@mlicc1701
Duke University alumn. Virologist in progress, most recently as research specialist in the Sheahan Lab at CVRG (y'know, at that other blue school). Looking for a new home base thanks to grant terminations🫠 Pop punk millennial. she/they. ✡️•🏳️🌈•🖖
I'm just annoyed that I feel like all the knowledge and the technology we have means we could all be having a really nice time and scientists could be doing science and everyone could have enough food and shelter and everything they need but instead *gestures at everything*
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302
The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.
What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.
Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.
The COVID vaccine myocarditis signal was real, and science caught it. With today's formulations, that risk is back to baseline. So why is ACIP's March agenda still stuck in 2021? 🔬
buff.ly/mFrPOrD
FY26 is in a worse place Evan than FY25. NIH barely got funding out last year. This is very worrying.
Chanting activists hang banners from Cannon House Rotunda
Chanting activists hang banners from Cannon House Rotunda
Chanting activists hang banners from Cannon House Rotunda
Chanting activists hang banners from Cannon House Rotunda
#BREAKING: 13 arrested in Cannon House Rotunda demanding immediate release of $977 million in PEPFAR funding illegally impounded by Vought, read: bit.ly/PEPFARSlowDown
and press release: healthgap.org/press/activi... @housingworksnyc.bsky.social @treatmentactiongroup.org
This is why simply passing a budget that isn't a 37% cut is not sufficient. This is why "the extent to which funding was restored" cannot be the measure of success.
www.sciencefriday.com/segments/slo...
US health officials are trying to delay a regional World Health Organization meeting that would confirm the loss of its measles elimination status until after the midterm elections in November.
This is a reckless, accountability-dodging move that puts politics over public health.
“In summary, excising RNA vaccine research from the NIH research portfolio is antithetical to current goals of making America healthy.”
Grateful to join the great @akelvinlab.bsky.social on why we need to document the impact of MAHA funding cuts to understand the grave consequences that will follow
"Plotkin remembers the bad times, before most vaccines were developed & put into broad use. He knows the pathogens that have been largely controlled by these vaccines aren’t gone from the globe & will again sicken American children in ever increasing numbers if vaccination levels continue to fall."
You still had 100 characters left to use after the text in this post. You could have included this sentence (69 characters).
There is no evidence that ivermectin works as a treatment for cancer.
$300 Million in jet planes lost to a fuckup.
That’s 83 five year NIH R01 grants burned in minutes due to error, aka poor execution of this unnecessary war which serves only to make the world more dangerous.
Measles is costing the U.S. millions of dollars. The true losses can't be counted. www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-... via @nbcnews.com @erikaedwards.bsky.social
Tens of thousands of Americans are losing access to treatment for H.I.V. as nearly 20 states impose restrictions on assistance programs and several others weigh such changes.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/h...
fuck
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...
Apparently, it is not yet dead.
"Hepatitis B vaccine trial is suspended, not canceled, per Africa CDC"
www.bioxconomy.com/modalities/h...
Not spending money that is appropriated for science is a tricky subject to explain, but for people in limbo (like myself, as I mentioned yesterday), it can have cause serious career harm.
Many celebrated the NIH budget bill. It’s not supporting science when an unchecked bottleneck still remains.
Yep. That’s why we are rallying around the nation to save science, protect health, and defend democracy on March 7th!
@standupforscience.bsky.social
Standupforscience.net/march7
We perversely had a system during the pandemic where it was effectively illegal to show footage of someone dying of Covid but legal to upload a video of yourself faking vaccine side effects. Antivaxers exploited this warped information environment
The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?
Idk how much more clearly I can spell this out, but the NIH budget doesn’t matter when THESE ARE THE PEOPLE deciding how to spend the money.
See you in the streets March 7th.
Existing treatments for #tuberculosis and HIV control the pathogens, but the immune system does not revert to normal
The preclinical findings help explain why people living with #HIV likely remain more susceptible to other illness and reinfection with #TB – and point to the need for new therapies
America’s science and medical research system may have been world-class before but did not have the institutional and legal safeguards to prevent a grievance-fueled takeover. This piece unpacks the COVID origins of that grievance and the imperatives for a transformation. https://substack.com/home/post/p-188677740
Grievance Is All You Need
.... understanding attacks on NIH, CDC and FDA through the lens of COVID revisionists:
joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/grievance-...
He has internalized a narrative of the NIH borne of animus toward Fauci and Collins. The reality of the institution certainly seems to have stumped him. He appears to be podcasting through it, tho.
I can't fathom the thought process that makes people go after the IM vitamin K given to newborns to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding. There is possibly no other medical intervention in existence where the risk-benefit ratio is so clearly on the side of benefit.
It's honestly really upsetting.
Dr. Bhattacharya recently came to U. Chicago for an "off the record" event. My strong impression was that he is truly unfamiliar with how most biomedical research works.
May we all see the day when this story is in citi human subjects research training modules
“The more people know about what RFK Jr. is up to, the less they trust the services he oversees. People who have heard about the vaccine schedule changes are about twice as likely to say they will have a negative impact on kids rather than a positive impact.”
