A reminder that: @science.org's Trump Tracker provides updates several times a day about the crisis in US science.
Latest update: European science groups ‘deeply concerned’ about threats to U.S. academic freedom. www.science.org/content/arti...
Baldwin: "Last night, the president said 'I'm not touching Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, VA, I'm not touching them.' By this morning, he endorsed the House budget resolution which paves the way for massive cuts to Medicaid."
What I’ve been saying (screaming). Now there’s data.
It’s the dark money. A coordinated, global right-wing campaign to weaponized disinformation and the internet—particularly social media—to politicize public health and sow distrust and doubt.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas
Measles outbreak in Texas
Bird flu - first death among humans
But yes, by all means, please fire CDC, NIH, and other scientists
Everything will be fine
“We appreciate all your efforts, especially your focus on providing care to those who are struggling. You embody the mission and vision of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
140-plus Obama and Biden appointees, including Sebelius + Becerra, sign a thank-you letter to career staff at HHS.
New: Last night, hundreds of CDC post-doc fellows were fired, including all in the group who call themselves the "disease detectors," and are the future of public health lab leaders. One senior official told me, "It is going to cripple public health for decades."
www.nbcnews.com/politics/dog...
So it begins: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as HHS Secretary and immediately starts dismantling US federal science infrastructure sciencebasedmedicine.org/so-it-begins... via @sciencebasedmedicine.org @gorskon.bsky.social
"The very fact that I am having to publish this anonymously in a country that has the right to free speech written into our Constitution is an indictment of what is happening."
www.bmj.com/content/388/...
'Physician Senators, What Have You Done?
They have betrayed the Hippocratic Oath in voting to confirm RFK Jr.'
👇🏻
“I never thought antivaxx policies would be put first in MY state,” sobs man who single-handedly cleared the way for antivaxxers to dictate health policy for the entire country
I wrote about how RFK Jr. is targeting SSRIs in his first 100 days plan, and his history of spreading disinformation about antidepressants. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
NEW: Marocco has tried shutting down nearly all USAID programs & freezing foreign aid. He’s led the charge to place nearly all USAID staff on administrative leave.
Officials said they see the move as retribution against those who opposed his earlier work.
By @annamaria.bsky.social + Brett Murphy
"If we don’t continue to fight against the attacks on science and the budding authoritarian regime we are living through right now, I am afraid of the future. My past teaches me what it’s like. And I don’t want to live through it again in the US. Never forget."
This is fascism.
The most fitting end to a day in which the regime just curbstomped our outbreak response capacity: an H5N1 patient in a hospital that’s also presumably full of seasonal flu patients.
www.reuters.com/business/hea...
"the extremely strong desire is to just punish universities [..] It’s not based on any kind of coherent policy agenda. It’s just a desire to inflict pain."
This, is critical to understand. Pointing out "it's hurting us" won't do, since it's the whole point.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
What is going on at NIH and CDC is horrific. Young scientists summarily fired during the PhDs and Postdocs. Whole sections bullied into resigning. All pandemic and surveillance programme shut in the middle of a cattle flu outbreak that is infecting more people.
Termination notices going out this afternoon to more than 300 employees of the National Cancer Institute. Access likely ends today. Four weeks paid leave and that’s it.
Strong power move for Team Cancer.
Texas measles outbreak doubled, now into 4 counties www.houstonchronicle.com/health/artic...
‘Wrecking ball’: RFK Jr. moves to fire thousands of health agency employees | Science | AAAS brought to you by @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...
But RFK Jr PROMISED Senate Republicans he would leave vaccines alone.
The promise was broken less than 24 hours after taking over at HHS.
An absolutely scorching OpEd by Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate, on Trump's destruction of the vaunted US scientific & biomedical enterprise & on Trump's kooky picks to lead the US health & science agencies
Gift link to share far & wide
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...
We are used to assuming that legal decisions are at least partly shaped by partisan identity. It would be nice if we could assume they were not also shaped by threats and intimidation from the leader of an online far right movement.
To be clear- this will cost lives, severely weaken public health (and global health), cause more distrust in federal response, and ultimately undermine all the advancements in health we’ve made in recent decades.
In just weeks, the Trump/Musk administration’s suspension of PEPFAR has already led to thousands of additional cases of HIV that would have otherwise been prevented.
DOGE is essentially the opposite of EA; maximizing harm for trivial/non-existent savings.
www.wired.com/story/usaid-...
NEW: The Trump White House recently cited a Vinay Prasad in an email attacking the Washington Post and defending its research cuts.
Prasad has built up a sizable online following sowing doubt about vaccines and COVID-19 mitigation measures.
www.importantcontext.news/p/trump-whit...
RFK Jr. said he would fall in line with the Trump administration’s goals, which includes fighting for the “unborn."
Giving infectious disease research a break, as promised by the MAHA agenda.
Let's break down what exactly this Executive Order is *really* saying.
Fortunately, I speak fluent anti-vax grifterese & can translate.
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
McConnell could have led the only vote that mattered - the one to convict Trump in either impeachment trial. He bent the knee both times. His token opposition to Gabbard and RFK means nothing other than legacy cleanup.
