Sourya Shrestha

Some notes about TB prevention, as a former TB patient. TB is a bacterial disease. There is a vaccine, but it has variable efficacy & is not widely used in the U.S.. So, you can't make a "personal choice" (vaccine) to maximally protect yourself against this disease. So what protects you?

This new guidance is yet another step closer towards an isolationist, diminished view of American science. Changing rules on the fly wastes time & effort and undermines the pipeline of discovery and innovation.

Unacceptable & inexcusable (again):

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

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

www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c...

This is the People's money. This is my money and your money. We did not give it to one man to dispense as he pleases.

It was allocated in good faith under the authority of the People's representatives.

Harvard standing up!

Opinion | I Study Measles. I’m Terrified We’re Headed for an Epidemic. The outbreak in Texas could become much, much worse.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/o...

It may seem like a small outbreak, but this is how it starts. Also, measles infection is thought to wipe out existing immunity in our bodies to other infections, making us more vulnerable to them.

BREAKING: As Cory Booker goes on to his 23rd hour straight, his livestream on TikTok has been “liked” over 175 million times. Yes 175 MILLION!

Gyanendra Shah fined for littering at least.

What Will You Do? What’s your “I am Spartacus” move to protect the more vulnerable, the targeted, the invisibled, the next-on-the-list?

www.thenation.com/article/acti...

They were targeted because they could be, because they are vulnerable.

Peter Marks, MD, PhD Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903 March 28, 2025 Sara Brenner, MD, MPH Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs U.S. Food and Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue Silver Spring, MD 20903 Dear Dr. Brenner: It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from FDA and retire from federal service as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research effective April 5, 2025. I leave behind a staff of professionals who are undoubtedly the most devoted to protecting and promoting the public health of any group of people that I have encountered during my four decades working in the public and private sectors. I have always done my best to advocate for their well-being and I would ask that you do the same during this very difficult time during which their critical importance to the safety and security of our nation may be underappreciated. Over the past years I have been involved in enhancing the safety of our nation's blood supply, in advancing the field of cell and gene therapy, and in responding to public health emergencies. In the last of these, during the COVID-19 pandemic I had the privilege of watching the vision that I conceived for Operation Warp Speed in March 2020 in collaboration with Dr. Robert Kadlec become a reality under the leadership of HHS Secretary Azar and President Trump due to the unwavering commitment of public servants at FDA and elsewhere across the government. At FDA, the tireless efforts of staff across the agency resulted in remarkably expediting the development of vaccines against the virus, meeting the standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness expected by the American public. The vaccines undoubtedly markedly reduced morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in the United States and elsewhere. Many of these same individuals applied learnings from the pandemic during a flawless response helping…

ongoing multistate measles outbreak that is particularly severe in Texas reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined. Measles, which killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children last year in Africa and Asia owing to pneumonitis and encephalitis caused by the virus, had been eliminated from our shores. The two-dose measles, mumps, rubella vaccine regimen (MMR) using over the past decades has a remarkably favorable benefit-risk profile. The MMR vaccine is 97% or more effective in preventing measles following the two-dose series, and its safety has been remarkably well studied. Though rarely followed by a single fever-related seizure, or very rarely by allergic reactions or blood clotting disorders, the vaccine very simply does not cause autism, nor is it associated with encephalitis or death. It does, however, protect against a potential devasting consequence of prior measles infection, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), which is an untreatable, relentlessly progressive neurologic disorder leading to death in about 1 in 10,000 individuals infected with measles. Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation's health, safety. and security. In the years following the pandemic, at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research we have applied the same unwavering commitment to public health priorities to the development of cell and gene therapies to address both hereditary and acquired rare diseases. During my tenure as Center Director we have approved 22 gene therapies, including the first gene therapy ever to be approved in the United States. However, we know that we must do better to expedite the development of treatments for those individual suffering from any one of the thousan…

Peter Marks’s resignation letter. Everyone should read this.

John Green Is Obsessed With Tuberculosis. His New Book Explains Why. In a new nonfiction book, the Y.A. novelist describes the disease as a window into “the folly and brilliance and cruelty and compassion of humans.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/b...

the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not

U.S. to End Vaccine Funds for Poor Countries but Continue Some H.I.V. and TB Aid (Gift Article) A 281-page spreadsheet obtained by The Times lists the Trump administration’s plans for thousands of foreign aid programs.

State Dept gave Congress its full list of 5,300+ USAID program terminations. The sweeping cuts for health alone - from global childhood vaccines to surveillance for deadly diseases to malaria work - entail massive loss of life & national security risk. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/h...

What world are we in??

Exclusive: NIH to cut grants for COVID research, documents reveal Studies on climate change and South Africa are also on the latest list of grants to be terminated, according to updated documents obtained by Nature.

Yesterday when I talked to @maxkozlov.bsky.social about this, I wondered which of my NIH-funded colleagues would have their grants cut.

All of them. Research on pandemic viruses has now ground to a screeching halt in the US.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

U.S. to End Vaccine Funds for Poor Countries (Gift Article) A 281-page spreadsheet obtained by The Times lists the Trump administration’s plans for thousands of foreign aid programs.

NTY reports that US support for Gavi is to be suspended. The US has supplied upwards of 10-15% of Gavi's total budget. We have expected this since 20 January, but that makes it no less callous and short sighted.

Vaccination abroad is both a humanitarian good and in the financial interest of the US

I too have been dismissed from NIAID Board of Scientific Counselors along with 3 other women and a non-white man

From interview of Lee Bollinger, 1st Amendment scholar who served as dean of @UMichLaw, president of @UMich, and president of Columbia University.
www.chronicle.com/article/were...

A tracker estimating TB deaths from USAID funding discontinuation #IDsky #TBsky tb.impactcounter.com

Columbia announced mass suspensions, expulsions, and degree revocations the same day it received a letter from the Trump administration telling them to do just that if they wanted to keep getting funding

DOGE Makes Its Latest Errors Harder to Find Elon Musk’s group obscured the details of some new claims on its website, despite promises of transparency. But The Times was still able to detect another batch of mistakes.

NEW: DOGE backtracks on promises of transparency, making its new errors harder to find.

(We found more anyway)

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/u...

Federal Cuts Prompt Johns Hopkins to Cut More Than 2,000 Workers The university, a leader in scientific research, has been hard hit by the Trump administration’s cuts, which will slash at least $800 million from its budget.

My home institution is reeling.
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/u...

As noted below, they will not stop w/Columbia

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Vindictive bullying in the open..

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025.

This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

Universities Are Under Attack. Silence Is Not an Option. University presidents are staying quiet as Trump tries to destroy their institutions. It won't work.

“University presidents are staying quiet as Trump tries to destroy their institutions. It won't work” @gregggonsalves.bsky.social

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card

I am not going to call this a Bluetorial, because I do not want to sully that term (which, at least I, find joyful).

Let’s call it a Orwellial.

Editorial: A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelensky It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up. In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrate...

It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.