Short Wave - The Indicator: American Science Brain Drain

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Today, we're airing an episode of NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. It's about a group of people we know well: scientists. President Trump's federal cuts and scrutiny of academic institutions are forcing some U.S. scientists to head for the border. On today's show, an entomologist keeping America's farms safe from pests reconsiders America. And a CEO of a Canadian hospital explains how they are benefiting from the exodus. Want to learn more about the intersection of science and the economy? Email us at [e-mail] to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Short Waver is Regina Barber here with one of the co-host of NPR's Daily Economics Podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, Darian Woods. Hey, Darian. Hey, Gina. Okay, so we brought you on because of some labor reporting you've been doing. Yeah, this is a regular installment at the indicator. We look at how many jobs the U.S. economy has added.

Okay. The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show us that it was 176. 7,000 jobs in April, which is a pretty healthy number. But the important thing for you and Shortwave listeners is that recently co-host Adrienne Ma and I zoomed in specifically on scientists in the U.S. Right. Like all of the federal spending cuts that have been like changing the landscape for people who like do the science that we discuss on Shortwave day in and day out. Yeah, the frozen NIH funding and government layoffs are pushing some scientists abroad. Yeah, I remember. reading like 75% of respondents to this nature poll back in March have considered leaving the

United States. And some of those people are putting their money where their mouths are? I actually know some researchers who are applying abroad. Okay. Well, they might make up some of the next statistic, which is that the jobs website, Nature Careers, saw a 32% increase in U.S.-based scientists applying for jobs elsewhere in the first three months of this year. That is so much. It's real. So today on the show, the science. scientific brain drain. Darien and Adrian get personal with the Hollywood entomologist reconsidering the United States and a Canadian CEO who's seen an opportunity to attract world-leading health scientists over the border. You're listening to Shortwave, the science

podcast from NPR. Armando Rosario LeBron has been into bugs ever since he was a kid in Puerto Rico. Spending a lot of time in the rainforest will do that to you, I think. It's one of those things where it's the closest thing to studying like a little alien sometimes. It's just a joy. Oh, little Armando. Well, little Armando grew up to be Big Armando, who actually works with bugs for a living. On the side, he consults for film and TV.

Like, he's consulted on spiders for Netflix's House of Cards and on hissing cockroaches for Chef Gordon Ramsey's new show Secret Service. We were putting hissing roaches across a table so that Gordon's head was going to pop over the table. A few of them kept ending up in his hair, so I was digging, hissing roaches out of Gordon Ramsey's hair. That was interesting. I would love to hear the outtakes from that filming session.

Yeah, it may not be safe for radio broadcast. Amando's full-time job, though, is working at the Smithsonian Institution. There, he's a biological science technician. He specializes in looking after the collections that include the aphids and the whiteflies. He's also a union vice president. representing many federal workers involved with border biosecurity. He explains the importance of entomology at the border like this. I like to start this with the story of a banana.

Okay. Imagine a banana begins in Costa Rica and it arrives at a port of entry. Yeah, and actually picture a whole freight load of bananas. These bananas are inspected by a customs and border protection officer who might have been trained by an entomologist. And if they see a strange bug in these bananas, that bug might be sent to an entomologist for identification. Meanwhile, the freight unloading is paused because the wrong insects getting into the U.S. can be economically crushing.

That could be hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to the U.S. farmers. Is that right? Potentially billions. Potentially billions. I mean, I give people the worst case scenario of what happened. And it was the citrus industry from Florida. What if I told you that 92% of Florida are in the United? has declined because of a silud. Asian citrus siloed came in, brought in a bacterial infection

that infects the trees, devastated the industry, and then hurricanes came in, and there were other factors. But that sillid was a big, big factor in this. But recently, with job cuts, resignation offers, and funding freezers, Armando was wondering whether he wants to be working in the U.S. He says he lost three technicians thanks to the recent job cuts and February. And as a union representative, Armando has spent countless hours on the phone talking with distressed colleagues. We have employees who every day are really worried that they're going to make a misstep. Will I say the wrong thing one day? And I will be fired? And this, environment of fear is everywhere. A few months ago, Armando applied for a PhD program in the UK,

and in March he was accepted. But he was also torn about whether to take the offer, given how much he loved his current job at the Smithsonian. I mean, what other job like this exists in the world? That you can work with your love of bugs, work in these collections that are just world-class. And to have this really important mission where it's keeping the country having a great safe food supply,

keeping invasive pests out, I mean, it doesn't get any better than this. Each to their own. Clearly, Armando has found bug bliss, right? He's so passionate about what he does. Really, like any institution looking for an entomologist would be lucky to have him. Yeah, that is true. Overseas universities, hospitals and labs are rubbing their hands at all these enthusiastic, smart people like Armando,

suddenly considering leaving the U.S. Kevin Smith is the president and CEO of University Health Network in Canada. It's about 44,000 people who make up the community at UHN. That's like the size of a city. Well, a small city for sure, but by far Canada's largest academic health science center. Kevin says a few months ago he was hearing from his researchers that something unusual was happening. All of a sudden, the phone started ringing and saying, hey, I'm kind of interested in what opportunities you have. It was a sizable shift. I would say it was, you know, 5 to 10x increase.

Huh, five to ten times. It was a big deal. And what was most notable is where they were from, among the finest academic organizations in the United States, Harvard, Stanford, NIH, National Cancer Institute, Hopkins, the list goes on. We were hearing from a lot of early career scientists who'd recently discovered that perhaps their funding

was not as assured for even the next year. The NIH has been blocking thousand, thousands of grant applications and has threatened billions of dollars of further health sciences funding if scientists weren't asking the right questions. For example, some in vaccine science, who felt like maybe they'd have less access to grants than they had in the past. Already we've seen 33 grants related to studying vaccine hesitancy and uptake terminated by the National Institutes of Health. The FDA has also made a new COVID vaccine go through extra testing hoops. And the Trump administration has been threatening to withdraw funding from colleges like Harvard

unless they change the way they recruit and also how they admit international students. So Kevin thought there may be an opportunity here. He spoke with his senior leadership team and board. We stepped back and said, this is a profound opportunity that we have not seen, at least in my career, to this level. And why don't we move on it? They came up with a plan to work with philanthropists and other funders to recruit 100 early career scientists to their hospital system. Kevin says around 400 people have already formally inquired. They span cancer researchers, neuroscientists, experts in organ transplants, and also people using AI to answer health questions.

Scientists are sending a message. They want to be in an environment where they can ask curiosity-driven questions that are of importance to them. and they want to be able to disseminate the results of those findings. Brain drain is something that happens to smaller countries all the time. Their high performers go overseas looking for opportunities, often in the U.S. It can be bad for these smaller countries' economies, and now it seems that the tables could be turning. We asked both the NIH and the White House if they were concerned.

The NIH responded that it is committed to fostering a vibrant biomedical research workforce, And White House spokesperson Cush Desai said the Trump administration had been reviewing the previous administration's projects, identifying waste and realigning research spending to maintain America's innovative dominance. As for Armando, the entomologist, he reflected on all the chaos that he's been seeing, and he decided, yeah, he's going to take that Ph.D. offer in the UK. And he actually moves in September. So what is the U.S. losing by having Hollywood consultant, entomologist, union leader, Armando Rosario LeBron, leave the U.S.? Well, as you can tell, I do a lot of different things. We're losing a lot of expertise in this kind of agricultural entomology I do.

My knowledge of the collections we have here, my knowledge of how we operate. We're losing that expertise. And that's not even taken to account the creepy crawlies that we lose from TV shows. I think Gordon Ramsey will be happy about that. That was Darian Woods with The Indicator podcast along with co-host Adrian Ma. Darian, thank you so much for bringing your reporting to shortwave listeners. You're welcome. This episode was originally produced for The Indicator by Julia Ritchie,

with engineering by Maggie Luthor and Sina LaFredo. It was fact-tuk by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concanon edits the Indicator. It was produced for Shortwave by Burley McCoy and edited by shortrunner Rebecca Ramirez. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to this special collab episode of Shortwave from NPR.