National Academies: Enhancing Scientific Integrity: Progress and Opportunities in the Social and Behavioral Sciences - A Workshop agenda bit.ly/4c6g9PF Day 2 features Jay Bhattacharya, fireside / facilitated by Emily Oster

Introduce him by playing this video from 6 years ago.

NIH "Scientific Freedom" lecture by Lord Matt Ridley now unlocked for public consumption 👉 bit.ly/4sGfVo3 Some reviews/critiques coming in eg bit.ly/4c6PAtG

Do we have elections or auctions?

If the only “qualified” candidates are the ones who align with RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda, we're in big trouble. Science should lead the CDC — not misinformation and yes men.

Title: "The United States is Driving a Public Heath Emergency of International Concern" www.bmj.com/content/392/...

“Defendants appear to make the extraordinary argument that an individual who holds an important office & wields immense power is not subject to the Appointments Clause so long as the office was unlawfully created & the power was unlawfully seized” - Judge Chutkan 🔥🔥🔥 arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Atlantic: RFK Jr. Is Losing His Grip on the CDC by Tom Bartlett bit.ly/4bIVz6v

JAMA: National Prescribing Trends of Direct-Acting Antivirals for Hepatitis C Sanjay Kishore, MD et al @jama.com An estimated 1.3 million courses of DAA were dispensed from 2013 to 2025; the annual volume was highest in 2015 (185 677 courses), declining to 68 523 in 2025 bit.ly/4bIDsO3

STAT: Bhattacharya addresses CDC director role, works to bolster staff morale in first all-hands meeting by Helen Branswell @helenbranswell.bsky.social @statnews.com bit.ly/4rWi2mP

Wpost: White House delays CDC pick as officials search for permanent director By Lena H. Sun, Rachel Roubein and Dan Diamond @lenasun.bsky.social @rachelroubein.bsky.social @ddiamond.bsky.social Bhattacharya remains acting wapo.st/4uX84EC

Surprised and disappointed that the NIH lecture on COVID origins by Matt Ridley is not freely available. Marked "NIH only." So much for radical transparency. 👎for Jay Bhattacharya bit.ly/4uOHqgO

NPR: A leadership vacuum adds to strains on the CDC by Pien Huang @npr.org n.pr/3PYMcbC

NPR: Yep, a mom's COVID shot during pregnancy protects her baby, a large study finds by Tara Haelle @tarahaelle.bsky.social @npr.org n.pr/4uSkAoF

The bombastic BOMB Squad review is back - updating antics of Bobby, Oz, Makary, Bhattacharya. Quite a collection this time. garyschwitzer.substack.com/p/the-bombas...

Body Pro video and transcript: Jeanne Marrazzo on CROI 2026 and the Future of HIV Care: “We Just Can’t Stop w Myles Helfand @bodyprohiv.bsky.social @myhelfy.bsky.social @drjeannem.bsky.social bit.ly/4rWc45w

The Impact Report: AVAC’s new series celebrating critical wins bit.ly/4d4Ksav @avac.org HIV PreP

NEJM: 11 M Tuberculosis Cases and 2.1 M TB-related Deaths Averted by PEPFAR Jonathan P. Smith et al bit.ly/40TvjS0

Confirmed: Director of the National Institutes of Health Jay Bhattacharya for CPAC USA 2026, March 25-28, in Grapevine, Texas. science and politics don't mix🤔

Nurse-Bioethicist Christine Grady Returns to Her Roots at Georgetown bit.ly/4uPlsdC good hire!

Roll Call: CDC vaccine adviser Malone steps down to avoid ‘drama’ by Ariel Cohen bit.ly/488j0oO

zurl.co/VgkIJ When leading scientists at National health agencies call the HHS Secretary corrupt, we should all be worried. Stand up for public health at the Accessible No Kings 3 Rally hosted by Stand Up for Science on Saturday, March 28th, at 12:30 - 2:00pm CT. standupforscience.net/sufs-nk3

“…President Trump has taken aim at a culture of public service grounded in expertise, evenhandedness and restraint... …an unwelcome check on his freedom of action...” This tracks. federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2...

$2.45 billion NIH grant cuts and ~2300 terminated active research grants were DOGE'd in early 2025 Who were most affected? www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... Early career and women researchers

OFID: Serological surveillance of avian influenza virus H9N2 subtype in occupational populations exposed to poultry environment in China during 2018–2023 Hong Bo et al bit.ly/4sBkS1Q

Lancet: Learning from swine influenza, Ebola virus disease, and Legionnaires' disease in 1976 by Daniel Jernigan and Caitlin Rivers @thelancet.com bit.ly/4c1mqfr

NYT: Takeaways From the Times’s Inside Look at the C.D.C. By Jeneen Interlandi @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social nyti.ms/3Pt5bee

NYT: Inside the Turmoil at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s C.D.C. / Forty-three current and former C.D.C. employees on the changes they say are replacing science with ideology by Jeneen Interlandi @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social nyti.ms/4t32pLg gift link

A timeline of the destruction of the CDC, by the brilliant @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social "It felt like the people who had once sued us [Children's Health Defense] were now running the entire country’s health department," said @drdemetre.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The @nationalacademies.org Awards for Excellence in #scicomm have honored some of the best thinkers & creatives I know, like @chanda.blacksky.app @neillewisjr.bsky.social @cbo.bsky.social Top award: $40,000. Deadline: April 3. Explore & apply www.nationalacademies.org/programs/NAE...

Endpoints: Lack of cases hampers Pfizer’s Phase 3 Lyme disease vaccine trial by Max Bayer @endpts.com @maxbayer.bsky.social bit.ly/4uMbXvR

It would've been reckless and inexcusable to cause generational damage by illegally defunding USAID, NIH, HHS, Dept of Edu, and so on just to reduce the deficit... ... but spending and the deficit are both higher than '22, '23, '24. It was all just harm for harm's sake. The cruelty was the point.

🤞

Sunday Times, SA: 180,000 infections in 2024, 47,000 by 2045 — if SA rolls out the twice-a-year HIV prevention jab fast enough by Linda Pretorius @sundaytimessa.bsky.social lenacapavir bit.ly/4rICibn

Maverick Citizen/BHEKISISA: Bringing it home: SA leads the charge to make anti-HIV jab for Africa by Mia Malan @bhekisisa.org bit.ly/4bYVFbx

Int J infect Dis: World TB Day 2026: Scientific innovation across the tuberculosis continuum must now translate into global impact Delia Goletti et al bit.ly/4m3KFgJ

Litigation tracker: Thomas et al. v. Bhattacharya DC District Court updated 3-22-2026 👉 bit.ly/3Pl7IHv

Lancet Infectious Diseases: Accelerating research and development of new vaccines against tuberculosis: 5-year progress on the global roadmap Elly van Riet et al bit.ly/47iO1Gp

BMC Health Services Research: Lifetime medical costs of chronic hepatitis C in the United States $200-$350 billion Taiwo O. Abimbola et al bit.ly/4bpT4Hs

Wpost: White House navigates vaccine politics, midterm risks in CDC director search By Lena H. Sun , Dan Diamond and Rachel Roubein @washingtonpost.com wapo.st/4sqmTO5

I have been listening to @theskepticsguide.bsky.social since I was a graduate student! It was therefore a great pleasure to join this weeks show to talk about the origin of COVID-19. One of the most succinct and on-point interviews I have done on the topic! www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/epi...

Bloomberg: Trump administration nears CDC pick as agency faces ongoing leadership changes By Jessica Nix and Rachel Cohrs Zhang bit.ly/4bzbDsZ

Cell: Controlled human influenza infection reveals heterogeneous expulsion of infectious virus into air Nahara Vargas-Maldonado et al bit.ly/40MbGeB

Inside Medicine: Q&A with the lawyer behind this week's major vaccine court victory. AAP lawyer Richard Hughes IV, JD answers key questions by Jeremy Faust @jeremyfaust.bsky.social @ameracadpeds.bsky.social 👉 bit.ly/3PpUIQK

Shortly after his office refused to meet with me, nearly one thousand career researchers across NIH campuses signed onto a letter to Director Bhattacharya and delivered it to his office asking him to meet with our union and address the same healthcare issue I asked him about it.

We’re very excited about our hookworm anemia vaccine and hope it becomes the second licensed human parasitic disease vaccine after malaria and the first human parasitic worm vaccine blogs.bcm.edu/2026/03/19/f...

HHS results even more horrific Share of HHS who say their political leaders "maintain high levels of integrity: 4.2% Share who have trust in their political leadership: 2.8% Share who are confident they can report a suspected violation of law/rule/reg without retaliation: 8.7%

Today I hosted Lord Matt Ridley at the inaugural Scientific Freedom Seminar Series. He proved, without any bothersome molecular or epidemiological evidence, that COVID-19 originated in a lab. Who cares what @angelarasmussen.bsky.social and the Zoonati say?

don't ignore AI

Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "NIH Scientific Freedom Lecture Series" earlier today and I just wanted to run through some of the main claims he made - you'll be unsurprised to learn that almost all of them are false. Here's his summary slide - let's start there. 🧵👇