Abigail Amey

This is the first step to being able to completely change the recommended immunization schedule however he wants. If vaccines are removed from the schedule, they aren't covered by insurance or Vaccines for Children, eliminating access for ~40-50% of kids who get their vaccines thru VFC. 2/n

RFK Jr. ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory committee Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL. This is the most egregious and dangerous thing Kennedy has done yet to remove access to #vaccines. (It’s also what that I & many others explicitly predicted & feared before he was confirmed.) He can now fill this CDC committee w anti-vaccine people. 1/n
apnews.com/article/kenn...

He's right. "Nothing short of devastating"
By @holdenthorp.bsky.social @science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Bit of unexpected biodiversity in rhododendron dell in Kew Gardens this afternoon

Paper is so much easier!

In 15 yrs of reporting, I've never had so many health & biomed researchers & outreach orgs tell me they're afraid to talk w/press or barred from speaking bc of new comms policies.

I understand the fear of losing funds. I don't know if silence does more harm than good. If you can speak up, pls do.

Forever in our thoughts ♥️
#Tonic #Music #mentalhealth

Game-changing new funding from Wellcome for OpenSAFELY and mental health data | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science This morning the Today programme on Radio 4 did two great spots on OpenSAFELY.

I'm delighted to say our highly secure and productive OpenSAFELY platform has received a further £17 million in funding from Wellcome, including for a new mental health data project. More here, and clips from Today on Radio4 this morning too!

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2025/02...

Screenshot of a Trump EO, white text on a dark blue background, which reads “PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS: COMMENCING THE REDUCTION OF THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY ECEXUTIVE [sic] ORDER February 19, 2025

I see they started with the copyeditors.

We just gave it a go with the peanuts only peanut butter as it was what we happened to have in and they are pretty good!

Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? How to contact Nature Use this form to share information with Nature’s news team, or to make suggestions for future coverage.

Use this form to tell us how the new US administration is affecting your research, or suggest future coverage

https://go.nature.com/42SyoUu

If the UK was really, really smart, it would now plough tens of billions into research centres and take in all the American academics fleeing the US. Spoiler: the UK is not smart. 🇬🇧

INTRODUCTION

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

Medical journal editors must resist CDC order and anti-gender ideology The news that on 31 January 2025 the Trump administration instructed scientists employed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to withdraw or retract articles from medical and sci...

In case you're interested in where The BMJ stands on Presidential Executive Orders banning certain language from research communications www.bmj.com/content/388/... @kamranabbasi.bsky.social @jocalynclark.bsky.social #SciencePublishing #SciComm #AcademicSky #ResearchIntegrity

🧵 A chilling compilation of news reports that reads almost like science fiction…
There is also this from our own pages. And there will be more (alas!)

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

The pushback against state interference in science: how Lysenkoism tried to suppress Genetics and how it was eventually defeated Genetics in the Soviet Union (USSR) achieved state-of-the-art results and had reached a peak of development by the mid-1930s due to the efforts of the scientific schools of several major figures, incl...

The current invasion of politics into science puts us on a slippery slope that has a known outcome.
As bio major in 1980s USSR I trained with geneticists who barely survived Stalin's purges for their science.
I thus have 1 degree of separation from that outcome.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Most mother-to-child HIV transmission happens during the birth. In those cases, children not immediately put on HIV drugs are at particularly high risk of death between two and six months of age.

The administration's stop work order is for three months. It must be waived for PEPFAR.

Every week, I check the CDC's Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report. This week for the first time in its 60 years it was not published on schedule. American healthcare workers all over the country are less informed about health crises that affect their patients. CDC led reports matter a 🧵

Can’t believe I missed this being shot so close to home!

Sunset stroll

Elon Musk: Tuesday I'm speaking to President Trump about getting together all the major players who care as much as we do about the abuse of young girls in the UK. So that's me, him, Andrew Tate, Matt Gaetz and that guy from Reform UK who has a conviction for getting drunk and assaulting his girlfriend. "We're the feminists now!" I say. "Fact!" Then I get distracted, because I've just seen a really cool meme on X about a hot milf getting stuck in a tumble-dryer while wearing yoga pants. "We're going to protect women," says Trump, "whether women like it or not" "Most Brits don't care about women at all," I say. "Have you heard of Jess Phillips?" "She's probably never even met one," says Trump. "She should be in jail," I say. "We'll do that after we invade." "Slow down, Elon," he says. "We're invading Greenland, Panama and Mexico first." "Oh sure," I say. "Priorities."

todays satirical diary from @hugorifkind.bsky.social

It's seed catalogue (garden porn) season and I'm enjoying the names of fruit & vegetable varieties: twister cauliflower, crisphead lettuce, purple majesty potatoes, fire 'n ice radishes, saffron prolific squash, mortgage lifter tomatoes

Penshaw monument?

The Specials, Christmas jumpers, #TOTP December 1980

Somehow only my second visit to St Paul’s in 30 years of living in London

Yep, I am also listening to Erasure.

Campaign for Mathematical Sciences (CaMS) on LinkedIn: Statement on maths at Birkbeck Following significant cuts to teaching staff last year, CaMS has learned that Birkbeck, University of London no longer offers maths degree courses. President…

Birkbeck, University of London, where Roger Penrose did his Nobel Prize-winning work in the '60s and London's only specialist provider of evening higher education, has closed its undergraduate maths degree...
www.bbk.ac.uk/news/nobel-p...

www.linkedin.com/posts/campai...