His lab was humming with discovery. After one year under Trump, it’s almost silent. John Quackenbush, computational biology pioneer, ‘knew biomedical research was in the crosshairs’ www.statnews.com/2025/12/05/r...

Scientists working on the LA Fires: lafirehealth.org/conference/

The Cost of Forgetting by Chelsi — Vaccines have made a world that is safer and healthier. But, vaccines have made us comfortable enough to forget.

Increase the chances that this precious document will be found among the ruins of our declining state.

“Womanosphere influencers … help direct the national conversation away from how the government could invest in communities” and help the right convince “women to expect less from a nation that could give them more.” This whole piece from Adrienne Matei is🔥🔥🔥 www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Sign up for my popular online Human Pathophysiology class! Focus is on CV, resp & renal systems, & how they work (& fail) together.  Co-taught by critical care MD.  Great prep for MCAT, etc.  Interactive classes - you will learn ALOT. Mon 5:30-7:30 PM EDT.  DM for details.  Enrollment ends 8/28.

Sign up for my popular online Human Pathophysiology class! Focus is on CV, resp & renal systems, & how they work (& fail) together.  Co-taught by critical care MD.  Great prep for MCAT, etc.  Interactive classes - you will learn ALOT. Mon 5:30-7:30 PM EDT.  DM for details.  Enrollment ends 8/28.

Well said Rick Bright “In national security terms, mRNA is the equivalent of a missile defense system for biology. The ability to rapidly design, produce and deploy medical countermeasures is as vital to our defense as any military capability“ www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

Such an important essay on the anti-vaccine playbook — and how not to fall for it www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I am grateful for the immunologists working to understand the long term impacts of Covid on our immune systems! Looking forward to knowing so much more about the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen in the decades to come.

What is this? Hanging from a tree in rural Vermont.

If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇

🇺🇸 War on #science: The US and the world look likely to pay a high price for the policies of #Trump’s ruthless health secretary #RFKJr “Once #PublicHealth becomes politicised, then it’s game over. There’s just no way to come back from that” @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/interna...

I feel like I’ve been grasping at anything that gives me joy lately. Like helping a friend finish a quilt, knitting a shawl, taking a turn about my garden every day. I’m really trying to not let the weight of fascism hurt my spirit, but it’s been really hard lately. I know I’m not alone in this.

This is Gus. He was caught sitting at the kitchen table while home alone. His motives remain unknown. 14/10 (TT: milolovesromeo)

Vaccines may offer double protection against dementia, study suggests

RFK Jr. is going to kill thousands of people. That’s not hyperbole.

🧪 #medsky #episky

1/4 Trump’s Assault on Science & Academia Is a National Crisis The Trump regime slashed federal research funding in a sweeping ideological purge, gutting the NIH, canceling almost 2500 lifesaving projects, and punishing universities. This is sabotage. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

As a Chinese international student during the first Trump administration, Qian Di was accused of research misconduct for his work on air quality, and eventually chose to return to China. In this piece he reflects on his experiences, and the continued impacts of hostile US policies. rdcu.be/epAMd

Law abiding citizen

People have no idea of the extent of the destruction happening in the scientific community. There is no real-time feedback loop like the stock market. But, man, are we shooting ourselves in the foot. Decades to build; months to destroy.

So much is being lost when we terminate these grants. salatainstitute.harvard.edu/breathe-easi...

If ChatGPT hallucinates a first authored paper by me that played “a crucial role” in my field, can I include it on my CV?

We modeled measles transmission in schools across the U.S. —> Our results highlight the primary importance of vaccination —> additional and significant risk reduction from ventilation and filtration

however I also have not finished reading it b/c this goes on too long in a too frustrating manner and I'm going back to sleep instead. LOL I agree that our symptoms mostly become a problem when we're forced into environments that our brains aren't wired to handle. But... no shit? lol

The truth is, we never, in any systematic way, made classrooms safe, like ensuring upgraded ventilation and air purification in schools. And COVID ripped through classrooms. Kids fueled household spread and hundreds of thousands of them lost caregivers to the virus. But we don’t talk about THAT.

BREAKING: Harvard AAUP & the nat'l AAUP have jointly filed a lawsuit & TRO to block the Trump admin from demanding that Harvard restrict speech & undermine academic freedom or else lose $8.7 billion in federal funds. This action challenges the Trump admin's misuse of funds for coercion. Stay tuned.

3 days ago RFK Jr. told the CDC to stop recommending water fluoridation, claiming it was a neurotoxin (this is a lie). Turns out he also just eliminated the CDC’s entire Lead Program, and now lead poisoned children in Milwaukee are just on their own. Lead IS a neurotoxin and harms brain development

Very good point

My first post on BlueSky, I could not access the same handle as my X (someone hacked into that one): So it's @peterhotez for X and @peterhotezmdphd for BlueSky I'm a pediatric-vaccine scientist based in Houston TX at our Texas Medical Center

Great effort by an MPH student to connect people to jobs in #publichealth publichealthhiringhelp.substack.com

A really powerful WWII era "don't be a sucker" piece, that explains how authoritarians have to separate and destroy groups of people so they can take power. I don't usually watch anything this long (22 min) but couldn't stop watching once I started this.

So sad to lose this symbol of friendship. We were just there last weekend.

“Nobody feels like their job is safe. Everyone is on edge,” said Kim Hasenkrug, an NIH scientist emeritus… “Even the top people can’t keep track because they’re hiring and firing so much. Direct supervisors of those who were terminated didn’t even know that it was happening.”

PhD student Daniella Fodera had her F31 fellowship research training grant terminated. Fodera studies fibroids in the uterus — non-cancerous growths that affect 70%–80% of women by the age of 50, and can cause severe pain and infertility

In fiscal year 2024, the report found, NIH awarded more than $36.9 billion to researchers, supporting more than 408,000 jobs and generating over $94.5 billion in new economic activity nationwide. news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Inside the Collapse at the NIH www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Folks: I am NOT affiliated with the group that is using my name to support an economic boycott. Please spread this post, if you would.

@smahalingaiahmd.bsky.social Welcome!

The story behind RFK Jr. in Samoa's measles crisis has never been reported. He wasn't there to spread misinformation about vaccines (though he did). He wanted to study a "natural experiment" of unvaccinated kids. “I can’t imagine anything less ethical or more cruel.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

the 2 AI critiques that some folks have a harder time accepting: 1. Quality - there’s a Dunning-Kruger effect where folks not familiar w/ a topic *can’t* notice the AI is bad/wrong 2. Externalities - climate & past/future worker harms (IP/layoffs) don’t feel real to many are all I care about

I think there are a bunch of people who think telling people how to say things is activism. We have to not be so damned precious about the exact words and just start loudly agreeing with each other. Yes - and. Less theatre criticism, more movement building,

I want to share a small, specific example of the importance of the NIH and its funding as it applies to cancer treatment. And do to so I am going to skeet out probably the longest thread ever. Hold on to your hats!

Am I cracking up or is there no mention of the attack on NIH in the NYT this morning? www.science.org/content/arti...

I’m trying not to go to DEFCON 1 every day of the next 4 years. Maybe some of the NIH freezes will soon reverse. But just the single step of cancelling study sections this week will cost jobs - delayed funding means staff layoffs. Even setting aside the impact on health, this will cause real harm.