The NIH is abruptly terminating at least 33 research grants for projects studying vaccine hesitancy. Projects studying mRNA vaccines may be next. Important story by my colleague Sara Reardon in @science.org 🧪 #IDsky

A few selected signs for your enjoyment

Bluetorial: The announcement to move scientific review out of the institutes and centers into the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) and its potential consequences

You may be asking, yes it felt good but does it matter? Yes, it does--maybe not in the way you think. Here is my thoughts from college years during Korean military dictatorship. 1/4

Yes, all of nih.gov going down is bad of course, regardless of whether it’s malicious or a technical oops that will get fixed eventually (tldr.nettime.org/@ww/11408997...), but I do encourage everyone to learn about the federated nature of the INSDC (including Genbank and PubMed)

HT to Sean Davis for creating a status page for NIH websites: stats.uptimerobot.com/Zrqh8AhvKn - simultaneous worth sharing and sad.

On the 3rd anniversary of Dr Paul Farmer's death, several leaders reflect on his lessons for dealing with the ongoing crisis in global health & development Paul Farmer’s Moral Clarity Offers Hope, Amidst Chaos And Darkness www.forbes.com/sites/madhuk...

On the bright side, the wording in NOT-OD-25-068 is pretty clear that all non-US based research institutions currently receiving NIH funding are now allowed to double their F&A rate.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Disastrous consequences aside, what's fascinating about NOT-OD-25-068 is how it publicly names and shames specific institutions in a way that NIH has never done before. It's as if someone broke into eRAcommons earlier this week, threw it into their AI bot, and asked it to justify their actions.

NIH cuts indirect rates on grants to 15%. This will be the end of American excellence in science. Universities will struggle and many (likely most) will terminate their research programs. Independent research institutions will not be able to survive this. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

In a global first, Uganda’s Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners today launched a first-ever vaccine trial for Ebola from the Sudan species of the virus, and at an unprecedented speed for a randomized vaccine trial in an emergency.🧵

Excellent, rapid work by Uganda’s CPHL and partners and also a great use case for @pathoplexus.org