fungusamongus.bsky.social
@fungusamongus.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Genetics at a SLAC 🧪

Fan of SciFi and Fantasy
Reposted
Dr. Gonsalves has written a piece that is equal parts brilliant and tragic. Read it and use it as motivation to keep fighting the destruction of US science infrastructure. @gregggonsalves.bsky.social
America Is Sliding Into the Abyss
Our science and health infrastructure lies in tatters. Once-dead viruses are roaring back to life. Many people will die. In other words, we’ve reached the point of no return.
www.thenation.com
July 11, 2025 at 7:45 PM
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How to Wreck the Nation’s Health, by the Numbers www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
July 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM
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Researcher Amita Gupta has spent more than a decade planning and running a $70-million trial to study a new tuberculosis drug, enrolling ~6,000 participants in 13 countries. It might all have been for nothing.

That's because a new NIH policy has abruptly cut off billions to trials abroad. 🧪
NIH grant cuts will axe clinical trials abroad — and could leave thousands without care
US agency’s new policy could abruptly end studies of infectious diseases and cancer, leaving researchers scrambling for funds.
www.nature.com
June 2, 2025 at 3:12 PM
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NIH stops development of HIV vaccine, terminates grants to consortia, including at Duke University.

www.science.org/content/arti...
‘Devasting.’ NIH cancels future funding plans for HIV vaccine consortia
Researchers decry agency’s decision just as new leads reinvigorate search for long-sought vaccine
www.science.org
May 31, 2025 at 12:47 AM
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NSF Physics was cut by 85%, basically wiping out most of its capacity for supporting research.

NSF Astronomy was cut by 53%

Undergrad education was cut by 71% and research on learning by 79%

Graduate education was cut by 100% to ZERO.

#GiftLink ⚛️🔭

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades (Gift Article)
The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.
www.nytimes.com
May 22, 2025 at 3:34 PM
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All NIH and NSF grants for my entire team--and for all of Harvard, I guess?--have been terminated.

As provocative as that sounds, the practical effect is probably not much. Everything was already frozen. 🤷‍♂️

On the upside, it makes tracking terminated grants easier. No more guesswork at Harvard!
May 15, 2025 at 8:11 PM
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NIH’s Vaccine Research Center once had a 400-person workforce developing and clinically testing vaccines and antibody treatments for dangerous infectious diseases..

Now, after a steady firing of key contractors by the Trump administration, the VRC is reeling..

🧪🦠

www.science.org/content/arti...
NIH’s key vaccine center slammed by contract cuts
Antibody and vaccine work is slowed after the National Institutes of Health loses as many as 2200 contract workers
www.science.org
May 11, 2025 at 6:00 AM
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Were you aware that Trump is destroying previous scientific research data? Not just discontinuing the funding of it. Not just hiding it from US.

Literally DESTROYING IT.
www.bbc.com/future/artic...
Inside the desperate rush to save decades of US scientific data from deletion
Swathes of scientific data deletions are sweeping across US government websites – with decades of research at risk. Now, scientists are racing to save their work before it's lost.
www.bbc.com
May 9, 2025 at 11:57 AM
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Scientific research is going to be hit by tariffs: Lab research supplier Millipore Sigma is going to add temporary surcharges on all orders shipped to the US.

More @statnews.com @pharmalot.bsky.social:

#chemsky #sciencesky 🧪🩺🧫💉⚗️
www.statnews.com/pharmalot/20...
Millipore Sigma will add temporary tariff surcharges on products shipped to the U.S.
Millipore Sigma, one of the largest suppliers of medical research products, will start adding a temporary tariff surcharge to all product orders shipped to the U.S.
www.statnews.com
May 2, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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Nearly all of remaining staff at CDC's NIOSH received lay off notices today, we're told

This is an org chart shared with us illustrating eliminated divisions to date

Cuts had already upended approvals of new N95 respirators and probes of firefighter injuries

www.cbsnews.com/news/worker-...
May 3, 2025 at 1:09 AM
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⚠️ A few important pieces of health news this week:

1. The longest-running longitudinal study of women's health (which has helped us figure out how to prevent cancer, reduce osteoporosis, reduce perimenopause symptoms, and more) has essentially been shuttered.

www.npr.org/2025/04/23/n...
Funding cut for landmark study of women's health
The Women's Health Initiative, begun in the 1990s, has made many important discoveries. Now funding to collect more research data will end in September.
www.npr.org
April 24, 2025 at 2:44 PM
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Let’s dream up to ways to shit on women. Oh hey, let’s cancel the largest clinical trial ever for women www.science.org/content/arti...
NIH cancels its first and largest study centered on women
The Women’s Health Initiative has produced numerous influential findings
www.science.org
April 23, 2025 at 7:06 AM
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Make Tuberculosis Great Again
US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts reut.rs/4cHdnz3
April 22, 2025 at 4:46 AM
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HHS Eliminated Programs - Updated

Here is an updated list of all programs eliminated in the 2026 HHS Budget. Reach out if you have information or clarity on the cuts.

These cuts will impact Every Single American.

Email altcdc1@pm.me for PDF and xlsx.
April 21, 2025 at 3:17 AM
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If anyone wants to know what happens next, check out @deborahb.bsky.social's book "The Poison Squad," full of grisly tales of death and illness that led to the founding of the FDA over a century ago. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/312067...
US FDA suspends food safety quality checks after staff cuts reut.rs/42C4h1Z
April 17, 2025 at 9:33 PM
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New preprint finding that eliminating US global health funding over the next fifteen years would cause:
- 15.2m deaths from AIDS
- 2.2m deaths from TB
- 7.9 additional child deaths
April 17, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted
"It's now been eight days since both Dorcas and her mom, Theresa, took the last of their HIV medications.

A single mom and an only child, they've always taken their medicine together at 8 p.m. each night. The change in routine has confused the little girl."

www.npr.org/sections/goa...
Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out
Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.
www.npr.org
April 17, 2025 at 2:38 AM
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Washington Post: 'Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards'

'Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer & infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal'

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards
Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 17, 2025 at 12:26 AM
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NEW: Entire scientific fields have been wiped out by the nearly 800 grants cancelled at NIH, finds a @nature.com analysis of the unprecedented cuts.

About half of all 2024 NIH projects related to LGBT+ health or vaccine hesitancy — gone.

See the other topics and US states hardest hit here:
How Trump 2.0 is slashing NIH-backed research — in charts
Nature analyses which fields of science and US states are being hit hardest by grant terminations.
www.nature.com
April 10, 2025 at 8:36 PM
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The title tells the story and the 5 graphs amplify it
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
154 million lives and counting: 5 charts reveal the power of vaccines
But public-health specialists worry that misinformation and funding cuts could affect vaccination rates.
www.nature.com
April 8, 2025 at 10:08 PM
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This is literally sickening. “HHS announced sweeping layoffs last week… As a result of federal funding cuts, New Mexico – which has reported 54 measles cases as part of the outbreak – terminated contracts for 20 temporary workers who were helping order vaccines and check vaccination records.”
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · Apr 8
The CDC is on the ground in Texas for the second time this year, as an ongoing multistate measles outbreak centered in the western part of the state has grown to one of the worst the United States has seen in decades.
Response to multistate measles outbreak hampered by unique set of challenges | CNN
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the ground in Texas for the second time this year, as an ongoing multistate measles outbreak centered in the western part of the state has grown...
www.cnn.com
April 8, 2025 at 1:38 AM
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Hitting on themes that many have been had in conversations, on social, blogs, essays, op-eds, and more, @nvpatel.bsky.social describes the ongoing crisis in the @nytimes.com. The fate of American science is not yet written, what we do now shapes the future.

🎁 link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/o...
Opinion | The Uncertain Fate of the Young American Scientist
Young researchers are choosing between staying in science or staying in the United States.
www.nytimes.com
April 3, 2025 at 12:42 PM