President Donald Trump and his supporters have vocally attacked scientific research institutions, and now his administration is further icing out disseminators of such research. According to an Axios report, the administration is cutting $20 million in grant funding to Springer Nature, a Berlin-based publisher of scientific journals which owns Nature and Scientific American. The grants which were cut had previously funded journal subscriptions from federal employees at agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. Springer Nature’s portfolio includes more than 3,000 journals and seven million published articles. Earlier this year, the Justice Department previewed the move by accusing a Springer publication of wrongfully advocating for certain positions and “acting as a partisan in scientific debates.” In that Justice Department letter, the government also questioned Springer Nature’s ties to China and its history of censoring articles at the behest of Chinese authorities. The cuts to federal subscription funding will likely affect employees in the departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Defense—all of which had contracts with Springer worth at least $5 million.
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