Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar

“We must dissent because America can do better.” Good to hear Wisconsin Judge Susan Crawford quote Justice Thurgood Marshall in her victory speech tonight.

Trump Administration Moves to Shutter Library Agency The staff of the independent Institute of Museum and Library Services, the largest source of federal funding for museums and libraries, were put on leave.

The Trump administration on Monday placed the staff of the independent Institute of Museum and Library Services, the largest source of federal funding for museums and libraries, on administrative leave.

Monday, April 1 is the final day to submit nominations for the annual AMERSA Recognition Awards. These special awards recognize members of the AMERSA community for their exceptional contributions to the field of addiction science. Submit nominations here: amersa.org/amersa-awards/

Wisconsin Appeals Court Won't Stop Musk's $1 Million Payments To Voters After AG Sues A Wisconsin appellate court has denied the state Democratic attorney general’s request to stop billionaire Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters at a rally planned for Sunday, ju...

Dereliction of responsibility by the court. It is so flagrantly illegal. www.huffpost.com/entry/us-wis...

Secret Shoppers Struggle to Buy Naloxone, Syringes at Texas Pharmacies The in-person experiment uncovered frequent lack of availability, plus significant stigma around syringe purchases.

Check out this new piece in Filter about our secret shopper study recently published in JAMA Open!

We dropped in on community pharmacies in Austin, as customers, and tried to buy non-prescribed syringes.

It didn’t go well.

filtermag.org/secret-shopp...

The NIH Moves to Stop Studying Vaccine Skepticism An internal memo says that the agency will not prioritize research on why people are reluctant to take vaccines.

NEW -- An internal HHS document has instructed the NIH to stop funding research to better understand vaccine skepticism.

The latest move by RFK to embrace vaccine skepticism as scientific dogma

www.thebulwark.com/p/nih-moves-...



via @citizencohn.bsky.social

Trump Revokes Security Clearances for Biden, Harris, Clinton and More The tally of names read like President Trump’s enemies list, from Letitia James to Liz Cheney.

Breaking News: President Trump revoked security clearances for prominent figures like Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and more.

my NIH grant was terminated today - the grant that pays my rent and my bills and my loans and my health insurance - because I study how to improve the lives and wellbeing of queer people #episky #medsky

Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women.

More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications.

I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.

Erasing science doesn’t make ‘undesirable’ problems go away—it makes them worse.

The #NIH is terminating grants. LGBTQ+ health research is a clear target.

LGBTQ+ people face stigma & violence. This research saves lives. Let’s not stay silent.

Terminated grants 👇🏻
taggs.hhs.gov/Content/Data...

Stepping outside of science, medicine, and NIH for a moment: this is correct. Time to reclaim "free speech" as a liberal value.

And Jay Bhattacharya is going to keep saying he is helping free speech as he and Trump censor NIH scientists' free speech...so it is in fact relevant to NIH.

Caring for veterans is actually a mission-critical function.
NIH-funding for research is a mission critical-function.
Public health infrastructure is a mission-critical function.

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts.

Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

Remember tomorrow we don’t buy from anyone except small businesses!

#vaccineswork #publichealth

If you live in one of these R-controlled swing districts or know someone who does please make calls happen to these Congress members ASAP to demand that Medicaid & Medicare are protected from the massive cuts Republicans in the U.S. House teed up today! Healthcare for 10s of millions is on the line.

Justice Department deletes database tracking federal police misconduct The Trump administration has removed a nationwide database of federal police officers’ misconduct, launched by the Biden administration to keep bad cops from jumping from job to job.

"The first nationwide database tracking misconduct by federal police officers has been shut down by President Donald Trump"

The database encompassed 150,000 federal officers from the FBI, IRS, down to the Railroad Retirement Board

Pleased to share our new study in The Lancet Regional Health–Americas examining supervised consumption services (SCS) in #Toronto and their impact on community safety. Contrary to concerns, we found NO increase in #homicides near SCS.
Read it here open access: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

The NIH’s drastic cut to indirect cost rates is a critical threat to U.S. research infrastructure The drastic reduction in indirect costs is not a path to innovation or cost savings — it’s a threat to U.S.’s position as global leader in medical research.

The NIH’s drastic cut to indirect cost rates is a critical threat to U.S. research infrastructure

These costs are not a waste or luxury — they make groundbreaking discoveries possible
www.statnews.com/2025/02/08/n...

Save Foreign Aid Elon Musk reportedly spent $40 million dollars on #Superbowl ads calling #USAID wasteful. Here are just a few ways we would’ve spent $40M: 🏈Purchased life-saving HIV treatment from American pharmaceutical companies to keep 1,060,000 million people alive for one year 🏈Bought enough emergency food aid products made in Rhode Island and Georgia to treat 800,000 severely malnourished children 🏈Slowed the flow of migrants to our borders by providing job training to 50,000 people in Central America 🏈Protected 30,000,000 football fields of tropical forest in Africa, preventing China and Russia from exploiting timber and critical minerals that fuel our world 🏈Saved the lives of 25 million children suffering from severe malaria. We think this one has value on its own but maybe Musk would disagree This Super Bowl Sunday, tell Congress to #saveforeignaid and #standwithUSAID

Elon Musk has reportedly spent $40M on a series of Superbowl ads airing tonight attacking USAID's "wasteful spending." We may not have millions of dollars but between all of us, we do have a massive global network.

Here are just a few ways USAID could have spent $40M:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PqUE...

Also, cutting into $47B in funding that drives $93B in economic activity shows you that this "business guy" doesn't understand what he's doing on multiple levels. www.nih.gov/about-nih/wh...

“Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work.”

Let me say this in no uncertain terms: the President’s actions today are illegal.
 
Cutting off people from healthcare, childcare, and other services is cruel.

The State of Illinois will fight this unlawful order with everything we have.

While I think we all could have hypothesized this, I’m glad researchers are formally studying the impact of private equity taking over hospitals. I hope someone also studies impact on healthcare workers in these settings!

There are many reasons why someone might refuse a shelter bed: poor treatment, fearful an abusive partner could find them, violence, theft, no place to store belongings, no pets, and the indignity of being kicked out at 7am with nowhere to go. A bed is not a home.

Cold-Related Deaths in the US, 1999-2022 This study examines trends in cold-related mortality overall and by demographic characteristics between 1999 and 2022 in the US.

No one should die of cold exposure. This is 100% preventable. We choose not to prevent people from living in conditions in which this happens.
@jama.com @kbibbinsdomingo.bsky.social
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Opinion | What Kennedy’s Approach to Addiction Gets Wrong (Gift Article) America can’t go backward on drug policy.

Via the magnificent @maiasz.bsky.social

#kennedyiswrong

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/o...

Figure. Adjusted Differences in Caregiver-Reported Hospice Quality Between PEF/PTC Hospice Ownership and Other Ownership Categories

Hospices owned by private equity firms or publicly traded companies had significantly lower caregiver-reported quality scores compared to both non-profit and other for-profit hospices.

https://ja.ma/401SCcK

It’s now significantly more deadly to be homeless. Why are so many people dying? Mortality rates for homeless people in California - and the US - more than tripled from 2010 to 2020, a new study shows.

Between 2011-2020, deaths among unhoused people rose 238%. “Being homeless is incredibly bad for your health,” says Dr. Margot Kushel.

This Homeless Persons' Memorial Day, we honor those lost and emphasize the life-saving importance of housing.

Read more:

Prevalence of adults with stimulant misuse and/or stimulant use disorder in Massachusetts, USA, 2014–2021 Background and aims Stimulant-involved overdose deaths are increasing throughout the United States. Because stimulant misuse (i.e. taking a prescribed medicine not as directed) and stimulant use dis...

We found the prevalence of stimulant misuse and/or use disorder in Massachusetts from 2014 to 2021 ranged from 4% to nearly 7% of the population. Highest disparities among racially minoritized populations.
The overdose epidemic is not just opioids!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...