Joshua Weitz

Today, our #SCIMaP team released an impact analysis of the White House proposed FY 2027 NIH and NSF budgets. Bottom-line: if enacted, cuts to science and medical research would lead to $35B in economic losses and 150,000 lost jobs in communities all across the US. scienceimpacts.org 🧵

1000+ current and former HHS staff speak out: "Should he decline to resign, we call upon the President and U.S. Congress to appoint a new Sec. of HHS, one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science." www.savehhs.org

“[Monarez] had two lines in the sand,” Besser said. “One was anything that was deemed illegal. And the second was anything that she felt flew in the face of science. And she says she was asked to do both of those.” Principled leadership matters. RFK Jr is unfit to serve as Secretary of HHS.

Super team of physicians, scientists, and public health experts come together with a single message: RFK must go. "It is time to reverse course and begin rebuilding the public health infrastructure overseen by CDC. Kennedy has proven himself unwilling and ill-prepared to lead that effort. " 👇

Viruses of Microbes 2026 in Prague #VoM2026 Immersive conference spanning cells, populations, and ecosystems including basic and translational discoveries... ... and now mobilizing well beyond the conference hall. h/t @pavol.bsky.social

As a @washingtonpost.com subscriber and admirer of many of their news team, it is shocking (but not surprising) to read this nihilistic and Orwellian OpEd from Scott Atlas: adviser to Trump I, member of the Hoover Institution at Stanford who wants to literally: "Abolish the NIH" wapo.st/4eWDsMf 🧵

Summary: Ongoing framing from anti-science, organized interests and all-too-willing administration partners ask scientists to, in effect, 'shut up and pipette' and eventually not even do that or anything else in the lab/university if the private capture of public science is successful. 👇

When you tell colleagues that the public still maintains deep trust in our work (imperfectly & with growing fractures) they are often *very* surprised, in part because of the organized investment in "a rhetoric of science in crisis” to foster an actual crisis. www.nature.com/articles/d41... a 🧵

With an HHS fueled by Covid grievances that selects vaccine skeptics to lead Ebola response (see today's news re: Brenner), there is a paucity of investment in addressing transmission at its source, even (and especially) in cases where silent spread is rampant. There are other ways to build policy.

Congratulations to @malar0ne.bsky.social who was awarded a Best Talk prize for her #SCIMaP presentation on 'Widespread Economic Impacts of Federal Research Cuts in Local Communities' at the International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation: icssi.org

For those in the DMV and want to find a different way to celebrate the 4th and support the DC arts scene, go here before it closes on Sunday: www.folger.edu/whats-on/how... Deeply moving, hopeful, and lyrical autobiographical one-man performance on identity, purpose, and art.

Rule by unitary executive, enabled by the Supreme Court means that any discussion of "independent" federal agencies should come with quotes & warning signs. For science & health this means an admin that favors politics over evidence will expect compliant leads at the CDC, EPA, NSF and more.

Scientists take note.

In the face of ongoing pressures and critique (including here by many), the public reaffirmation of the core mission of the National Academy of Sciences is a much-needed signal from incoming NAS President Neil Shubin. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...