Reminder: Kennedy fired people working on lead poisoning and smoking cessation, cut grants on diabetes and asthma and undermined those actually studying nutrition in NIH. If anything, his efforts will likely increase chronic diseases, at the same time he’s working to bring back preventable diseases.

TRUMP RUINED BAD TASTE John Waters at #NoKings in Provincetown (Pic via petermarietoto on X)

Baltimore (again) says NO KINGS. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

They have a lot to answer for. Statistically, it’s women who more often study the (neglected) diseases which affect women, which MAHA claims to care about.

I wake up each morning thinking about the carnage this Administration has inflicted on men, women and children in the US and around the world. The short and long-term effects should secure #Trump, #Vought, #Vance and the rest a solid reservation in one of the lower circles of hell. 1/

"RFK Jr. just wants to fight chronic disease!"

This is now the LOST generation for all doctoral research, from engineering to public health, from literature to psychology, from religion to economics. Some programs will suffer more than others, but this is a tremendous loss to the future. This is ALL on #RussellVought #DonaldTrump #JDVance.

Rasmussen Retorts: NIH FFS: The Freedom From Science Lab Leak Lecture Series discussion of Matt Ridley lecture at NIH hosted by Jay Bhattacharya w @angierasmussen.bsky.social @kgandersen.bsky.social @ggronvall.bsky.social 👉 bit.ly/4cWpiLF

Obama organized crippling oil sanctions and coordinated diplomatic pressure that forced Iran to give up 97% of its nuclear materials and kept it 1 year from a bomb. Trump launched a war, chaos, high oil, erosion of US power and made 6 bombs worth Iranian nuclear material vulnerable.

Tomorrow, Director Bhattacharya is hosting the inaugural "Scientific Freedom" Lecture with Matt Ridley sharing his perspectives on the search for the origin of Covid-19 (and hawking his book on the subject published in 2022). 1/3

lots of jarring statistics and heartbreaking stories I could share from this story, but this particular anecdote made me tear up when @jonathanwosen.bsky.social first shared this story with me For more details from our survey of ~1000 nih-funded researchers, read the report below

This is a tragedy and a crime. The people responsible should never, ever be allowed to forget it. They should pay for how they have gravely damaged the health and security of Americans. www.statnews.com/2026/03/19/n...

I just finished The Deep Places by Ross Douthat and I have some thoughts. First: I am deeply sympathetic to anyone suffering from a chronic illness without clear answers or effective treatments. His experience- the pain, uncertainty, and dismissal is real, and too common.

I'm reading Ross Douthat's book on his Lyme experience (tho it's a little surprising that he wasn't ever actually diagnosed) and seeing a lot of blame of doctors/CDC for not being able to treat him but...where did he think medical innovation comes from? It comes from scientific research.

I posted a 1912 photo of a man with smallpox and someone asked if it was AI. That says something about the moment we’re living in: because of vaccination, we’re now so far removed from this virus that real images of it look fake. #medicalhistory #vaccines #vaccineswork #skystorians

Given that Casey Means will say or do anything at all to get confirmed as Surgeon General, I’d like to offer this easy peasy way to send your Senators a letter opposing her. This is an effort from @defendpublichealth.bsky.social that almost 5000 people have joined, we’d love to have you aboard.

Folks in Maine and Alaska: please call Collins and Murkowski to oppose the confirmation of Casey Means for Surgeon General. They are apparently still on the fence and MAHA is pushing them hard to vote in favor.

Public health people tend to be very, very nice. They want so badly to build trust and show what good things can come from their work. But antivaxxers are well funded and organized and they will never be satisfied by evidence or scientific fact.

Gift article about the spate of FDA rejections at the hands of Vinay Prasad— this is taking away reasonable hope from people with serious rare diseases. Remarkable that Janet Woodcock described the Huntington’s therapy dispute as “evil.” Prasad needs to go. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/h...

Commentary: Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course?

It's Monday morning and Casey Means still doesn't have the votes to become Surgeon General. Let's keep it that way. Send a letter to your Senators now. If you have friends, famiy, colleagues who can do so, urge them on to act now. actionnetwork.org/letters/oppo...

The point is to destroy the administrative state, centers of knowledge and all civic institutions that stand in the way of Russell Vought’s vision of an authoritarian theocracy. It sounds insane and something out of Atwood. But this is where we are. Under his eye.

This piece by Elizabeth Ginexi is a must read. Trump, Vought, RFK and Bhattacharya are destroying the NIH simply ignoring the law and the US Congress. It’s illegal and immoral. The NIH Restructuring Congress Rejected Is Happening Anyway open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

Indeed. New grants are not getting funded, already funded grants are not getting paid, and non-competitive renewals are being held up. Focusing on the top line budget, instead of looking at what is really happening on “the ground” is deeply misguided.

Public investment in NIH research helped turn cystic fibrosis from a childhood killer into a survivable disease. Russ Vought is now withholding funding from the very system that made that made that future possible for his daughter.

Cover of The Lancet: @thelancet.com www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

But there is a trend. And the therapy for Huntington’s sure looked promising. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Help push us over 2500 letters! Still time to write to your Senators (and get your friends to do so too). Casey Means is a charlatan with dangerous views on contraception, raw milk, vaccines and has a whole lot of conflict of interest-she's making money off it all. actionnetwork.org/letters/oppo...

Patients do not appear to be a priority right now— this is from STAT

If you do not subscribe to the Onion, you are missing out. It really is such a delight to get in the mail.

Still time to write to your Senators (and get your friends to do the same). Casey Means is a charlatan with dangerous views on contraception, raw milk, vaccines and has a whole lot of conflict of interest--she's making money off it all. Just say no to the quack. actionnetwork.org/letters/oppo...

On March 3 in DC, join us for the Johns Hopkins H5N1 Influenza Preparedness & Response Forum! H5N1 is already threatening livestock and poultry, but if it gains sustained human-to-human transmission, challenges will escalate quickly. We have to plan, now. www.eventbrite.com/e/johns-hopk...

Just a reminder that we are experiencing the worst flu season in two decades partly caused by drops in flu uptake and they tried to thwart the review of flu vaccine developed using the mRNA platform. Glad to see this proceed but this is far from over. www.statnews.com/2026/02/18/f...

“Asked how the cuts have affected science, one Boston Children’s Hospital researcher said, “This is like asking, how do you think dropping an atomic bomb on New York City will affect the future of Broadway musicals?”

Thought I would add a little more context/history to NIH's decision to drop pandemic preparedness and biodefense. Yes, of course, this is the result of rewriting COVID history, and a terrible move that will lead to the US being unprepared for disease threats that famously don't care about borders.

Good time to remember that most lab accidents affect the researcher doing the important research. If you demonize the researcher or punish them for making a mistake you won’t get reporting, and they won’t seek treatment.

This is Richard Ebright’s longstanding dream, to get rid of this within NIH. He hated Fauci and NIH doing biodefense and pandemic preparedness going back nearly 25 years, esp because he worried it would cut into his funding.

This is outrageous, and (though it was completely obvious he should never have held this spot), Vinay Prasad needs to go. This vaccine candidate deserves review, not ideologically motivated rejection. Lives are at stake. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

Congrats @angierasmussen.bsky.social !! open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

I think we have to be very careful here. The appropriations bills are one thing, but as you all know, this administration has a bag of dirty tricks they have and will continue to use to undermine research and frankly, methodically chip away at it until it is a shell of its former self. 1/

This a word cloud from the titles of ~1100 terminated NSF grants. It is hard not to see these grant terminations as an attack on the training of the future United States scientific workforce.

Great piece on Dr Bhattacharya, “widely & rightly regarded as a disaster for NIH & for US public health” Under Jay, “NIH has suffered mass lay-offs, dismissals of previous heads of staff, & resignations” of those who refuse to stomach his capitulation to RFK Jr www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...

Measles was eliminated in 2000. Now? Back in 43 states. Not because science failed, but because leaders chose lies over public health. Vaccines work. Misinformation kills. A preventable disease is returning, and accountability matters. Stay informed. Follow @saveamericamvmt.bsky.social for more.

This is the argument the antivaxxers are using to remake the US guidelines which will leave children vulnerable — he should not get credit for being accurate on this.

"China is going to surpass the West as the world’s pharmaceutical leader....In 2024, China surpassed the U.S. in the number of clinical trials underway, and that was before the Trump administration started playing games with university research budgets." www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Morning! In a recent editorial in the nasty right wing rag The Spectator, the NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, a true MAGA hero & a Trump loyalist, celebrated how he had “cured” the NIH of diversity, of equity, and of inclusion Guess what’s in Project 2025 (page 462)? Go on, you’ll never guess!

Another day, another panel RFK Jr stacks with anti-science kooks😢 1 kook is tied with RFK Jr’s anti-vaxx activist group Children's Health Defense, 1 is from Independent Medical Alliance (it pushes ivermectin for Covid), 1 is from Jeff Tucker’s Brownstone Institute (www.politico.com/news/2025/10...)

In 2022, an unvaccinated man living in Rockland County, NY--miles from where I grew up--was hospitalized with permanent PARALYSIS from a polio infection. We vaccinate kids to prevent such tragedies. www.aol.com/rockland-hit...

And so it is done - the United States has left the World Health Organization. Leaving behind hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid dues. If the plan - truly - was to make America healthy again, this will guarantee the opposite will happen.

Most things are bad, but this was not—Congrats to IU!