New idea for if I can’t get an academic job when I hit the market because of ~everything~ A scanner for babies that tells you y they’re crying. Will call it “Baby OB2” - the check engine light scanner for your newborn. It wont work but I’ll claim it was designed w/ AI and prob raise a lot of money

That’ll show them!

Thinking about how my family immigrated from Jamaica to the US to avoid corruption and give future generations a chance to succeed. Well, I certainly have some news for them!

Seems like there’s an opening for a political movement concerned about free speech and cancel culture.

Another important thing to remember about the model of federal funding that has existed is that it was decentralized and there was no assumption about where discoveries could be made. Despite all the double speak about “gold standard science,” the current regime wants to politicize and centralize it

A lot of prospective PhD candidates reach out to me for advice. Pursuing a PhD really will test your sense of “why am I doing this” and bring out self-doubt (even in ideal circumstances). Now more than ever people need to think about if it is worth their time, given the demands of being a trainee

This breaks my heart. I’ve had many similar discussions with students, esp bc I lead a research ed program for undergrads to support biomed workforce. It’s hard to know what to say. Should they (pre 2025)? Should they (post 2025)? Two entirely different convos 😢 We are losing a gen of scientists

"Everything has gotten worse and nothing has gotten better when it comes to U.S. doctoral admissions or the likely experience of a five- to seven-year commitment during the Trump administration...Sometimes, there are lost generations; this will be one of those times." 💔

Thrilled to co-author 2 recent qualitative papers that perfectly demonstrate the importance of mixed methods research to inform US policy. In the first aptly titled "It's confusing as hell" we examined lived experiences of low-income people applying for the EITC. academic.oup.com/healthaffair... 1/

My patient recently lost his Medicaid insurance and couldn’t afford his meds. Just calculated the cost of his 13 💊 which would be $2300/month. That’s around $27,500/year. The FPL for a family of 4 is ~$32,000. This is not sustainable for the health and lives of our patients! #Pharmacoequity

Important and direct. I hope this gets the air time it needs. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/o...

Aka the list of words we have to figure out solutions for in a few years after we’ve hemorrhaged all the scientists and training programs that focus on these things 💔🥀🤦🏿‍♂️

The people whipping up panics about "academic freedom" rarely speak up when academic freedom is actually imperiled. This is absolutely chilling.

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.

Very nice two days of football talk on here, good job everyone. Drink water and rest up for Sunday.

Yall slept on my boy! Called him a social media QB!

Don’t look now but my #Chargers are balling (they will break my heart in the 4th quarter)

why even have a shared publications platform a la editorial manager if you need a unique login for every journal anyway? another win for the "academics aren't that smart" crowd

Messaged my provider this AM, I guess I am not “anyone”. #Medsky #IDSky

I am excited to share that I’m looking to recruit a PhD student to join my Stress and Health Equity lab in Fall 2026. We are located in the HDFS department at the beautiful University of Delaware. Feel free to share! ☺️

Some might say this is partisan behavior, but all of the “non-partisan” behavior I have seen involves limited transparency and destroying systems. Eager to see how the new “CDC leadership” works to regain trust. Open to being proven wrong, but I still am waiting on a clear vision of what is success…

A kind reminder that a "politics of you deserved this" (cancer, vaccine-preventable disease, natural disaster, etc) has no place in public health. We can hold bad actors to account without punching down on the groups most harmed by their actions and/or resorting to shame, blame, and stigma.

First year PhD student be like "I can't find interesting research ideas" The research ideas:

This should be the lead story in all major national news outlets. Public health people prefer to stay out of the limelight unless there is no other choice. I can’t overstate how bad things have to be for 9 former CDC directors to band together and pen an op-ed in the NYT warning the entire country.

I was encouraged to read that spending just 50 cents more per day on produce can lead to a 10% drop in mortality in the next decade. Then I realized you actually have to eat the veggies, not just buy them. *sigh*

Please help me welcome to Bluesky @drdebhoury.bsky.social - brave, brilliant, and principled. abcnews.go.com/Politics/vid...

Thank you @acepnation.bsky.social for standing with us. My time in the emergency department has shaped my commitment to ensuring the health of our communities. www.emergencyphysicians.org/press-releas...

Medicare will start requiring prior approval for certain procedures — and will hire private AI companies to determine if patients are covered. The AI companies would have financial incentives to deny claims, because Medicare plans to pay them some of the savings from rejections.

😭😭😭

Got my flu and COVID vaccines at CVS the past 4 years. The process was super simple. This is a mess. Ease of access promotes public health. Viruses circulate whether you like it or not! So far, there are no clear solutions or plans for health promotion. I guess not having food dyes will protect us…

Major update: As of this morning, CVS says it's decided it can offer the vax in 13 of the 16 states IF you get a prescription. Still a big new barrier for many people, but a change from its "no vaccines at all in these states" position yesterday. The three remaining absolute-nos are MA, NV and NM.

NEWS: CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the country, is currently not offering Covid vaccines in 16 states and DC — even to people who meet the new FDA criteria — because the CDC hasn't signed off and isn't expected to do so (if it does so) for at least three weeks.

🗣️🆘Support Black in Gerontology and Geriatrics (BIGG) Students and Scholars Your gift empowers students to research, connect, and change the future of aging. For further details on how you can help, visit: gofund.me/0e984158

Slow news week

Dr. Deb Houry (resigned from CDC yesterday) is giving live media interviews now outside the CDC. From what I can hear, she's speaking forcefully in favor of public health and against the nonsense the CDC is facing. Understand: She is a very cautious person. This means a lot! #USAnotRFK

Wow the CDC director is now saying she was not officially fired and is refusing to resign.

2025 is my first year doing a RPPR, and it has been an ~interesting~ experience to say the least 😅😅

We asked researchers across the country how federal funding changes have affected them and their labs. Their responses indicate a sense of doom and an existential crisis for science in the US: “The ship is going down and we are powerless.” Importantly, there’s still time to fix this. 1/2

Read @csmarcum.bsky.social's love letter to open science and public access policies. #openscience

Work like this is a response to a lot of self-reflection on claims about scientists being “out of touch” and “not thinking about everyday people”. Science activism is meeting the moment, our work is foundational to so many of the things people NEED. Y wouldn’t we care about an existential threat??

Our #SCIMaP team, a group of interdisciplinary scientists and coders, have built a county, house district, and state level analysis tool that assesses the local, economic impacts of NIH funding. I don't recall you having reached out to learn more. Who exactly is trapped here? scienceimpacts.org 🧵

As one can imagine, I have some thoughts. Here’s a thread no one asked for: 1. SCIENCE IN THE US IS POLITICAL. No matter how much you want to ignore that fact, it is supported by taxpayer dollars and is therefore, political by nature. 2. BUT it has had bipartisan support for decades, which…

“The university worked with researchers to ensure the changes ‘would have no impact on the integrity’ of projects.” Notably support for researchers is different at each institution. Some work with you and facilitate teamwork (which I think is good) others are hands off www.wsj.com/health/scien...

Jay will be remembered for crying, "Censorship!" when the science community rejected his unfounded claims, gaining power by bowing to Trump, and then leading the most insane scientific censorship campaign in US history. www.wsj.com/health/scien...

Extensive story from ProPublica about HHS staffing cuts. Outstanding reporting and a lot to digest. projects.propublica.org/federal-heal...

The practical upshot is that justice delayed is justice denied; or to be more precise, a lab which had to fire all of its researchers and halt work on groundbreaking research isn't going to be able to ever restore itself to the same position it would have been without a multi-year pause in funding.

Trying my hardest to “do my part” but today’s ruling is making that order even more infuriating. When will there be collective action!?

🚨 SCOTUS just issued a decision in the NIH grant termination cases. And it's awful. In plain English, the likely result of this is that SCOTUS just re-terminated ~900 NIH grants worth over $1.9 billion in unspent funds This is an atrocious decision by Justice Barrett & the right wing of the Court.