In case you missed the 2026 curve for e.g., F awards because it's completely flatlined, here's a big fat arrow showing where we are. Curves for T and K awards are just as bad.

In August, Jay Bhattacharya said “Training future biomedical scientists” was the 1st priority for his version of NIH.

But talk is cheap. Let’s see how JB’s doing. 🤔

NIH supports trainees mostly via fellowship (F), training (T), and career development (K) awards.

Here are funding curves for each.🧵

We Need to Prepare for the Mammoth Task of De-Trumpification The damage he and his cronies have wrought could take decades to repair, particularly when it comes to science and public health.

The task of de-Trumpification of science and public health will take a generation and a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild. Without a bold, expansive vision to guide us, there is no coming back. Small-bore, poll-tested versions of the future will not help us. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Not just ID work. Other fields are headed in a similar direction, just a bit behind that schedule.

Grant awards trickling out create just enough hope to avoid outcry, but the underlying structures are being eaten away and things won’t go back to how they were without big, positive action.

One Year After Leaving NIH One year ago, I left a job as a Program Official at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that I had held for 22 years.

Play-by-play of how the NIH was demolished and left on the chopping room floor.

elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/one-year-a...

Just how bad is this spring’s drought?? The worst in US History, going all the way back to the 1890s, even worse than Dust Bowl springs. And #Florida is among the worst in the nation… 1/

Inside the CDC’s leadership vacuum: work at a ‘standstill’ and low morale as 80% of top posts remain vacant Current and ex-officials at the CDC warn Americans’ health security in danger under RFK Jr’s direction

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Dan Weinberger and I @yalesph.bsky.social are hiring multiple research positions in microbial/virus sequencing and bioinformatics workflows with respiratory pathogens, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, RSV, and/or hMPV.

See 👉 forms.gle/xpmzTtNqHFqK...

This is insane. Barely 6 years on from the irruption of a virus that claimed over 1M US lives, the plug is getting pulled on the kind of science that could prepare them better next time. Wrong lessons (deliberately) being learned.

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 last part - lack of support from institutions - is not new. That's just academic science and won't / can't change.

What's new is the massive cuts of funds from existing grants, combined with a total lack of new federal funding opportunities.

Once fumes are spent, no field will survive that.

With all of this, it is key to understand that ALL of this research - including salaries for graduate students, postdocs, staff, faculty, etc. and consumables - HAVE to be covered by grants.

There is _no_ support from host institutions to ensure research continues or jobs are saved. None.

From our perspective, a few examples of what this looks like:

1️⃣ One NIH U01 program canceled - "unsafe for Americans" (CREID).
2️⃣ One CDC U01 program, budget cut ~80%.
3️⃣ One NIH U19 program, NOA delayed by four months - work stopped.
4️⃣ No U-funding opportunities to apply for for over a 1 year.

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...

Fact-checking Matt Ridley’s “Scientific Freedom Lecture” at NIH (Part II) The first part of this rebuttal can be read here; the third part will be posted later. Ridley’s lecture is available on Youtube; I also generated a transcript, available here. The same disclaimer as i...

In March, invited by Jay Bhattacharya, Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH, on a lab leak origin of COVID-19.

There was a lot to debunk; here is Part II:
pandemonium.hypotheses.org/1108

🧪 #covidorigin

And so one dictator falls. Let’s hope this starts a trend, and one that might be close to home.

Pointing out that NAS platforming those actively destroying science is a truly terrible idea isn’t “vitriol” or “ang[er]”.

It’s simply pointing out that NAS platforming those actively destroying science is a truly terrible idea. And, to put it mildly, unbelievably disappointing.

“I mean, how many people want to be Kristian Andersen?* [..] he doesn’t want to be the guy who gets in front of Congress, he wants to do science”

Oof @ckava.bsky.social, on point 😬😆.

* including me.

I’m a Nobel Prize-winning immigrant. I can no longer recognize this country. Attacks on science and immigrants are destroying America.

Choice words from Dr. Szostak here.

And while I am no Nobel Prize-winning scientist, I identify with the same quandary as an immigrant, moving here in 2009 and (proudly) becoming a citizen in 2023.

I, too, don't recognize that country anymore 😢🇺🇸🧳🛫.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-a-nobel...

My protein biochemist husband hasn’t won a Nobel prize but he came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union for his postdoc for the same reason. Lysenko destroyed science decades before under Stalin and only the U.S. offered these scientific opportunities.

No place currently offers these opportunities.

Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Details, Flo, details - and, hence, unimportant. The important thing to understand, you see, is that we just don't know because we can't trust any of the data (or scientists), so the only logical explanation is that it must have come from a lab, okay? Because the WIV is in Wuhan, which is in China.

One of my favorite Lab Leak fantasies - the $0.5 billion A/C. Utterly nonsensical from the get-go, yet, it became a driving force behind "official" reports.

You might think this is an isolated example, but alas - all lab leak conspiracy theories are built on such crumbling piles of tosh.

Hah, ask those numpties today about those statements, and I'm sure they'll double down and then double down some more.

R&D roadmaps for pathogen families to reduce uncertainty about the next pandemic and boost coordinated global R&D preparedness This event highlighted how a One Health and the Pathogen Family-based approach can strengthen epidemic and pandemic preparedness, including through WHO’s Collaborative Open Research Consortia (CORCs),...

"We don’t know what the next pandemic threat will be, or when it will strike [..] That’s why focusing on entire pathogen families can help us stay ahead of both known risks and emerging threats"

Multi-country R&D Roadmap from WHO, CEPI, others 👇.

United States? AWOL.

www.who.int/news/item/07...

Who Decides What Science Gets Done? The History Behind the NIH Funding System the Trump Administration Is Dismantling

"The changes the Trump administration has made [..] are not a simplification or a streamlining [..]. They are a transfer of authority [..], moving decision-making power away from scientists and toward political appointees."

Required reading.

elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/who-decide...

No, this is simply a he said she said list of what people have said, most of which we know to be false and/or completely unevidenced. The same is true for most of the other pages with scientific studies placed in the same way as what someone said on X

Appreciate the effort, but unscientific.

Adding this excellent writeup from @flodebarre.eurosky.social.

bsky.app/profile/flod...

Fact-checking Matt Ridley’s “Scientific Freedom Lecture” at NIH (Part I) Matt Ridley, global warming skeptic and co-author with Alina Chan of a book promoting a lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, was invited by Jay Bhattacharya, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NI...

In March, Matt Ridley gave the inaugural "Scientific Freedom Lecture" at NIH, on a lab leak origin of COVID-19.

The talk was so full of misrepresentations, omissions, falsehoods and lies that I will need several blog posts to debunk it. Here's Part I:

pandemonium.hypotheses.org/995

🧪 #covidorigin