To the Editor:

Thank you, Thomas L. Friedman, for pointing out the irrational behavior of the Tea Party-driven radicals in the Republican Party and how their political extremism is crippling our country’s biomedical research enterprise (“The Way We Were,” column, Sept. 25).

As a biomedical scientist at an academic institution who relies heavily on money from the National Institutes of Health to conduct scientific research, I have witnessed the devastating results of this political extremism: laboratories closing, junior faculty members being fired for lack of research dollars, senior members of the faculty not being promoted, faculty members unable to follow through on their innovative research ideas, students not being trained, and so on.

As research is intrinsically linked to innovation and technology, economic growth and, more important, human health, we must not be shortsighted or partisan and turn our backs on the well-being of our citizenry and nation. But this is exactly what the Tea Party wing of the Republican party is doing.

Only the citizenry has the power to stop the Republicans’ destructive modus operandi, by voting the extremists out of office. Anything short of that will just allow them to continue dragging us along their damaging path.