NIH, veterans’ health care, Medicare and Medicaid, and our country’s future biomedical leaders. Cuts to Medicare will hurt patients now; cuts to medical research will keep us sicker for generations. Political tampering and tyranny in the Eastern Bloc cost patients dearly and brought my family and many similar physicians and scientists to Virginia. If we wait too long, the world’s smartest and most talented innovators will take opportunities outside the U.S. at the expense of our health. The time is now to stop these policies harming patients, researchers and medical breakthroughs. As the current administration brazenly deports and detains physicians, scientists and researchers in defiance of the courts, we must stand up to protect America’s future, health and standing in the world.
Daniel Jovin is an MD-PhD student at Yale who studies cardiovascular biology. He is supported by an NIH fellowship.
