Carolyn Fredericks

you are a lab head, this affects you; if you are a student, this threatens your future The NIH grant system was already hyper- competitive before Trump. This policy will make it brutal. Without immediate resistance from the research community, this policy will go forward with devastating consequences for US science. What can you do? • Contact your Congressional representatives. It is best to show up in person. Explain and tell them to oppose this forward funding mandate. Share this article if it helps! Tell them to protect NIH funding. • For researchers: Make noise within your institution. Ask your research office what they re doing to push back. Talk to your program officers. Demand transparency. • Tell your local press that Trump is destroying US medical research, and find local activist groups to reach out to. • There are many engaged citizens across the country affected by cancer, or Alzheimer's, that want more information from scientists to help them advocate to their elected officials and to the press. Offer to talk to them, and help them do

this ends with a description of what YOU can do.

Please get involved now.
Everyone can take one of these actions.

“The Senate Committee on Appropriations is scheduled to release its proposal for NIH’s 2026 budget later this week…The committee could include language that would prohibit the multiyear funding plan or extend the timeline for the transition.”🧪

What a damn shame. And let's be clear: this rescissions package was merely a test. A start.

🧪 Science folks: Expect a similar bill coming soon for codifying cuts to this year's budget for NSF, NIH, etc.

🧵 Brief thread 1/3

Whole-brain functional connectivity predicts regional tau PET in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease Abuwarda et al. demonstrate that whole brain functional connectivity predicts regional tau tracer binding in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. Their models

Hamid Abuwarda's paper showing that we can use the functional connectome to predict focal tau binding in preclinical Alzheimer's disease is out today!
academic.oup.com/braincomms/a...

ADD YOUR NAME: Sign the Open Letter in Support of NIH Staff Join the courageous and committed National Institutes of Health (NIH) public servants by adding your name now.

Great interview with Jenna Norton, one of the authors of the #BethesdaDeclaration about its origins and future

art19.com/shows/federa...

While you are here, sign the support letter (if you haven't already) and share this link.

act.standupforscience.net/forms/add-na...

We miss you, Ben

Support EPA Staff Now! — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE Your solidarity with the EPA heroes increases the pressure on their Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Now is a good time to sign on in support of the courageous folks at EPA who stood up for all of us.

www.standupforscience.net/epa-declarat...

RFK called out over Alzheimer's move in tense exchange with Congresswoman Rep. Nanette Barragán called out Robert F. Kennedy Jr. following cuts to Alzheimer's research, but the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services wasn't aware of them

@repbarragan.bsky.social

Thank you so much for your forceful questioning (www.themirror.com/news/us-news... ) of RFK, Jr. It appears that many Alzheimer's Disease Research Center grants are now funded about months of delay.

#CallingThemOutMatters

It’s fine to call Collins or Murkowski.

But it is much much much much much more impactful if you can get on local TV in their states and call them to vote against. And if you can’t do that, make a social media video. Communicating to their constituents he is better than calling them.

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity!!!
The Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@UofT) is hiring a postdoc to study early optimism in infants & young children.
Work w/ multi-method approach, amazing undergrads & grads.
Start: Fall 2025 or later.
Details: jessica.sommerville@utoronto.ca
RTs appreciated 💫

Earlier today, AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh testified as a bipartisan witness before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, warning that without immediate action, the U.S. runs the risk of losing its position as a global leader in biomedical research and innovation.

graph showing that higher ed experts are worth more than gas and coal exports combined

"President Donald Trump says he wants to reduce our trade deficit. Yet he’s destroying one of our winningest exports: higher education"
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Trump budget draft proposes NIH consolidation and 40% spending cut Draft Trump budget proposes a $20 billion NIH budget cut in 2026 and a sweeping consolidation

🧪Trump wants to cut NIH spending by 40%. If enacted, this will drive a massive, generational brain 🧠 drain of talented scientists and physician-scientists out of the US. Congress still controls the budget (for now). Call your reps and senators: (202) 224-3121
www.statnews.com/2025/04/16/t...

An update to show the seismic crash in NIH funding. The left side shows NIH has issued almost no "new" awards since Trump took office. Even renewals (you receive a 5 year award, but each year they renew it), which should be mushed into the lines above it, is shockingly low.

A Call for Constructive Engagement | AAC&U A Call for Constructive Engagement

As of this morning, the @aacu.org statement opposing the Trump admin's "unprecedented government overreach" has been signed by more than 400 #HigherEd leaders.

Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduc...

The notice and COMMENT PERIOD OPENED TODAY AND CLOSES MAY 23.

Anyone who would like to register an objection or comment should go to this page and click on the green “public comment” button at the top:

www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

6/n

the word alert is in a purple circle ALT: the word alert is in a purple circle

ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM

Implementation of Schedule F

This is what a lot of us have been worried about.

This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.

BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...

1/n

New England Journal of Medicine gets swept up in U.S. attorney inquiry into alleged bias Last week, at least one scientific journal received a letter from a top U.S. attorney asking it to respond to alleged bias. Now, NEJM has received a similar inquiry as well.

🧪
www.statnews.com/2025/04/23/n...
The beginning, I presume, of the Trump Administration's attempt to force journals to accept some number of alternative-view "research" articles on topics like vaccines causing autism or IV bleach injections to treat Covid (as suggested by our president in 2021).

Updating dashboard this morning with new funding curves, the Barron's article (in Miscellaneous), and Excel files with the latest terminated grants (from the HHS TAGGS site).

Looking at the latest terminated grants list was "interesting"...

jeremymberg.github.io/jeremyberg.g...

1/n

Really good point. These are cuts to research into cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s.

And Trump is doing them to corrupt universities and end free speech and free thought. They want to force in conservative ideas that have lost in a free marketplace, and use cancer money to do that

‘This Is Not How We Do Science, Ever’ The Trump administration is manipulating government-sponsored research to get the answers it wants.

The Trump administration is "willing to not just slash and burn research that challenges their political ideology but to replace it with shoddy studies designed to support their goals, under the guise of scientific legitimacy," Katherine J. Wu writes.

Unique pain research office eliminated in HHS purge Pain is the most costly chronic health problem in the U.S. In latest RIFs at NIH, an entire division devoted to pain research was closed down.

More, or should I say, less pain at NIH...

Dismemberment of the Office of Pain Policy and Planning office

www.statnews.com/2025/04/08/n...

There is a reason that private industry hires communications and government relations professionals. Want to make impactful change? Use every tool at your disposal, or partner with people/orgs who have these skills. I promise you every mid-level trade association is doing the same.

Firings at Federal Health Agencies Decimate Offices That Release Public Records - KFF Health News The Department of Health and Human Services’ mass firings included people who fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Hea...

Firings at Federal Health Agencies Decimate Offices That Release Public Records

“What we need to be doing is the opposite of what’s happening now: hiring more staff.”

kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

We have slots for 2-3 postbacs! Get in touch if you’re interested in joining the Affective Neuroscience and Pain lab & contributing to our studies of pain, emotion, and social processing in the 🧠

NIH scientists have a cancer breakthrough. Layoffs are delaying it. A big step forward in cancer therapy has been slowed by layoffs and new restrictions at the National Institutes of Health, where it was developed.

DOGE-induced delays in trials at the NIH Clinical Center

(Dr. Steve) Rosenberg said. “Right now, assuming things don’t get any worse, it would be a month [delay]. These are not patients that have very many months left.”

This seemed inevitable but is still a big deal...

wapo.st/4j8Hwd1 (Gift link)

Happy World Health Day! Doctors for America pledges to continue our mission of educating and empowering doctors and healthcare advocates to lead initiatives that improve the health of patients, communities, and the nation.

Long COVID activists fought Trump team’s research cuts and won ― for now Success gives hope to scientists and advocates who managed to get millions of dollars in grants restored.

Long COVID advocates and researchers in the United States have done the extraordinary. After a bruising battle, they managed to revive some of the research grants cancelled by the administration of President Donald Trump.

https://go.nature.com/3RKg5tP

HNR_NOAAForum-14

Every member of Congress, across every party, must hold this Admin accountable against advancing the reckless proposals in Project 2025. TY @naturalresources.bsky.social for defending our communities and economies. 👏

Trump and Musk are trying to block all NIH spending.
Trump and Musk are trying to block all NIH spending.

(Legal aside: so they’re admitting that regulations matter. That’s good.)