A @statnews.com exclusive from me: Walter Koroshetz, director of NIH's neurological disorders institute, has been ousted. Yet another example of NIH leadership churn. His departure means that 13 of the agency's 27 divisions will have interim leaders. www.statnews.com/2025/12/27/n...

"European officials have called the U.S. barring of the five technology regulators and researchers an attempt to intimidate those seeking to call out disinformation on tech platforms." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/u...

I have an article out today in JME Practical Bioethics discussing ethical issues in health-related philanthrotainment. Think MrBeast swooping in with a camera crew to a remote village in Zambia to set up a solar power supply, posted on YouTube, and redirecting ad revenue to support the project.

NEW: Medical License Revoked for Montana Doctor Linked to Suspicious Deaths Oncologist Thomas C. Weiner will never practice medicine in Montana again after a decision by the state medical board. A 2024 ProPublica investigation detailed how Weiner had long been suspected of hurting patients.

As we close out the year, wanted to share this running list of FDA leadership departures one last time. Some new names on there include digital health director Jessica Paulsen, and director of clinical policy in the chief medical office Shari Targum. www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/f...

Here's a link to "Inside CECOT" -- the 60 Minutes investigative report Bari Weiss tried to disappear. archive.org/details/insi...

When I work, I live with people. I get to know them, in some cases love them. The Big Time pros might condemn my lack of distance. But, man, when I see the news that this girl in a region I know well survived, and thrived, it hits me powerfully. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"A backlash from Canadian consumers and provinces, which control alcohol sales, has virtually stopped the sale of American whiskey in what was once among the industry’s biggest export markets." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/d...

NEW: Paper in @jama.com (me, Glenn Cohen, & @drsinhaesq.bsky.social) discusses FDA plan to approve leucovorin for new indication based on "case reports" and "mechanistic data" 1. Departure from FDA's evidentiary standards 2. May harm patients and set bad precedent jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

"Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.” apnews.com/article/60-m...

"A panel of Montana state medical board members...voted unanimously to revoke the medical license of Dr. Thomas Weiner, the former Helena cancer doctor who has been accused of prescribing unnecessary treatments and harming patients." montanafreepress.org/2025/12/20/m...

“For my generation, A. J. Liebling still loomed as a model of incisive journalism with a personal voice.” Lawrence Wright on the writer and his profile of Earl Long, the governor of Louisiana, titled “The Great State.” #NewYorker100 newyorkermag.visitlink.me/RPrMtU

"Brooks follows an organizational system that is at once orderly and eccentric. Fiction and nonfiction are separate, which is reasonable enough. 'It’s alphabetical, but only to the extent that I think the authors would get on with each other.'” www.washingtonpost.com/books/intera...

"From Edward Snowden to Jeffrey Wigand, whistleblowing has historically come with steep personal and professional costs." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

"In explaining his job to his daughters when they were young, he said he spent his days 'fighting numbers,' his family recalled in a obituary shared with The New York Times. When his daughter asked, 'how many numbers did you fight today?' he often replied: 'Not as many as I would have liked.'”

Dear #PhilSky, We are seeking established international scholars to join @westernu.ca and @rotmanphilosophy.bsky.social y.bsky.social. www.uwo.ca/research/can... Philosophers of technology (including AI), health, and other areas (see link) are welcome. Please share widely + DM if interested!

@sfu.ca is hiring Canada Impact+ Research Chairs. Research areas include health, including biotechnology; clean technology and resource value chains; environment, climate resilience and the Arctic; democratic and community resilience. Candidates must full Profs or Associate 2 years from promotion.

In the wake of public-records requests from a right-wing group, the University of North Carolina system is considering creating a publicly searchable database with information from all class syllabi. Many faculty fear the information will be used to target them. www.chronicle.com/article/when...

"His first dispatch from a war zone was a scoop on a coup in Laos in 1960. When tanks blocked the telegraph office in the capital of Vientiane, he dived into the Mekong River and swam to Thailand to find an open wire to The A.P." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/w...

“It took us a long time to create the institution and put a lot of work into that, but it's vastly, vastly easier to destroy an institution than to create it.” dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Misconduct sleuth wins $2.63 million from major cancer institute in $15 million settlement | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

"Earlier this month, Katrina Maclean, the owner of a store called Kat’s Creepy Creations in Peabody, Mass., pleaded guilty to trafficking stolen human remains." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/u...

"From 2018 to at least March 2020, the Lodges made thousands of dollars from the sale of parts that Mr. Lodge took from donated cadavers that had been intended for research and teaching purposes."

"The abrupt loss of funds this week surprised the professional pediatrician association, which has been one of the harshest critics of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to federal vaccine policy." www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

"The National Science Foundation, the federal science agency that funds the center, was blindsided by the announcement, according to a person familiar with NSF operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution." www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will "pay $15 million to resolve claims that the Harvard Medical School affiliate wrongly used NIH grant funding to support the publication of studies in medical journals that contained manipulated or duplicated images." www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

"The wide recruitment and short application window are described by former and current NIH officials as unprecedented, both in the number of simultaneous searches and the targeted speed, raising concerns over the integrity and effectiveness of the process." www.reuters.com/business/hea...

"Loureiro’s death is the second US university-related tragedy in a week, after two people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"Many officials call Bhattacharya 'Podcast Jay' because of the amount of time that he has spent in his office recording himself talking." www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

"As the United States threatens to attack Venezuela..." www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

"An international transplant patient can bring in as much as $2 million — far more than a U.S. patient paying through private insurance or a public program like Medicare." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...

"In text messages obtained by The Times, workers at one of those hospitals discussed how an overseas patient would inevitably make it onto the registry: 'We will do him,' one said, 'he is international 🤑.'” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...

"The most likely medium-term outcome in the United States is neither entrenched authoritarianism nor a return to stable democracy. Rather, it is regime instability: a protracted struggle between authoritarian impulses and democratic solidarity." www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

"The projects are starting to transform landscapes and communities, sparking debates about what our energy systems and environment can sustain." www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

How did a clinical study that charges each participant $17,000 & includes persons with stroke, Parkinson's disease, TBI, MS, peripheral neuropathy, ALS, Alzheimer's disease, & other neurological conditions land on Nature Medicine's list of top clinical trials for 2026? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman, and Ella Cook, a sophomore, were killed in the shooting at Brown University on Saturday. Umurzokov was studying biochemistry and neuroscience, while Cook studied math and French.

"Officially lowering the evidentiary bar creates a predictable risk: more companies may highlight their most favorable study while downplaying or withholding less supportive results -- data the public may never see." www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...

"By the third week in February, they were on track to wipe out 90% of USAID’s work...In a corner conference room, it was time to party. They traded congratulatory speeches and cut into a sheet cake." www.propublica.org/article/usai...

"To tease out possible risks, advocates and academics have called for companies to share confidential data. They also want companies to agree on what information to share after future deaths — the way airlines disclose details of a crash." www.statnews.com/2025/12/15/g... By @jasonmast.bsky.social

"This moment is one of existential crisis for the idea of publicly funded science serving the common good." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"One of the world’s largest academic publishers is selling a book on the ethics of artificial intelligence research that appears to be riddled with fake citations, including references to journals that do not exist." www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

"Tretta is now part of a grim community of students who have lived through multiple school shootings in American schools and colleges." www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

At least 15 people were killed on Sunday and dozens more were injured after two gunmen opened fire at a crowd celebrating the first day of the Hanukkah holiday on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/w...

"The shooting marks a fresh outburst of gun violence on U.S. college campuses, which have been the scenes of some of the deadliest mass killings in the country’s history, as well as a steady drumbeat of smaller but no less tragic attacks." www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

NEW: 9 ex-DOJ lawyers who resigned from antisemitism investigations into UCLA and other UC campuses say they were pressured to find UC guilty of violations in a rushed and politically motivated process. One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation." www.latimes.com/california/s...

"For Trump’s Justice Department, the University of California was a juicy target from the start." www.chronicle.com/article/the-... By @katiemangan.bsky.social @peterelkind.bsky.social @chronicle.com @propublica.org

"Traditionally, the CDER director position has gone to civil servants with significant regulatory, drug development, and management experience. Høeg does not have any of those qualifications."

"Minnesotans deserve more than a Board of Regents that offers little insight and asks no meaningful questions."

"Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...