Let's see it, NIH. NIH head pledges to spend full budget despite slow start on grants | STAT share.google/oZKw2S2G8mX0...

In the next lab over, a petri dish with no brain cells at all is posting to Twitter

Action Item...Action Item...Action Item Time to comment on the Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... Comments due by May 16, 2026

“This is about centralized control. About requiring that every research priority, every identified gap, every targeted funding decision be approved by political appointees rather than scientific program staff.” Elizabeth Ginexi.

This is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi. open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

The State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with HIV in Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force the government of the southern African country to sign a deal giving the United States more access to the country’s critical minerals. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...

NSF Update through March 13, 2026 1/2

Oh god this made me laugh so hard. Watch til the end.

This Caturday, meet the black-footed cat. It’s the smallest wild cat in Africa, only growing ~8 in (20 cm) tall & weighing ~4.4 lbs (2 kg). Nevertheless, its hunting success rate is 60%—and has a recorded kill rate of 10-14 prey per night. Photo: Patrick Ch. Apfeld, CC-BY-3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The quiet part being illuminated: there have been very few new awards from NIH this fiscal year, for some very specific reasons 🆘 www.science.org/content/arti...

Following @joshuasweitz.bsky.social post and discussions with him and the Vox story, I have estimated R01 success rates for each NIH institute and center with enough awards for this to be meaningful. A long 🧵... 1/25

Also, folks, just use Poisson. There is no need to arbitrarily transform your y into log(y + 1) or log(y + 0.00001) or whatever.

every time you miss a crosswalk in a captcha, a waymo runs over a child

Public Views on Prescription Drug Costs: Regulation, Affordability and TrumpRx www.kff.org/public-opini...

This is awful. Related, I hope universities move quickly to decouple career progression from R01s or expand what constituted an "R01e" Always felt that was a silly model and it's basically unworkable of this continues.

They are trying to destroy American science

New @jama.com commentary by @rachelsachs.bsky.social @dusetzinas.bsky.social &myself on biosimilar drug competition and price declines. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

WSJ Ed Board should read their own talented reporters work on MA. www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Meanwhile, today.... bsky.app/profile/jeff...

Delays in grant awards and funding calls worry NIH researchers. Many programs may be pushed into the next fiscal year, and some could face funding gaps. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Rethinking the One-Size-Fits-All Mammogram Why matching breast cancer screening to individual risk may change how often women are tested Read & subscribe (for free!): celinegounder.com www.celinegounder.com/p/rethinking...

It’s actually FEWER Misérables

That's right. Worse than Pointless www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIH—the world's largest public biomedical research funder—has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds. New grant awards have slowed to a trickle — exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October. (h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26) Directorates to follow 1/10

Most cash-transfer programs have failed to produce health gains in the U.S.—except for SNAP, Aaron Richterman and Harsha Thirumurthy argue. They examine the conditions that make SNAP work, and how it may provide a road map for other programs:

This has been one long year.

Better news from today: Aspen earned her Fetch Novice title!

Tune in Friday, March 13 for our virtual seminar exploring whether Medicare Advantage is delivering on its promise and what reforms are needed to ensure a sustainable, affordable Medicare program for taxpayers and beneficiaries. This event is free and open to the public. https://bit.ly/4bZLjsA

Ohio to lose 33 billion to Medicaid cuts. It will get, at most, 1 billion in rural health funding. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/02/27/a...

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

I appreciate receiving multiple copies of my abstract rejection after having received two notices previously of the same rejection. I get it. It is rejected. Please stop. 😭

Later this year, a new law will end Medicare eligibility for hundreds of thousands of lawfully present older immigrants, including some refugees and asylees. Here's what advocates need to know:

look all i fucken care about is that whoever buys warner brothers renames hbo again

Yep. Funding is about a year late for a post doc program that was supporting one of my fellows. An award already made, but no dollars released. Also hearing similar things from faculty about R01s.

If you're in academia and you think we can just "ride this out," please read this #thread and think about how the current attacks on scientific research disproportionately affect junior researchers- who are literally the future.

@charlesduan.bsky.social, @akesselheim.bsky.social, Sean Tu and I filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to open the “skinny label” pathway to generic competition that the Federal Circuit has effectively closed. To the 76 professors who signed the brief, thank you! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

BREAKING NEWS: Unethical, CDC Infant Hep B Vaccination Study Cancelled! The study was cancelled after Stand Up for Science held a closed door briefing with Congress last week, with an investigator on the ground in Guinea Bissau. (1/2🧵) www.cidrap.umn.edu/hepatitis/gu...

As of tonight, licenses of trans people across Kansas are being invalidated en masse, enabling the overnight criminalization of an entire group of people for going about our lives. It’s often said you never know when you’re living through history, so let me assure you: that’s what’s happening now.

Novo obesity drug list pricing change in Jan. 2027 not expected to change net price so experts told STAT not to expect it to lead to coverage expansion. www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/n...

As my colleague Andy Schneider explained there is a complex administrative process CMS has to follow to preemptively withhold or retrospectively disallow federal #Medicaid funding for a state like MN. It would be unlawful to just unilaterally halt federal funding: ccf.georgetown.edu/2026/01/16/c...

On this day in 1954, children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh received the first injections of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine. Dr. Salk displayed his confidence in the vaccine by using it on his family during the trial stage. #trustscience

We are set to spend $10 trillion on the military over the next decade The Trump plan would make it $15 trillion - a $5 trillion increase Expanding Medicare to cover dental/vision/hearing care was estimated to cost ~$400 billion over a decade

"Those fears are beginning to come true, according to executives and investors involved with companies that develop & sell vaccines... At conferences & in interviews, they described the emerging consequences of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the longstanding federal support for vaccines."

The $1,000 Cancer Test That Makes Us Feel Safer, But May Not Make Us Healthier A major trial failed to show fewer late-stage cancers. So why are we so eager to buy tests that reassure us? Read & subscribe (for free!) www.celinegounder.com/p/the-1000-c...

Always love reading @tressiemcphd.bsky.social. Opinion | ICE Is Watching You - The New York Times share.google/RZ3ofRqOD1R4...

For less than 18% of that cost, we could do universal - Pre-k - Child care - National paid family leave program - Free community college www.crfb.org/interactives...

My dad died 5 years ago yesterday. I really miss him. He was a one of a kind person.

2026 basically