For the first time in my career, I can’t tell people to trust what the CDC website says. And that is an incredibly sad and devastating place for this country to be.

One of the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S. is the generic version of Lipitor. FDA inspectors have found safety and quality violations at about half of the plants approved to produce it, records show.

Hey y’all! NEXT THURSDAY, in lieu of our usual SFS general meeting, we will be having an info session for ANY STUDENT interested in science advocacy! High school, undergraduate, and graduate students welcome. ANY SCHOOL, ANY STATE, ANY MAJOR!

Powerful anti-vaccine advocates and people selling potentially harmful goods such as raw milk are benefitting – financially and otherwise – from the push to write anti-science policies into law across the U.S.

The energy at the #NIH rally today was amazing and contagious. Huge turnout, huge pro-science energy. 1/ 🧪#NoKings

3/5

Happy "No Kings" Day! I just sent this email to Director Bhattacharya regarding the recently appointment of a new NIEHS Director.

On Nov 5 at 4 PM, join and support members of the healthcare, public health, and scientific communities in a march from the APHA Rally for the Public’s Health to the Capitol to deliver petitions to Congress demanding the resignation or removal of RFK Jr. Details here. 911hs.org

👇NAMI is maintaining a list government health services impacted by the shutdown. The NAMI HelpLine is available M-F, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. ET. Call 800-950-6264, text “NAMI” to 62640, or email [email protected]. If you are in a crisis, call or text 988 or chat online at 988Lifeline.org.

Alarming report on FDA political interference. Scientists are being asked to find data supporting predetermined conclusions on autism treatments, vaccines, SSRIs - the opposite of how science works. We need evidence-based regulation, not regulation-based evidence. www.statnews.com/2025/10/14/f...

History faculty at Columbia & Barnard decrying the harassment of @mark-bray.bsky.social: "This is the first case in recent memory of a historian who has fled the country after receiving death threats on account of the history that they teach."

apnews.com/article/nort... More than 2.5 million North Carolina residents are getting over $6.5 billion in medical debt eliminated through a state government effort that offered hospitals extra Medicaid funds from Washington if they gave low- and middle-income patients the financial relief.

Nobel Prize given for showing the importance of investing in science for innovation and long-term economic growth. Basically the opposite of what the US is doing. 😭

Congress could, at any time, stop this shitshow by telling Vought to end the RIFs and impoundments. It has very clear institutional reasons to do so. But obeying to Trump rules all, and instead the Speaker of the House will pretend he does not know what is happening while opining on Bad Bunny.

Powerful story from Olivia Lutz about the cutting of F31 diversity fellowships. NIH leadership is failing young scientists, so it's up to all of us to find ways to support them.

More of what has been lost and will be lost if the admin and supporters abandon America's commitment to science, research, and discovery. "You’re destroying something with these draconian cuts that took years to build,” [Dr. Erbelding] said. “It can’t be rebuilt as fast as it was taken down.”

No words

FIGHT FOR SCIENCE RALLY ✊🌏 ⏰ WHEN: October 17th, 2025 📍WHERE: 200 Independence Ave SW, Washington DC! RSVP to JOIN THE FIGHT IRL: zurl.co/LayiM ‼️ 📲 Join us Virtually!: zurl.co/Um47l

Re-upping this piece on news that Vought is firing federal employees: *Vought lying that shutdowns compel layoffs, never have before. *Layoffs are a choice, the shutdown is an excuse. *Comes on top of existing RIFs, will make restoring govt services harder post-shutdown. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Immigrants have been awarded 40% of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000. nfap.com/research/new...

THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS

Six of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S. Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world. www.nobelprize.org

Last week, NExTRAC met for the last time. The group advised NIH on emerging biotechnologies of concern. Without it, the US govt is "closing its eyes to the future," one member told @aniloza.bsky.social and me. It's just one of 47 HHS ad comms terminated this year: www.statnews.com/2025/10/07/h...

when you try and get your PhD advisor to review your manuscript 😂

“In her complaint, the scientist, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, objected to Trump administration actions, alleging that they had endangered research subjects, defied court orders and undermined vaccine research.”

Now that fiscal year 2025 has ended and the records in NIH Reporter are almost up to date, I took a look at the commitments by institute and center. In particular, I looked at each and found the top 10 mechanisms (activity codes) that each used (in terms of the fraction of the FY2025 budget). 1/n

This #SCIMaP analysis leverages FY20-24 NSF funding data by congressional district to assess how the White House's proposed 56% cut to NSF would impact the economies of local communities nationwide. Full report: osf.io/e8rnc Highlights via @savensf.bsky.social 👇

RFK Jr. to the Senate & @wyden.senate.gov: “Scientists and doctors are supporting me all across the country…I’ll put my mailbag against your mailbag any day” Let’s prove him wrong Join @defendpublichealth.bsky.social's postcard campaign. Stand for truth, not RFK #VaccineTrust #PublicHealth #MedSky

Trump is building a personalist regime where every university must bend the knee or lose funding and every business must bend the knee or face tariffs, H-1B fees, and regulatory blackmail. You can't cover each domain in isolation; they are all the same story.

NEW: Income isn’t supposed to play a role in how much housing assistance FEMA gives families. But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes. With @theassemblync.bsky.social

NSF GRFP is out 2.5 months late w/key changes 1. 2nd year graduate students not eligible. 2. "alignment with Administration priorities" 3. Unlike prior years, they DO NOT specify the expected number of awards... that is a BIG problem. a brief 🧵 w/receipts www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

The BS asymmetry principle: The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Thank you to every science communicator who is doing the almost impossible work of countering misinformation every day. Every single one of you is saving lives!

Why is this horrible for Universities? Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card. This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"

Can't publish science without political approval, what could go wrong [🎁]

As of 8am CDC's ACIP website does not have the proposed vote language for today's COVID vaccine recommendation posted. How is the public able to engage and provide informed comments? I testified before Senator Cassidy and @sanders.senate.gov on Wednesday- this is not radical transparency.

They don’t even have experts speak at ACIP because they deem it too risky.

You asked for it! We delivered Quack-O-Grams to our members of Congress urging them to #ImpeachRFK, and get that Quack out of office! There's still time for you to get in on this fluffy, feathery action: Send your own duck at zurl.co/W1ZnB#ImpeachRFKand keep the momentum going! 🦆

Why is the hepatitis B vaccine important to deliver at birth? The chance of developing chronic hep B differs based on the age at which a person is infected Chance of chronic hep B: Infants <1: 90% Kids 1-5: 30% Adults: 5% Chronic hep B can cause liver damage, cancer, & even death

former CDC official Dr. Houry: "I first learned that the secretary had changed our CDC covid vaccine guidance on an X social media post. CDC scientists have still not seen the scientific data or justification for this change. That is not gold standard science."

Monarez: "Kennedy demanded 2 things of me that were were inconsistent w/ my oath of office. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause"

DELIVERY! RFK Jr's ACIP gets an "F" We give RFK Jr.’s newly named committee members in charge of vaccine approvals (ACIP) an overall FAILING grade. It's filled with the people who touted mis/dis-information throughout the COVID pandemic. Brief description of each new member in thread 1/6 🧵

1/ On Thurs and Fri, ACIP—the external body that sets vaccine policy—will hold a special session. The MMRV vaccine will be discussed and we’re expecting a few falsehoods to start making the rounds about the vaccine and febrile seizures. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you should know👇

I am not a political pawn. I am a living, breathing human being who has dedicated her life to a scientific problem that I believe matters for human health. The article below tells our story; I hope you will read it and share it www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/m...

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY you can leave a public comment for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, which meets Sep 18. Reports suggest they may falsely link vaccines to child deaths and restrict vaccines to ages 75 and up. You can submit a written comment here: www.regulations.gov/document/CDC...

FIGHT FOR SCIENCE RALLY ‼️🧬💪 ⏰WHEN: Weds, Sept. 17th at 8am ET 📍WHERE: 1200 New York Ave NW, Washington DC 🔗📲JOIN US at the LINK in BIO, or in the REPLIES BELOW ⬇️

Earth science departments are being gutted across the country, which is utterly bizarre given their relevance to our understanding of climate, hazards and disasters, the soils that feed us, the industries that drive our economies, and the importance of ancient life to understanding biodiversity.

No Kings 2.0! See you there on October 18th! #ncpol

Updating my analysis now that August data should be relatively complete. Not great news... The rate of investment of the appropriation is not increasing and it seems unlikely that the entire appropriation will be committed this year. 1/2

A short explanation of p-hacking and why it absolutely makes sense to ask HHS to release the study methods of their autism report in advance.

There was a slew of false statements made about COVID19 mRNA vaccines yesterday. I can’t recommend highly enough this article from May by Dr. Deborah Fuller to clear up a lot of the chaff.