It's Time to Take Action

For most of this year I have posted very little. It has been a busy year – that’s my excuse. With a major move from one city to another, downsizing 40 years of accumulated stuff, and all the adjustments that come from such a move. Yes, that’s it, that’s my excuse.

Nah! Though all that stuff happened I have really been frozen. After the  2024 Presidential election results were final I knew what was coming. I thoroughly read Project 2025. However, like most Americians, it was hard to imagine this plan would actually be rolled out, let alone rolled out so quickly. If I were to take Project 2025 at its word this really meant the desctruction of Democracy. This is the United States, after all, this could not possibly happen.

The Current Situation in the US

Well, here we are, going into month11 of this administration and that is exactly what is happening... Democracy is being dismantled in front of our eyes. From the moment the first Executive Order was dropped on January 20 I realized what was happening – and people around me thought I was being an alarmist as I expressed my concerns about the damage to research, the damage to insitutuions, the damage to civil rights and the progress that has been made. Sadly, what I expected to happen has actually happened, just a whole heck of a lot faster than even I could imagine.

Facing Reality

As a black woman I have come to the same conclusion of so many – we are now at appoint of Reconstruction 2.0, in a modern era armed with tools we did not have then – economic power, education and lots of entrepreneurial experience. As a product of the Civil Rights Generation, I had expected to go to college and continue the protest. I didn’t. I got my degrees and went to work. There was nothing else to fix even I as I knew things really were not perfect, I had thought the rights we won were solidly ours. Now we must recognize that is no longer true, it probably never was true. There was work that needed to be done to hold on to those rights, I just didn’t see that. Now I do. It’s time to get to that work.

Taking the Action of Which I am Capable

Through helping clinical trials become more representative of the people who are impacted by the conditions being researched I am helping to address a scientific need for information, for data. This is NOT a DEI initiative, this is science. After taking time to digest every new turn of the administration I think the industry also agrees, this is science. As such, I will pick up the mantle I have always carried, to put the patient first. At the same time, I need to recognize how the world continues to evolve.  In this space we will continue to support the needs of patients, We will add current events and how those events are impacting how to keep patients at the center.