The OMB proposed rule putting political appointees in charge of healthcare-funding decisions threatens the patients we serve by @nurseteria.bsky.social & @donnagaffney.bsky.social

Meet the microbiologist and science advocate who’s headed to Congress. Jasmine Clark led a March for Science in 2017. She just won a Georgia primary for a safe Democratic House seat - by Jeffrey Mervis | 22 May, 2026 19thnews.org/2026/05/geor... cen.acs.org/people/profi...

Thousands of HHS staff who shape policy, including on public health, federal health insurance programs, and health data privacy, have had their employment status changed to a designation that makes it easier for them to be fired. www.statnews.com/2026/06/05/s...

Must-read. Everything that Vought has done to science in the past 16 months is now laid bare as a plan to “cripple science research.” Five-alarm fire and all of us must respond. Speak out, focus on Vought.

I keep thinking I’m done being shocked. It is abundantly clear there is a vendetta against anything that gives joy or laughter and helps people. I cannot believe the brilliant researchers who have been targeted and criminalized. Easy to demolish, hard to rebuild. www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...

getting a bunch of messages from NIH people 👀👀

“Mr. Kennedy said at a Mental Health and Overmedicalization Summit organized by the MAHA Institute… “No major medical organizations were represented at the gathering…” These people are just quacks and cranks.

It’s one of the worst industries there is, taking advantage of our broken healthcare system to sell hope and bullshit and turn people away from proven medicine. It’s despicable and we need to demolish it with a regulatory hammer.

Oh, self-dealing by the MAHA crowd??? Who would have thought. We can’t get back soon enough to civil servants who serve the country first

Calley Means, the senior White House advisor to HHS, founded a company, TrueMed, that prompts customers to use money from flexible savings accounts to purchase alternative “wellness” products — prompting conflict-of-interest charges. www.importantcontext.news/p/heritage-f...

David Morens' name should be trending. A 78-year-old doctor who worked in the NIH and has no criminal record was abducted from his home by armed federal agents and *stripped* before being transported away--all because the DOJ now works to validate right-wing conspiracy theories like the lab leak.

The indictment is absolute soup. Lab leakers have completely given up on proving their main contention and are now just flailing around looking for any rule violation or procedural misstep that makes it look like a cover-up happened. www.justice.gov/opa/pr/forme...

The perversion of justice is perhaps the most dangerous thing happening under Trump. Morens is being targeted to throw red meat to the GOP base and to validate a conspiracy theory. This is a scandal worse than Watergate. Another one. But this demands swift accountability. Patel must go.

“We scientists are used to sticking to our knitting. But I began realizing that science needed defending,” says @samwang.bsky.social. @nature.com talked to researchers running for office who say the "science is above politics" era is a failed business model.

same deal in science. Too many scientists are into self-flagellation, blaming what scientists did as opposed to attacks from the far right authoritarian party.

Russell Vought‘s attacks on biomedical research are terrible. The public hates how he destroyed cancer research. Hammer on this!

Part of the reason we are here is the Trump administration has sought to destroy both immigration and good STEM and academic jobs, which do a lot to create innovation and future good, stable jobs. Creating good honest work for young people means rebuilding public funding for many things

Bhattacharya is not a friend to science. The sooner the scientific community (and members of Congress!) realize this, the better shot we have to save science. This article positions Bhattacharya as a defender of science, pushing back against Russell Vought’s OMB. www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

This isn’t about differing political opinions. It’s about a man who has presided over the destruction of American biomedical research. Bhattacharya deserves no homecoming @stanforduniversity.bsky.social. He should be shunned forever. Good riddance.

link previews are working again on bluesky so click this one and read it

With Trump planning to bomb Iran's bridges and power plants, it seems that infrastructure week is finally here.

Hearing from #NIH sources the peer review office (CSR) is being broken. "They [top of CSR] want ppl with zero expertise in the review area to run review. I heard they don't want people to be "distracted by the science." (??) It's crazy to think a person can run good review for any kind of science."

I think there is another lesson here: this regime takes some very big swings that, even as they get WILDLY slapped down, allow cover for other bad decisions that nonetheless get legitimized. What if Dems did something similar for the good, PROGRESSIVE, things some of us want?

This is a war against universities and truth itself, and 🧪 and scientific leaders must wake up to that before it’s too late. Trump and rightwing billionaires are enemies of education, science, and media because they are enemies of truth.

When I retired only around 25% of Full Professors in STEM were women. I was proud be one of them, and to support the success of fellow women in STEM through mentoring. This was not an organic process. It took hard work and persistence. And now The Regime is setting us back decades.

This is a national disgrace and it should cost Bhattacharya his job at NIH. It should result in him being ostracized from academia for the rest of his career. www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The Great Barrington Declaration is one of the most wrongheaded, shortsighted, cruel, callous, and villainous arguments ever made. Literally ever. Representing the interests of big business, its authors ought to be remembered in infamy. So too should their allies.

Help NIH staff give OMB Director & Project 2025 author Russell Vought the birthday he deserves. actionnetwork.org/forms/civil-...

The Institute for Humane Studies, which has historically been tied to Charles Koch, has created this “liberalism” project. Not a single person of color in its leadership.

This administration is committing Watergate level crimes multiple times per week—and those are the ones we know about. It’s crazy to think about what else will come out after. It’s absolutely essential these criminals are held responsible for their crimes. We must end elite impunity.

🫴🫴

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed. For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

This is such a critical point, and it’s something I’ve tried to highlight in my reporting. The right-wing groups and operatives who politicized COVID have also been pushing anti-trans shit. Moms for Liberty is a classic example. It’s helped create new GOP voters/activists.

Great to see such a large crowd out today! #standupforscience

Perhaps an early (bad) sign of what is to come: Vinay Prasad, who helped lead a campaign against lifesaving mRNA vaccines at FDA, is being welcomed back to the University of California San Francisco, where he was prior to joining the Trump administration.

There is great reason to worry about the Trumpers interfering with NIH peer review. That said, we have heard that these particular changes were planned from inside CSR for a while as part of the ENQUIRE process.

Same is true in science and for medical cures

Proud of our CDC colleagues at National Public Health Coalition. @firedbutfighting.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... And all the current & former federal workers who are standing up and fighting for a better future for all of us. @27unihted.bsky.social @altnih4science.bsky.social

NEW at @thebulwark.com Trump pissed off a big chunk of MAHA last week I wrote about how -- and why it's important (1/x) www.thebulwark.com/p/maha-meltd...

Bad Bunny’s closing messages during his Super Bowl performance: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” “Together, we are America”

I still think it's meaningful that we saw Liam in him. Every Liam deserves to have a chance to pursue his dreams.

Almost a year ago @joshtpm.bsky.social posted: “The situation at NIH and for biomedical research in the US is MUCH MUCH WORSE than you realize.” I can confirm that this remains true. It is today MUCH MUCH WORSE than the way everyone is acting in public.

I was shocked to see this statement from a group of representatives from the American scientific establishment... 1/2

An inquiring student leads researchers to discover they've unknowingly held on to the world's oldest ribbon worm. This is the Story of B: www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet...

I understand it's hard for some to use the term concentration camp, even for those horrified by what's happening. And there are settings (e.g., court) where it may not be helpful today. The key thing to realize is that there's an arc of how detention regimes tend to go, and we're recognizably on it.

GET IN, DORKS! The stakes are high and we have a LOT to stand up for in 2026. Join us on March 7th, 2026! www.standupforscience.net/march7 Want to host an event in your area? Sign up here: fight2win.standupforscience.net/sign_up/14434/ #Standupforscience #takebackourscience

Very similar to Podcast Jay at NIH. Trump and Bhattacharya keep repeating the deranged old playbooks on Big Lies because that’s what got them here: lies and division at a particular moment in history. They don’t actually have a positive vision on anything.

there are a range of reasons for that. but the shuttering of US Aid by a Nazi for very obviously racist reasons is arguably the worst atrocity perpetrated by a single president in terms of people killed in US history.