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Science March: "Our responsibility is to resist these changes in any way we can."

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/

On Friday, March 7th, protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and at more than 30 satellite protests nationwide in what appears to be the largest pro-science demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Reporter Jackie Flynn Mogensen went to the demonstration at Manhattan’s Washington Square Park.

Several signs noted science’s role in saving lives. One attendee, a New Jersey resident who asked only to be identified by first name, Richard, held a small sign that said, “Government Funded Biomedical Research Saved My Child’s Life.” At 14, he told me, his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. With the help of a new drug called an immune checkpoint inhibitor, she recovered. In a few weeks, she’ll graduate from college, he says, with plans to attend medical school. The “miracle” drug is what inspired him to protest. “It did literally save her life,” he said.

Others were there in part to defend their own funding. “I’m really glad to be out here,” Christine, a 33-year-old neuroscience postdoc, told me, noting that Trump’s cuts would impact those at the beginning of their career the most. “I really hope that protests and opposition can grow in momentum, because it’s scary that there is just not enough pushback at the moment.”

One of the attendees was Dr. Genie Siegler of Weill Cornell Medicine who said "This is a new world. Our responsibility is to resist these changes in any way we can."

Read more at MotherJones.com

#science #medical #trump

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Science March: "We're the ones that are coming up with those cures"

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Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. There are more than 30 demonstrations across the country protesting the Trump administration's widespread attacks on science.

Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science. These two PhD students asked for their names not to be shared, but the spoke about the importance of their work: "If they go to a hospital, they're gonna get treated, but they don't see that we're the ones that are coming up with those cures in the first place—even going back to basic biology research, basic science research."

#science #trump #trump #medical
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Science March: "These attacks on science from the federal administration are just unacceptable."

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/

Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

"I work in economic development based on science and innovation, so I know how important science is to our economy, our economic well-being, and these attacks on science from the federal administration are just unacceptable, anti-intellectual and self defeating for our country."

#science #politics #trump

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Science March: "If you don't get grants and bring in money, you're not seen as a viable scientist."

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/

Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

Christine, 33, explains that young scientists will be hit hardest by these cuts.

"If you don't get grants and bring in money, you're not seen as a viable scientist, and so that's the career to becoming a professional and being able to stay in the field."

#science #protest #trump

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Trump’s Set Out to Dismantle Biden’s Climate Legacy. Can He?

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/

Since taking office, President Donald Trump hasn't wasted time unraveling Joe Biden's climate legacy. He's signed executive orders directing his administration to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, end offshore wind leases, root out environmental justice programs, and declared a "National Energy Emergency" to encourage more fossil fuel production.

But many of Biden's climate policies won't be unglued easily. Some regulations, like the Biden administration's fuel efficiency standards, may take time, potentially years, to repeal. Other Trump administration actions are likely to be challenged in court, or already have been. And in some cases, like the Inflation Reduction Act, a $370 billion climate law that has so far hugely benefitted Republican districts, undoing the law may not be in Trump's own best interest.

To get a better sense of how Trump may reverse Biden's climate efforts and whether the United States has any hope of achieving its previous climate goals, Mother Jones reporters Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Henry Carnell spoke with Michael Gerrard, the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

As Gerrard told Mother Jones, "A good deal of momentum was built up under Biden in the transition to clean energy. That's going to be difficult to stop. It'll be slowed down, but it won't be stopped."

#climate #trump #energy

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Thousands “Stand Up for Science” Across the Country

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/

Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. There are more than 30 demonstrations across the country protesting the Trump administration's widespread attacks on science.

The “Stand Up for Science” organizers call for ending “censorship and political interference in science,” securing and expanding scientific funding, and defending diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science.

Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

Correction: The age of the protester in this video is 58, not 56.

#science #trump #protest

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I assisted in the production or scriptwriting of these videos. Many are based on my original reporting and I appear in several.

LGBTQ Conversion Therapy Is Back

► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/conversion-therapy-lgbtq-anti-trans-gay-gender-affirming-care/

The conversion therapists met last November at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip.

Behind the closed doors and drawn blinds of a Hampton Inn conference room, a middle-aged woman wearing white stockings and a Virgin Mary blue dress issued a call to arms to the 20-some people in attendance. “In our current culture, in which children are being indoctrinated with transgender belief from the moment they’re out of the womb, if we are confronted with a gender-confused child, you must help,” declared Michelle Cretella, a board member of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity. “We must do something.”

Cretella was delivering a keynote speech at the first in-person conference in four years of the Alliance, which describes itself as a “professional and scientific organization” with “Judeo-Christian values.” Its purpose: to defend and promote the practice of conversion therapy by licensed counselors.

Not that they’d call what they do “conversion therapy.” That term lacks a precise definition, but it is used colloquially to describe attempts to shift a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In the 1960s, some psychologists tried to make gay men straight by pairing aversive stimuli, like electric shocks or chemically induced nausea, with images of gay porn—techniques that ran the risk of causing serious psychological damage even as they failed to change participants’ sexual orientation, researchers eventually concluded. Today, “conversion therapy” generally takes the form of verbal counseling. Participants are typically conservative Christians who engage voluntarily—motivated by internalized stigma, family pressure, and the belief that their feelings are incompatible with their faith. Others are children, brought into therapy by their parents.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has concluded that conversion therapy lacks “sufficient bases in scientific principles” and that people who have undergone it are “significantly more likely to experience suicidality and depression.” Similarly, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the Department of Health and Human Services, published a report concluding that “none of the existing research supports the premise that mental or behavioral health interventions can alter gender identity or sexual orientation. Interventions aimed at a fixed outcome, such as gender conformity or heterosexual orientation…are coercive, can be harmful, and should not be part of behavioral health treatment.”

But none of that is stopping these therapists.

#LGBTQ #Investigation #Christianity

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