Lack of funding is a growing problem. In Canada, the cbc notes⁠, “In the past five years the federal government has dismissed more than 2,000 scientists, and hundreds of programs and world-renowned research facilities have lost their funding. Programs that monitored things such as smoke stack emissions, food inspections, oil spills, water quality and climate change have been drastically cut or shut down.” In the U.S., the sequester imposed by Congress imposed an initial 5% cut in research spending. NIH has lost 25%⁠ of its funding since 2003. In a survey last fall⁠, 1/3 of scientists said they had laid off researchers. This is not just an immediate problem, but is likely to decimate US research, persuading aspiring young basic science researchers to seek alternative careers.

Part 1 of a SciAm series on Rare Diseases —since it is Rare Disease Month.

I posted on Part 2 here.