Dozens of people gathered in Palo Alto Friday to rally against the Trump administration’s cuts to federal health and medical research. Bay Area researchers and doctors were among those who spoke out, both about the chaos being caused by the cuts and the concern about the effects they will have on the Bay Area’s economy and the country’s overall health. “Part of the problem is that the implementation of these cuts has been very chaotic,” UC Berkeley immunology researcher Russell Vance said. “It’s extremely hard to know exactly what is going to be cut, when it’s going to be cut. There have been cuts that have been reversed. Just the uncertainty is really causing a lot of problems.” Most of the people at the rally said they came out because they felt like they needed to do something. One person said she got tired of being angry at home. State Sen. Josh Becker encouraged people to write to the White House and to members of Congress. He said turning out to events like Friday’s also helps. “They feel validated, right? ‘Hey, people are standing up for me. They’re standing up for science. They’re standing up for research and development,'” Becker said. Bay Area universities receive a lot of federal money for research. People in the area are concerned that if that federal grant money is cut, it’s not just going to affect those campuses. It will also affect private industry in the region. A group of researchers from across the country put together a map estimating some of the losses if indirect National Institutes of Health research funding is cut – something the administration has said it intends to do. The group estimates Bay Area counties would lose $791 million. “It wouldn’t be possible for the biotech industry here to even exist if it wasn’t for the federal government’s support of basic research infrastructure at universities,” Vance said. ...read more read less