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President Trump says he is eager to make America healthy again and boost economic growth. His success hinges, in large part, on the National Institutes of Health. Yet the Trump administration recently paused NIH meetings on new grant applications and proposed a cap on NIH funding for overhead costs. In response, research universities are already cutting studies and rescinding doctoral degree offers. For decades, the NIH has functioned like a giant venture capital firm operating on behalf of the American taxpayer. It makes tens of thousands of small investments in basic scientific research each year thatin the aggregateyield enormous societal returns, even though they often take decades to come to fruition. The government’s own research indicates that for each one-time $1 investment it makes in basic science research, society reaps $0.43 in recurring annual benefits from increased economic activity, improved worker productivity, and better health as a result of new medicines. Of course, the NIH doesn’tand couldn’tdo it alone. Universities, research hospitals, and the biotech industry all play their part. But it’s the NIH that essentially kickstarts this cycle of innovation.Most of the NIH’s budget goes toward grants that support university labs across the country. Between 2019 and 2023, NIH funding levels for universities, hospitals, and medical research institutions increased 23%. In fiscal 2023, the agency doled out nearly $35 billionabout 73% of its total budgetto almost 59,000 grantees at 2,500 different organizations. The average grant was less than $600,000.In these labs, scientists conduct experiments that sometimes, at first glance, seem to have little practical application. Think of past NIH-funded research featuring cocaine-addicted rats pressing levers or tiny shrimp jogging on underwater treadmills. These seemingly wasteful experiments have actually informed medical breakthroughs and saved lives. The rat research helped crack open the secrets of dopamine and addiction, paving the way for opioid abuse treatments like buprenorphinea drug proven to decrease overdose deaths by 38%. Meanwhile, the shrimp cardio workouts weren’t just crustacean CrossFit; they revealed how low oxygen affects muscle endurancewhich yielded insights for treating muscle atrophy and heart disease. What looked like government-funded lunacy to outsiders led to scientific findings that made Americans healthier, proving that curiosityeven the weird kindpays off. But when labs make a research breakthrough, that’s merely the startnot the endof the development process. Universities have neither the resources nor the desire to turn insights into real-world drugs or medical devices. Instead, universities typically license their discoveries to biotech companies, which then spend years and billions of dollars working to turn those initial findings into FDA-approved treatments. It’s a riskyand enormously expensiveprocess. About nine in 10 experimental medicines fail in clinical trials. Fortunately, the financial risk of that process mostly falls on private companies and their investors, not on taxpayers. One recent study that examined FDA-approved drugs found that for every dollar the NIH had contributed toward their development, the private sector contributed over $65. But without NIH grants, this entire cycle of innovation would never begin, because private companies could never justify funding extremely early-stage basic research with unclear commercial applications on their own. That wouldn’t merely harm public healthit’d also send shockwaves through our economy. In my home state of Illinois, research institutions received around $6 billion in NIH grants from 2019 to 2023. That sort of research yields significant scientific investmentevidenced by the fact that Illinois biotech startups raised nearly double that in venture capital from 2019-2023. These research and commercialization efforts boost our economy. Illinois’ biotech sector supported over 93,000 jobs spread across nearly 5,000 establishments in 2023. And Chicago recently ranked 10th in the nation for biopharma R&D and third for biopharma manufacturing jobs. Texas and Ohio, meanwhile, have seen around a 21% and 13% bump in bioscience employment from 2019 to 2023, respectively. In 2023, Texas boasted over 9,200 firms employing about 129,000 employees, while Ohio’s workforce added up to almost 64,000 workers across 4,800 firms. It’s important for policymakers to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent judiciously. That’s precisely why the Trump administration would be wise to fully fund and staff the NIH. Significant cuts could impede American biotech breakthroughs, compromise U.S. biotech talent, and gut the nation’s job-creating biotech hubs. The agency’s grants more than pay for themselves by kickstarting a cycle of innovation that saves American lives and grows the economy.
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E-Commerce
If youre feeling anxious about AI right now, youre not alone. Its reasonable to wonder whether AI will soon be able to do a lot of what we used to think of as human work. As of now, this technology has already shown some degree of promise for all of the following very human psychological skills: diagnosing diseases, writing code, summarizing and teaching information, predicting markets, brainstorming, product design, project management, coaching, and much more. We probably all know some optimists who think AI will be merely an efficiency tool that gets you 80% there and humans will still be needed for the other 20%. But even in a scenario like that, some current jobs will surely be lost. Im not going to try to predict the future and say what is right. Im just pointing out that there are plenty of reasons why many of us are worried, anxious, or downright afraid of AI taking our jobs at some point. Psychology has something very valuable to offer here. What this is really about is living with uncertainty. One good way to live wellperhaps even happilywith uncertainty is to start by understanding what the worry, anxiety, and fear (WAF) are there for. As University of Michigan Professor Ethan Kross explains, emotions are useful sources of information. When it comes to WAF, very often the information is that there is something coming in the future that you cant fully control and you want the outcome to turn out a certain way. In other words, WAF serves a functionto help us try to control the future. That can be adaptive at times, like when preparing for a major licensing exam. Its a specific goal where you can control the outcome in some important ways. Worrying about whether certain topics will be covered on the exam can help you do some downside planning. Feeling a little anxious on the morning of the exam can help you stay energized and focused. Having some fear about what would happen if you failed to study enough and were embarrassed with the results can motivate you when your motivation lags. All of that helps you try to control the future. Trying to control the future is not so adaptive when its not meaningfully possible, such as when the future is as uncertain as it is with AI. In this context, downside planning can have no end, the anxiety can be chronic because there is no singular eventlike the examcoming up to apply it to, and the fear of failure can feel unending when any job you might have or prepare for might be taken away by AI. But the truth is that no one can know what capabilities and impact AI will have in the future. Theres a place for some guessing and downside (or upside) planning with AI, but thats different from the ongoing and repeated fears many have of AI taking their jobs. WAF in this case often leads to a general sense of doom and hopelessness. It no longer serves an adaptive purpose. Instead it holds you backand its unpleasant. However, the information in the WAF is still useful. The information is often that you seek a greater sense of control over your career success. What can you do to gain some sense of control and reduce WAF when the future is so uncertain? It all comes down to bringing your focus to what you can control. These three steps can be a great way to do so: Honor that goal of having a sense of control, and find a better way to get there. Focus on what you can control, which, in this case, is the present and your use of AI now. Answer this question: What do I want to do with AI now? For example, I need to engage in negotiations from time to time. On occasion, I find I am quite cynical about the chances that the other side will play fair or be open to listening. So one way I want to use AI right now is to get guidance from experts on cynicism. I might not have access to Jamil Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics. But I know that researchers have often found that your beliefs and attitudes make a big difference in how things turn out. So if I wanted to change my cynical attitude about my negotiation, I could ask AI to suggest a few pointers that Zaki would likely recommend to help me to approach a negotiation with hopeful skepticism rather than having already cynically written the other side off. When you focus on what you want to do with AI now, you do two things that should decrease the WAF feelings. One is that you increase your sense of control, which has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety. The other is that, rather than trying to avoid what you fear, you reorient toward approaching what you desire. So its more about desire and less about WAF. Shifting your focus to what you want that is within your control now, as pertains to AI, can help you live well with the uncertainty around how AI will affect your job. Often people try to gain control over a highly uncertain future by dwelling on what the future could hold. But this leads to avoidance and distracting negative WAF feelings. Paradoxically, shifting your focus to the present and to what you want that is within your control now, can be the best way to set your future self up for success. As you get to know the technology you can build a more constructive relationship with it.
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E-Commerce
Theres a Kraft Heinz commercial running in Canada right now that is a perfect embodiment of the geopolitical moment between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. In it, the brand is celebrating its Canadian workers, and highlighting all the Canadian ingredients in its products like peanut butter, cheese, and Kraft Dinner. For context, in case you dont read the news: Since the election, President Trump has not only threatened and implemented trade tariffs on Canadian goods, but has added insult to injury by suggesting America’s longtime ally become its 51st state. This has not gone over well in Canada for obvious reasons. Thats why an American conglomerate like Kraft Heinz feels the need to clarify a few things. Sure, the cream cheese might be called Philadelphia, but ITS MADE IN MONTREAL with CANADIAN DAIRY, WE SWEAR. As a Canadian, it feels to me like the brand equivalent of my American friends turning to me during every commercial break of a hockey game to assure me they dont actually want to annex my country. Canadian to the core Of course, its not only American companies creating ads to hype how deep their Canadian connections are. This moment has given Canadian brands a chance to really fly their maple leaf flags to make sure we all know whos really from here. Thats important because Canadians buy more American-made goods than the U.K., France, Japan, and China combined. Yet a recent KPMG study found that 70% of Canadians would boycott U.S. products if President Trump implemented his 25% tariffs, while 80% are actively seeking non-U.S. alternatives when Canadian options arent available. The threats and tensions aren’t just theoretical: The Globe & Mail reported this week that cross-border travel is falling sharply: Statistics Canada reported that Canadians made 1.2 million fewer round-trip visits to the U.S. last month, which is 23% less than February 2024. Meanwhile, hotels in Maine are reporting a major drop in summer bookings, some as much as 90%. Peter Chapman, founder of consulting firm SKUFood and a former executive with Canadian grocery giant Loblaw, told The Canadian Press, Its by far the most dramatic and swiftest shift Ive seen in consumer behavior. Ian Westworth, Grey Canadas head of planning and effectiveness, wrote in Campaign recently that this shift in consumer behavior presents a significant opportunity for Canadian brands to align with this cultural moment and tap into a groundswell of national pride. This is an opportunity to build not just short-term momentum but also enduring consumer relationships, said Westworth. Halifax-based Moosehead Breweries is facing tariff impacts across its packaging supply chain, but managed to keep its sense of humor, creating a Presidential Pack of 1,461 beersone beer for every day of the next four years. It’s sold at least 10 of the $3,400 packs so far, and now has a waiting list. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Moosehead Breweries (@moosehead) Everyone up here, from the Prime Minister to Mike Myers, has been using the Elbows up mantra (it’s a hockey thing). And now brands from both countries have been forced to reconcile what that actually means for them. Flying the flag This isnt the first time a brand has aimed at the under-tapped resource that is Canadian national pride. Back in 2000, Molson Canadian created a spot called The Rant that featured a guy named Joe proudly dispelling what amounts to American stereotypes of Canada. Cheesy, sure, but it struck a very strong nerve. As loathe as we are to admit it, a sizable proportion of the Canadian identity is tied to all the various ways we arent American. Were often a nation stuck between the influences of a colonial past (Britain and France), and a pop culture present (America). Part of our contemporary identity is finding ways to move beyond this binary. Marvel star, and Toronto native, Simu Liu leaned into our unique brand of multiculturalism when he hosted the 2022 Juno awards (Canadas Grammys) and re-created his own rant: I grew up on ketchup chips, roti, and Jamaican beef patties . . . Thats about as Toronto as you can get. Like any emphasis on buying local, or touting Made in the USA stateside, brands have long used their connection to Canada as a marketing device here. But this time its different. It feels like all at once, every marketer in Canada is a maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving hoser. Some are doing it by adding phrases like Proudly Canadian or Canadian Made to their labels. Others are creating full ad campaigns. Maple Leaf Foods recently launched a partnership with other Canadian brands urging people to look for the leaf on grocery products. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Maple Leaf Foods (@mapleleaffoods) Grocery giant Loblaws has created a black T label to highlight products impacted by the new American tariffs. Retailer Canadian Tire dropped a spot to reiterate its roots, while using harsh winds as a nod to the current political and economic climate. The Canadian Forces even has a spot that could weirdly double as a tourism ad, encouraging Canadians to be maple-leaf buying, local adventuring in their spending habits. Graham Candy, chief strategy officer at Toronto-based ad agency Angry Butterfly, is expecting to see more marketers join the chorus. “We feel like this is just the beginning of what we are going to see out there from a political and marketing comms perspective,” says Candy. “We expect to see bolder messages, more pride, potentially more anger and stronger ‘Us versus Them’ messaging.” Personally, I’m just waiting for Nestlé to finally announce a brand partnership with Shoresy for its Canadian-made Drumsticks ice cream treat. Same rules apply For some marketers, wrapping their brands in the flag may work perfectly well. For others, its a mistake. In so many ways, the current situation between Canada and the U.S. is unprecedented. But the solution for marketers is actually still rooted in the best practices of a modern brand: know what your core values are and use that as the lens through which you communicate with your audience. Plenty of brands in Canada will jump on this patriotic bandwagon, but the ones who find success will be those who have built their Canuck credentials over time. Just as brands that decide to aim attention at a particular cultural nichewhether anime fans, surfers, or Swiftiestheir actions need to be true to who they are or else the brand will be called out and, ultimately, unsuccessful in reaching that audience. American and international companies that have built the strongest brand connections to their Canadian consumers will ultimately weather the tariff storm, and it wont be because of some haphazard flag-waving. That said, Diageo should probably start re-airing its 2023 Crown Royal Super Bowl ad immediately.
Category:
E-Commerce
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