a man in a yellow jacket has a label on the sleeve that says ' brooks brothers ' on it Alt: a man in a yellow jacket has a label on the sleeve that says ' brooks brothers ' on it rubbing his hands together and licking his lips while peeking out from behind a tree

H5N1 be like

RFK Jr & Linda McMahon told my university’s medical school to stop creating a diverse medical workforce or else they would cut all federal funding (ie, NIH, NSF, Medicaid, VA hospital)

Here’s a piece I wrote with @michaeldgreen.phd on why that will shorten lives

www.bmj.com/content/391/...

owning the libs by getting my army sick

Devastating and depressing data.

New OpenFold3 preview out! (OF3p2)

It closes the gap to AlphaFold3 for most modalities.

Most critically, we're releasing everything, including training sets & configs, making OF3p2 the only current AF3-based model that is functionally trainable & reproducible from scratch🧵1/9

Washington Post article on STEM cuts at federal agencies. NSF tops it at -42%!

“Between January 2025 and February 2026, STEM and health employees at science-focused agencies saw nearly 15,000 jobs cut. The rate outpaced cuts among other federal workers.”

OPM data - Figure from Wash Post article 19 April. (Where US science has been hit hardest.)

NSF at -42%!

Here’s the director of the NIH explicitly espousing populism over expertise as the means of determining priorities for federally science funding by leaning into the stupidest possible examples: ivermectin as cancer therapy .

Act up activism is actually an amazing model for social change, in your face direct action, inside outside organizing, science led policy platforms, no monopoly on action, incredibly savvy media strategy, etc. and what a legacy to have been affiliated with this movement

Imagine being a “biohacker” and being against vaccines.

Iris Long, Scientific Mentor to AIDS Activists, Dies at 92

"She tutored the activists on immunology and virology and schooled them in the intricacies of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process and pharmaceutical research protocols."

[Gift article]

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/h...

I saw the headlines this poll got and figured there was a screw loose somewhere. Glad to see I was right.

Don't simply believe polls you see! They are very easy to be used to mislead.

Highlighted in red: "Political interference is inappropriately shaping or interfering in the conduct, management, communication, or use of science for political advantage or such that it undermines impartiality, nonpartisanship, or professional judgement"

"HHS works to promote a culture of scientific integrity by creating an empowering environment for innovation and protecting scientists and the process of science from inappropriate interference. Scientific findings and products must not be suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes and must not be subjected to political interference or inappropriate influence. The responsible and ethical conduct of research and other scientific activities requires an environment that is safe and free from harassment and discrimination" Highlighted in red are "suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes", "subjected to political interference", and "inappropriate influence."

"HHS works to promote a culture of scientific integrity by creating an empowering environment for innovation and protecting scientists and the process of science from inappropriate interference. Scientific findings and products must not be subjected to interference or inappropriate influence and must not be inappropriately suppressed, delayed, or altered. The responsible and ethical conduct of research and other scientific activities requires an environment that is safe and free from harassment and discrimination." Highlighted in green are "subjected to interference or inappropriate influence" and "inappropriately suppressed, delayed, or altered."

Text, with "political" highlighted in red to indicate removal: I. Protecting Scientific Processes Scientific integrity fosters "honest scientific investigation, open discussion, refined understanding, and a firm commitment to evidence" (OSTP 2010). It also enables consideration and documentation of differing scientific opinions. Practices that support scientific integrity may include peer review and open science. Science, and public trust in science, thrives in an environment that prevents political interference and inappropriate influence from impacting scientific data and analyses and their use in decision making. It is the policy of HHS to: 1. Prohibit political interference or other inappropriate influence in the design, proposal, conduct, review, management, evaluation, communication about, and use of scientific activities and scientific information. Prohibit inappropriate restrictions on resources and capacity that limit and reduce the availability of science and scientific products (e.g., manuscripts for scientific journals, presentations for workshops, conferences, and symposia) outside of normal budgetary or priority-setting processes or without scientific, legal, or security justification. 3. Require that leadership and management ensure that covered individuals engaged in scientific activities can conduct their work objectively, free from political interference or other inappropriate influence, and free from retaliation.

HHS just published an update to its Scientific Integrity Policy. Notably, it has removed the concept of political interference, and no longer calls it out as something specifically to be prevented.
www.hhs.gov/sites/defaul... (deletions in red, insertions in green)

Very cool to finally be able to see what is going in with SARS-CoV-2/sarbecoviruses in horseshoe bats!

Fact-checking Matt Ridley’s “Scientific Freedom Lecture” at NIH (Part III) This post is the third and final part of my debunk of Matt Ridley’s inaugural Scientific Freedom Lecture at NIH. The first part can be read here and the second part here. Ridley’s lecture is available...

Here is finally the third, and last, part of my rebuttal of Matt Ridley's inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH on a lab leak origin of COVID-19.

pandemonium.hypotheses.org/1260

#covidorigin 🧪

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds over 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 institutions across all 50 U.S. states, supporting roughly 390,863 jobs and driving $94
billion in economic activity. I am one of them and am thankful to all who pay the taxes that support this enterprise 🧪

🧵 "PEPFAR saves lives, spend the money!"

Today, HIV/AIDS activists and former USAID employees took that message directly to OMB Director Russell Vought during a congressional hearing in D.C. and they weren't leaving quietly.

(1/4)

RFK Jr is ecstatic, I'm sure...what a clown

Dear Member of Congress: The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) are deeply grateful for the longstanding bipartisan support from Congress for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). We want to inform you of current and likely impacts of delays and changes in funding policies and procedures for NIH grants. Our concerns relate to the following areas within NIH: • Massive reduction in notice of funding opportunities • Delays in funding processes and inadequate capacity to administer grants • Increase in forward funding of multiyear awards in year one • Delays and potential lapses in funding for large clinical trial networks and clinical trial units Lack of transparency around permitted international collaborative partners for research projects • Disproportionate impact of grant terminations on vulnerable populations, especially women and people of color

U.S. infectious disease research is on the brink. Without immediate action from Congress, much of it will cease to exist within a year.

For example👇

1️⃣ No collaborative RFAs posted for >1 year (normal: many / year).
2️⃣ No foreign collaborators allowed on grants.

🧪🪦 www.idsociety.org/globalassets...

Is...is he dancing to a eurodance version of The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games? Or am I just hallucinated something that based

Science is good. We should fund it.

This paper receives a lot of attention, and for good reason.

It puts numbers to how many new zoonotic pathogens we introduce to human population through wildlife trade.

If pandemic prevention, not lab leak shenanigans, are of concern, here is where to look most urgently.

In his petition to Dr. Bhattacharya, Mr. Siri similarly argued that vaccines that blunt illness but do not prevent infection or transmission do not have an impact more broadly on the population, so individuals should be free to choose for themselves whether they wish to be immunized. He included in this category vaccines against polio, tetanus and human papillomavirus or HPV.

I'd like to take a second to explain all the ways that this comment is disqualifying as a marker of legitimate expertise in vaccination. 🧵

www.nytimes.com./2026/04/09/h...

The new ACIP charter includes liaison memberships for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Physicians for Informed Consent, and the Independent Medical Alliance.

None of these are expert societies and all of them have a history of disseminating antivaccine propaganda.

illegal trade, live animal markets, and time in trade predict the number of pathogens shared with humans

Two things we can do to stop the next pandemic:
1️⃣ Reduce wildlife trade.*
(👉 *But: criminalization drives trade underground, and we find that illegal trade accelerates spillover. We need new ideas.)
2️⃣ Ramp up disease surveillance in wildlife markets, farms, and supply chains.

Really overwhelmed by how important and impactful this work is to informing how to make a material change for the better.

The work to be done is still hard, no doubt.

But good science can illuminate the paths out of the darkness. Pure antidote to cynicism.

Yeah, so as I had feared, RFK Jr. went and did it. New charter for ACIP is out today.

Quote from @drdemetre.bsky.social

“The new charter shifts ACIP into an organization focused more on risk and has provided a platform for organizations that have historically been opponents of vaccination”.

Trump administration drops court fight to cap NIH payments for research overhead costs The Trump administration will not be asking the Supreme Court to take up its fight to slash NIH support for research indirect costs

A win for science.

For now, universities are not subject to the devastating 15% cap on overhead costs. If allowed, it would cause immediate harm to #NIH funded research by forcing labs to close + layoffs.

HOWEVER, sneaky Russel Vought (OMB) will find another way to do this.
🧪 archive.today/NnAVx

Not the main point here, but I do not ever recall a federal agency making significant programmatic and personnel changes as a result of the PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL, which does not change any law or funding allocations. Congress hasn't acted yet.

What are we doing here?