Scientists see Trump's firing of the National Science Board as an attack on research

The headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Va. Mark Schiefelbein/AP hide caption toggle caption Mark Schiefelbein/AP The White House abruptly dismissed the entire board overseeing the National Science Foundation, informing each of its 22 seated members in a terse email on Friday that they had been "terminated, effective immediately." The move follows a Trump administration push for deep cuts to the NSF and raises concerns in the scientific community that a tradition of independent decisions for allocating federal science grants could be jeopardized. One of the fired board members, Willie May, who is vice president for research and economic development at Morgan State University, says he's "deeply disappointed" but not surprised. "I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty," says May, a chemist and former director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The reference is to the Trump administration's weakening or marginalizing of science advisory bodies across government, including the ousting of advisory boards at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , where Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., got rid of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices . …