Our careers led us to move a bit during the time we were raising children. Both of our children were born in North Dakota. They were preschoolers when we moved to Idaho and teens when we moved to South Dakota. They both graduated from High School in South Dakota. The fact that we moved from state to state gave them a sense of adventure and the knowledge that they were free to roam as they moved into their adult years. Neither attended college in South Dakota, though the state university system had favorable prices and good educational options.

Our son is well-settled in Washington. They have a small farm and good jobs and are intent on raising their family where they are. Our daughter may still roam a bit. Her husband is in the US Air Force, and they have lived in several different places during his career, including stints overseas. They will likely move again with a new Air Force assignment or upon his retirement from the service.

Neither of our children is likely to ever live in South Dakota again. This is a familiar story to South Dakota parents. South Dakota is a net exporter of youth. Children grow up there, but when they seek employment, they find jobs elsewhere. Sometimes, they return at the end of their careers, but most of them move away, never to return. When the time came for us to retire, our desire to be near our children and grandchildren was strong, and we knew that it meant that we would move from South Dakota even though we had strong attachments and many friends in the state in which we had lived for a quarter of a century.

Over the years, we have had a few friends whose children are classical musicians. Jobs in symphony orchestras and professional opera companies are more abundant in Europe than in the United States, and talented youth pursuing careers in classical music often drift overseas.

In 2016, we noticed a new phenomenon. A child of one of our friends moved from the United States to England because there was more security in an academic career in Europe. As a bonus, their grandchildren were safer as gun violence against schoolchildren in the United States continued to rise. After many generations, their family is no longer solely based in the United States. We have some understanding of their situation because our daughter lived overseas during her husband’s assignments, but in our case, they came back to the US. In the case of these families, their children won’t be moving back.

This year, there is an acceleration of departures from our country. It is most visible in the research and scientific community. Experienced researchers are feeling a need to leave this country to continue independent scientific research. Young people interested in a career in the sciences have been changing their minds about attending graduate school in the US and are now looking elsewhere for their education.

The abandonment of the US by scientists and researchers is partly about money. The current US administration is slashing research funding wholesale. Funding for research is being cut across the board. Pointing to bloated bureaucracy in some federal agencies, the administration has chosen not to address inefficiencies but rather destroy the agencies entirely. Citing the political outspokenness of students, funding for universities has been threatened and, in some cases, cut off.

It is more than money. However, the administration is engaging in censorship. It is imposing ideological and political agendas that interfere with scientists' ability to investigate research questions, their methods of study, and even the words they can use to report results. Current governmental policies in the United States are destroying the vital principle of scientific independence valued by researchers worldwide.

The result is a brain drain of unprecedented proportions. The exodus is mainly silent. The destructive forces at work in research institutions and universities have imposed a fear climate. Researchers and administrators are not always speaking out. They are trying to keep their heads down to avoid displeasing the administration because administration officials are decidedly vindictive and quick to pressure universities and research institutions financially and legally. Federal agencies committed to scientific research are being defunded, and wholesale layoffs continue. Funding for biomedical research from the National Institutes of Health, which supports more than 300,000 scientists, was cut by billions of dollars. Environmental sciences have been targeted. Over 1,000 scientists have been laid off from the Environmental Protection Agency’s research office. The administration has announced plans to reduce the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workforce by 20 percent. Mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services mean that dedicated workers who have spent their careers trying to improve the health of Americans are being sent packing.

Although the administration claims this is being done to improve efficiency, there is nothing efficient about wholesale cuts and layoffs. The destruction of research capacity that the United States has built up over decades is not making research more efficient. Destruction does not improve efficiency.

The results are not far away. This is not a remote problem in Washington, D.C. Parents can already not get the care their children need. Medical errors at hospitals are increasing because the agency responsible for improving outcomes no longer exists. The mental health crisis among American youth is rapidly rising because of insufficient funding. Our young people are dying because of weeks of government deconstruction.

Nearly 2,000 doctors, researchers, and scientists have signed an open letter calling for an end to the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science.” Signing the letter is risky, as the administration has demonstrated a high priority for revenge and punishment. Many will be targeted, lose their jobs, or seek to leave the country.

Destruction does not improve efficiency. Research and education are required to increase efficiency. Laying off and exporting the experts who know how to make systems more efficient will not result in savings. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the first Trump administration’s botched response to it illustrated, there are forces beyond politics that can have a devastating effect on the economy, create pain and death for millions, and result in lowered efficiency, Increased healthcare costs, lost productivity, and mortality is already costing millions of dollars in counties affected by measles outbreaks. The fear and anxiety caused by opponents of effective vaccines pose a threat not only to the children of our country but to our economy as well. There is nothing efficient about steering dollars away from disease prevention. US healthcare costs are already higher than other industrialized countries. Causing them to rise even further is the opposite of efficiency. In addition, a rapidly decreasing capacity for research and the damage caused by a few weeks of misguided policy could take decades to repair.

Scientists and researchers aren’t the only ones considering fleeing this country to places with more freedom.