🚨 Our new @alzdemjournals.bsky.social paper on neighborhood disadvantage and dementia in in the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS). Honored to be part of this collaboration @bostonu.bsky.social @rushalzheimers.bsky.social & more @beyoung40.bsky.social @zinzinator.bsky.social doi.org/10.1002/alz....

Bad news: the beach that makes you old is real, and I'm sorry to say that it's climate change (h/t @torrelavelle.bsky.social) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

House Rs just passed the budget resolution, the first step in their process to enact a bill that'd kick millions off Medicaid & cut SNAP down to just $1.60 per person per meal on avg while cutting taxes for the top 0.1% by $278k - all while increasing the debt 🧵on what's to come and WHERE TO FIGHT

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

Tell me you're redlining without telling me you're redlining

JUST IN: A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration's rate change to NIH grants. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Why does the world's richest man want to gut the CFPB? Because it would shield him from having to follow financial laws to keep customers' money safe — and give him access to confidential records about his competitors. Follow the money.

The hardest part about public health is that when we succeed, there's no crisis, no epidemic. People carry on with daily life, unaware of a near-miss. We may never know how bad it could have been - because our public health workforce is always taking action to avoid, prevent, and control threats.

Someone at the American Bar Association ate their Wheaties this morning.

Every smart person I know is making quiet plans for a bird flu pandemic to spread human to human. Business folks, medical doctors, public health folks- my network is preparing in big and small ways. That is a privilege I want all of us to have.

Making sure everyone understands: Afrikaners—Elon Musk’s people—built, enforced, and thrived under the apartheid system they created. Not just “white-ruled segregation”—it was systemic racial oppression to keep the white minority in power. They don’t deserve refugee status—they were the oppressors!

Me, a US based physician, going to Canada’s avian flu website to see what the latest data are. Because our own scientific communication platforms have been severely compromised or shuttered. In the year 2025. Never thought I’d see this day. Anyhoo, link here: www.canada.ca/en/public-he...

Black anti-fascists argued the Atlantic world’s history of racial violence belied the novelty of intra-European fascism. Speaking at the Second International Writers Congress in 1937, Langston Hughes declared: “We Negroes in America do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know.”

Good advice for researchers who talk to news media about NIH funding cuts. No need to explain indirect cost recovery 👇

how it feels logging on today

From Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University: slate.com/life/2025/02...

Many are asking: “What can I do now?” Here’s a revised and expanded list of actions you can take, in rough order of importance. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/more-on-what-you-can-do

"Purging, or hiding, the 'Marxist maniacs and lunatics' in the faculty lounge won’t actually help, because they’re not the real target... the core problem is the modern worldview in which democratic principles of inclusive representation rest on a foundation of rational knowledge creation."

This was the motto of the civil society movement to resist Bolsonaro’s right wing authoritarianism in Brazil. I learned it from @annagalland.bsky.social and love it. Would love to see American designers do their own interpretations.

Good perspective for this coming week

Tesla paid $0 in federal income tax last year. 2022: $0 2021: $0 2020: $0 2019: $0 2018: $0 Tesla reported $6.7 billion in profit in those years.

Find information on the economic impact the NIH has on your state. bsky.app/profile/stan...

I have a confession . . . I was an “overhead cost”. I was a beaker washer, agar plate pourer, research secretary. I was paid by “overhead cost” fees. Loved it. Those “overhead cost” jobs allowed this rural kid to become a physician. Please tag how #OverheadCostJob impact u.

DOGE plans to slash about as much ($4B) from NIH, and hence from universities and medical centers, as the government gave SpaceX ($3.8B) last year. It's not about the money and government "waste." It's never been about the money or government "waste." www.usatoday.com/story/money/...

One Roberts clerk, one former Gorsuch clerk, and one future Gorsuch clerk. All working for DOGE to help Musk usurp the government. Like I wrote earlier today, the courts are not going to stop this.

The Senate HELP Committee has jurisdiction over NIH. GOP members of the committee represent AK, AL, IN, FL, KS, KY, LA, ME, MO, OH, and SC. Research universities and hospitals in those states need to be extra loud.

Scientists and journalists need to figure out right quick how to explain to the average person how a massive change in research indirects will impact the medical care they and their children get (eg at the local children’s hospital), the education their children will get, the price of tuition, etc.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

SCOOP: The US Treasury claimed a DOGE's Marco Elez didn’t have ‘write access,’ when he actually did. Sources tell WIRED that his ability to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded, days after officials said it didn't exist.

And there it is: Russell Vought is confirmed. I wrote a long profile of him, his worldview, his political project: He’s one of the architects of Project 2025, an avowed Christian nationalist, and a radical ideologue of the “post-constitutional” Right. He is at war with pluralistic democracy.

This is AMAZING news! Fuck Amazon www.salon.com/2025/01/28/b...

NEW from inside NIH: I am hearing that a “young” DOGE staffer now has access to eRA, the software system used to track/administer all NIH grants.

Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt. Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.

(Checks to see if my publisher is part of this suit) FUCK YEAH MACMILLAN GET THESE MOFOS www.theguardian.com/books/2025/f...

NEW from me: Why has Patrick Soon-Shiong touted RFK Jr repeatedly and run interference for him at his paper, the LA Times? Maybe because his biotech company has 3 applications pending at the FDA, whose parent agency Kennedy is about to be running. prospect.org/power/2025-0...

4 dairy herds in Nevada recently diagnosed with #H5N1 #birdflu were infected with a different version of the virus than has been spreading in cows elsewhere. Evidence of a second (at a minimum) spillover points to the challenge of stopping spread, experts say. www.statnews.com/2025/02/05/u...

If you work for the federal government and are tempted to take Musk’s “buyout” offer please know that you’re never going to see that money.

US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I wonder why Musk is focused on the federal civilian workforce (4% of the budget) and not federal contractors, which account for 3x more annual spending and are more prone to waste, fraud, and abuse?

RFK Jr’s claim about Black people’s immune systems is ‘unscientific and terrifying’ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

What's happening at #USAID is causing so much damage. The great reporters at @science.org explore some of that damage. www.science.org/content/arti...

Amazing turnout for today's... ▪️ 50 States ▪️ 50 Capitols ▪️ 50 Marches Stop the Coup ✊️ Sacramento, California

Amazing civic action. Thank you for all you do!

We are hearing from multiple CDC sources that DOGE is at the Roybal campus. If you’re on campus and see anything you’d like to share, please reach out. Stay safe.

Over the last couple days, I've been going back to this article. Silence --truly-- is not an option. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Before panic sets in, yes the ground is getting very close but we've survived falling 9990 feet so the last 10 feet should be equally fine.

Before panic sets it. The New NIH Director and Congress will want research to continue, so the machine will start up at some point. Keep writing papers and preparing proposals. AND educate the public about the key role peer review plays in science and the time and infrastructure investment needed

Apparently, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) allows the president or advisor to terminate any advisory committee at any time.