The coronavirus pandemic "comes at a time when the U.S. federal government’s investments in science are at the lowest levels in many years," Abby Joseph Cohen and Michael Hao Wu of Goldman Sachs Research write in a recent note to clients.
Where it stands: "The federal government now plays a much smaller role in advancing science than it did in the past. The consequence of this trend is particularly damaging for basic research, which depends on the government as its main source of funding."
An American scientist told CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday his group's grant for a years-long project with the Wuhan Institute of Virology was stopped following unproven claims that the novel coronavirus is manmade or escaped from a Chinese government lab.
Driving the news: Peter Daszak, president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, said the National Institutes of Health told him two weeks ago funding was canceled "for convenience and it doesn't fit within the scope of NIH's priorities." The decision came after President Trump said on April 17 he was looking into claims that the Obama administration had given the group a grant of $3.7 million, vowing to "quickly" end it.
