For decades, researchers have been collecting samples from hundreds of thousands of women and tracking their health. The work has deepened our basic understanding of human health, but now the entire project is in danger.

When nurses Patricia Chubb, 70, and her mother, Charlotte Mae Rohrbaugh, 98, joined the fledgling Harvard University-led Nurses’ Health Study in 1976, they had no idea it would last for nearly 50 years.

“It’s probably the longest, if not one of the longest, prospective health care studies for women that’s ever been done,” said Chubb, who lives in Pennsylvania. “They picked nurses to do the study because they know how to answer health questions correctly and can draw their own blood and the like — it’s very cost-effective.”

Study data gathered through the years from some 280,000 nurses in the United States has contributed enormously to improving how we live. The work has informed dietary recommendations, including national dietary guidelines led to hormonal therapies for breast cancer prevention and treatment; and contributed to research about how nutrients, inflammatory markers and heavy metals influence disease development.

Yet all of that priceless data may soon be discarded due to President Donald Trump’s ongoing feud with Harvard over what Trump claims is a failure to protect Jewish students during campus protests.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”

The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.