‘No Longer Based on Facts or Truth’
Sylvia Chou, 51, Maryland
Program director, National Cancer Institute
(Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News)
Sylvia Chou specializes in communication between patients and their health care providers, and social media’s role in public health. She joined the federal government in 2007 as a fellow and became a civil servant in 2010.
She left her National Cancer Institute job in January, she said, because the “work is no longer based on facts or truth.”
After President Donald Trump returned to office, Chou said, health communication scientists like her were falsely accused of “essentially doing propaganda work.” The administration’s “anti-DEI hysteria,” she said, referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion, meant research funded by the National Institutes of Health was flagged and scrubbed of references to “equity, vulnerable, underserved, poor, even communities of color, minorities.”
She said the agency’s climate in 2025 brought to mind her childhood in Taiwan, when the island was still ruled by an authoritarian regime.
“I could see the difference between a time when, you know, we have a choral competition and we have to sing the same songs to revere the leader of the country, to suddenly they say you can sing any song you want,” Chou said. “I came to this country in part because there was so much opportunity to think freely.”
“To see us going backwards,” she added, “it just made me feel like I have limited time on this earth and I cannot participate anymore inside the system.”
‘One Hurdle After Another’
Philip Stewart, 60, Montana
Staff scientist, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(Katheryn Houghton/KFF Health News)
Philip Stewart’s work was about understanding the pathogens ticks carry that make people and animals sick.
That often started with walks through tall grass searching for the arachnids. He analyzed them back at Rocky Mountain Laboratories.
When Trump entered office in 2025, Stewart experienced repeated disruptions to his work.
“It’s been one hurdle after another. Just when you’ve gotten over one and you think it’s finally behind you, another hurdle pops up,” Stewart said. “I don’t see that changing.”
NIH workers responsible for buying laboratory supplies were fired. As a result, Stewart said, he faced delays in getting the basics, including materials used to identify tick species.
Travel bans in early 2025 threatened his fieldwork. When those bans lifted, Stewart said, for the first time in his career he needed a presidential appointee’s approval to travel. Amid last year’s government shutdown, Stewart missed his only opportunity in the year to collect ticks from deer at hunting stations — his best chance to see if deer ticks had become established in Montana.
The review process for scientists to share their research became more burdensome.
He said scientists have debated whether they should try to stay and work within the system, adding that, if everyone leaves, “no cures get found.”
“If I saw a way to stay on and be useful and perhaps to protest, then I think I would’ve stayed,” Stewart said. “But I don’t see any of those alternatives.”
‘Losing a Lot of Expertise’
Alexa Romberg, 48, Maryland
Deputy branch chief, National Institute on Drug Abuse
(Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News)
Alexa Romberg is a scientist who specializes in preventing the use of and addiction to tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and cannabis. The harms that stem from substance use or addiction don’t affect all Americans equally, she said.
Romberg left her “dream job” at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in December, she said, because Trump policies had compromised the research she helped oversee. Among other things, Romberg said, grants were terminated under an initiative she led to …