Letter to the Editor: Standing Up For Science in Lansing
March 10, 2025
Three of us retired Baby Boomers headed to our State Capitol in Lansing for the Stand Up For Science Rally on Friday, March 7. We walked from the parking lot a quarter mile away with our simple handmade placards. The sound of the crowd increased in volume as we approached the 1879 Capitol building. Fun fact: This building has a nickname, “The Lion of Lansing.”
A large, diverse crowd included young people, seniors, public health students, and working professionals in white coats with Michigan Medicine logos. An estimate of the crowd size might be around two hundred people in all. Most held signs with a variety of written words. Here are just a few: “How can I look my Grandkids in the eyes & say I knew what was happening & did nothing? — David Attenborough,” “Science Saves Lives,” “We RESEARCH because we CARE! #Stand Up For Science 2025,” “Scientists Protect Us & Earth. Ask Me About PHSW&E,” and “E=mc2, Einstein was a refugee.”
Themes of the speakers included: the current budget cuts made by the administration are causing loss of funding for crucial research at Michigan’s universities; Michigan is one of the largest producers of wheat in the United States, and Michigan State’s research about wheat production is crucial to our state and the world; scientific innovation will stall without research, loss of medical research translates to lives lost; and the loss of funding also means fewer opportunities for students, the next generation who will carry on the work of saving lives and feeding people around the world.
Other rallies took place in the cities of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Berkeley, Chicago, and Montana State University.
According to The New York Times, the Washington, D.C., rally under the Lincoln Memorial featured Francis Collins, MD, the former director of the National Institute of Health (NIH), the primary agency in our government conducting and supporting medical research. Collins is known for completing the Human Genome Project, the mapping of our genetic makeup two years ahead of schedule and $400 million under budget. This knowledge is one of the greatest achievements of our time and represents hope for incredible medical advances.
Collins retired abruptly from NIH recently. For more inspiration from Francis Collins, read a book written by him, The Road to Wisdom.
So, why did I go Stand Up For Science in Lansing? I was raised on science in our home. I played with a microscope and a stethoscope when I was a kid, accompanied my dad on patient rounds at the University of Michigan Hospital, now Michigan Medicine.
Both my parents were medical scientists who changed the research world and saved lives. My mother did some of the early research in nuclear medicine. My father created a team of brain surgeons who collaborated with an expert in the anatomy of the brain, Elizabeth Crosby. This research collaboration at Old Main Hospital saved countless lives and created a path forward for future advances in life-saving surgeries.
Dr. Crosby grew up in Petersburg, Michigan, 30 miles from Manchester. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1979. So, in her honor and in my parents’ honor, I Stand Up for Science.
Carol Rose Kahn
Manchester
Speakers at the Lansing Stand Up for Science Rally on March 7, 2025, included Dr. Abdul El-Sayed; Kyla L. Boyse, MS, RN, CPNPRep; Julie Brixie; Dr. Caitlin Cavanagh; Dr. Débora Barbosa Vendramini-Costa; Dr. Eric Olson; and Carrie Rheingans, MPH, the state representative for the 47th house district, which includes part of the Manchester area. Photo credit: Carol Rose Kahn.
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