Wesley Kerr, MD, PhD

Private money cannot replace public funding of science Who should pay for American science? In the current political climate, many are looking to the private sector to compensate for cuts in public funding. At the Harvard School of Public Health—particula...

Who should pay for science?

Why private money cannot replace public funding of science

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

NIH research grant funding rates plummeted in 2025 Agency acknowledges young investigators are losing out as result of multiyear funding policy imposed by White House

NIH funding rates took a dive in 2025. R01 winners fell from 7,720 to 5,885, and early-career success hit 19%. Front-loading multiyear grants is clearly squeezing the pool. It’s a tough blow for the research pipeline.
#AcademicSky

"Moderna's CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: 'You cannot make a return on investment if you don't have access to the U.S. market. Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” 9:12 AM Feb 12, 2026 604.8K Views

In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

Correspondence “When our patients go without medical care, the harm is not theoretical. It is measurable. Fear doesn’t just keep people away from clinics and EDs, it pushes patients into crisis.” “We Do Care” by Bernard E. Trappey, M.D., for Minnesota Physician Voices

Physicians throughout Minnesota bear witness to the devastation that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is wreaking. They implore physicians everywhere to raise their voices.

Read “We Do Care” by Bernard E. Trappey, MD, for Minnesota Physician Voices: nej.md/4akke1G

Opinion | Death Was Clinical to Me. Then It Became Personal. No amount of training or experience makes us exempt from loss

"Death took away the illusion that I could outrun vulnerability by being useful. In its place, it offered something quieter and more enduring: humility."

Read the #OpEd from neurologist and epileptologist Santoshi Billakota, MD:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/119566?trw=no

Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths globally, according to a study published in the Lancet. Measles vaccination alone accounts for 94 million of them, more than any other vaccine.

@jakescottmd.bsky.social
#medsky

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Condolences for your loss. Mocking people for health decisions is never okay.

State Medicaid Expansions and Mortality, Revisited: A Cost-Benefit Analysis | American Journal of Health Economics: Vol 3, No 3 Previous research found that Medicaid expansions in New York, Arizona, and Maine in the early 2000s reduced mortality. I revisit this question with improved data and methods, exploring distinct causes...

State Medicaid Expansions and Mortality, Revisited:

Medicaid expansions led to declines in all-cause mortality of 6%; HIV-related mortality accounted for 20 percent of the effect.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Mr Cuban,

I just wanted to quickly thank you. My husband has XXXX cancer, a rare gastrointestinal cancer. We are between insurance right now and when we went to pick it up we were informed it was $29,000. We were able to get it from CostPlus for $990. Thank you for saving my husband's life.

The impact of PhD studies on mental health—a longitudinal population study Recent self-reported and cross-sectional survey evidence documents high levels of mental health problems among PhD students. We study the relationship…

Pursuing a PhD isn’t just academically demanding — it can strain mental health. Study shows PhD students increase use of psychiatric meds each year compared to master’s students.

Exception: medical & health sciences, where use stayed steady.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Proposed criteria of levels of evidence for co‐occurring epilepsy in people with functional/dissociative seizures Objective This work was undertaken to describe the level of evidence for co-occurring epileptic seizures in patients with known functional/dissociative seizures (FDS) using stratification criteria a...

New manuscript describing criteria for levels of evidence for co-occurring epilepsy in functional/dissociative seizures. 65% were unlikely and 11% were clinically established/documented. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @epilepsiajournal.bsky.social

newsGP - Australia set for world-first cervical cancer elimination Vaccination programs have played a key role, and GPs remain ‘instrumental’ in boosting screening rates to reach the 2035 target.

Australia recorded ZERO cases of cervical cancer in women under 25 for the first time since they started tracking the cancer in the 80s.

This is the power of vaccines.

The HPV vaccine is extremely effective at preventing cancer.

Viruses can be oncogenic. Get your vaccines and protect yourself!

An infant has died from whooping cough in Kentucky, the third case in the past 12 months. The infant and their mother were not vaccinated against the illness. #RSNA25
thehill.com/policy/healt...

Today’s xkcd made me cry.

In a good way.

xkcd.com/3172/

After Series of Denials, His Insurer Approved Doctor-Recommended Cancer Care. It Was Too Late. - KFF Health News Eric Tennant’s doctors recommended histotripsy, which would target, and potentially destroy, a cancerous tumor in his liver. But by the time his insurer approved the treatment, Tennant was no longer c...

More than 1 in 4 physicians surveyed by the AMA in December said that prior authorization had led to a serious adverse event for a patient in their care. And 8% responded that prior authorization led to a disability, birth defect, or death. #RSNA25
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Yay! Submitting is a great step! You did it

the words popping in to say hello are on a brown background Alt: the words popping in to say hello are on a brown background and there’s an animal popping out of the ground

In case others are in New Orleans for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies conference, let me know because I’m going! #ABCT

This is a big deal for clinical trials! Previously, I was a NeuroNEXT fellow and some of these can fund early stage clinical trials of the next big seizure treatments! @amepilepsysoc.bsky.social

As funding falters, young brain scientists rethink careers in research Research on brain disorders may slow as young neuroscientists struggle to find jobs and research grants.

Leading neuroscientists say that ongoing disruptions in federal funding are causing many young scientists in the field to reconsider their career choice — with potentially dire consequences for research into Alzheimer's, autism and other brain disorders.
www.npr.org/sections/sho...

James Van Der Beek selling ‘Dawson’s Creek’ merch to help pay for cancer costs The “Varsity Blues” star was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer last year.

Everyone thinks they will be the exception.

Serious illness or disability won’t happen to them and IF it does, they will be able to afford it.

The reality is it only takes one catastrophic event to change your life, especially in a country that doesn’t guarantee healthcare for all.

Shopping for ACA health plans this open enrollment? Here's what to know This year, with Congress in a stalemate about subsidies, Affordable Care Act marketplace consumers will need to be more informed than ever to navigate their health coverage choices.

This year, with Congress in a stalemate about subsidies, Affordable Care Act marketplace consumers will need to be more informed than ever to navigate their health coverage choices.
www.npr.org/sections/sho...

A randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, time‐to‐event study of the efficacy and safety of JNJ‐40411813 in combination with levetiracetam or brivaracetam in patients with focal onset seizures Objective Up to 30% of people with epilepsy are refractory to current antiseizure medications (ASMs). JNJ-40411813 is a positive allosteric modulator of metabotropic glutamate 2 receptor, a presynap...

New paper alert! This is a time-to-event study of JNJ-40411813 which, unfortunately, did not hit it's primary efficacy endpoint. The time-to-event design did reduce exposure to ineffective treatments. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @epilepsiajournal.bsky.social

Neurology® Journals

New editorial alert: This highlighted the importance of following statistical best practices in preclinical studies because better statistical practices was associated with more Phase 2 success! www.neurology.org/doi/full/10.... @greenjournal.bsky.social

OBAMA: “Better’s good… we’re not gonna get to perfect. Do I think single-payer with no profit motive would’ve been smarter? Absolutely.”

President Obama tells Maron the ACA was a compromise because he didn’t have the votes for what he really wanted. #MedicareForAll

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Prestige over merit: An adapted audit of LLM bias in peer review Large language models (LLMs) are playing an increasingly integral, though largely informal, role in scholarly peer review. Yet it remains unclear whether LLMs reproduce the biases observed in human de...

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases.

This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

How did assaults on science become the norm — and what can we do? An insightful book explores attacks on science from a historical and a personal perspective.

A great review of a must read timely publication of “Science under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World” by

@peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social and @michaelemann.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Proposed cuts to NIH funding would have ripple effects on research that could hamper the US for decades Taxpayer-funded investment supports basic research that can yield crucial medical advancements down the line and make lifesaving drugs and technologies affordable for everyday people.

“If government support weakens, medical and health research may become more dependent on commercial markets and philanthropic donors. That can narrow the kinds of problems studied…”

theconversation.com/proposed-cut...

We're going to see a lot of bullshit in the coming days and weeks about "causes of autism", and most will be based on flawed, over-interpreted observational studies (1/n)

Drowning prevention program comes to a halt at the CDC A few years in, a CDC drowning prevention program was ready to share its findings on how to mitigate the leading cause of death among young children. Then the administration terminated that staff.

Drowning is the leading cause of death in children between 1 and 4 years of age but apparently the CDC Drowning Prevention program is no longer needed.

www.npr.org/sections/sho...