Lisa Simpson MB BCh

July 17, 2025 Five years ago tonight, Georgia Representative John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80.

“We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now that need is greater than ever before.”
TY John Lewis.
tinyurl.com/yyasa7k2

The Questions We Don’t Ask Our Families but Should Many people don’t know very much about their older relatives. But if we don’t ask, we risk never knowing our own history.

"A kind of genealogical amnesia was eating holes in these family histories as permanently as moths eat holes in the sweaters lovingly knitted by our ancestors."
tinyurl.com/3hmmej6h

Even in the darkest times I appreciate wit

Peace, not war Creativity, not destruction Empathy, not hate Generosity, not greed Everybody, not just us.

Peace. Not pieces.

🕊️

The Travel Writer’s Dilemma: Share, or Gatekeep?

"Life offers few greater pleasures than that of passing on your enthusiasms and secret discoveries. But the greatest pleasure of all may be to uncover something that no one else has mentioned."
I have loved Pico Iyer since I read Video Nights in Kathmandu after 6 wks in Thailand
tinyurl.com/3k9r6wjm

Science-integrity project will root out bad medical papers ‘and tell everyone’ Group behind Retraction Watch aims to pinpoint the most influential flawed health data.

I have heard many monikers associated with #data - e.g. junkie, hippy, etc... but this was a new one: #data thug.
From the #MedicalEvidenceProject
Factoid: "one in every 50 papers published by scientific journals should probably be retracted."
tinyurl.com/3v7t248j
@academyhealth.bsky.social

Brain-reading devices raise ethical dilemmas — researchers propose protections Delegates to a United Nations meeting on neurotechnology ethics have devised the first set of global guidelines on maintaining users’ privacy.

The recommendations focus on protecting users from technology misuse that could infringe on their human rights, including their autonomy and freedom of thought. Delegates [...] included scientists, ethicists and legal specialists.
tinyurl.com/3re4azy5
😲
@academyhealth.bsky.social
@aaas.org

The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research. Thousands of scientists, academics, physicians and researchers have responded to the administration’s executive order about “restoring a gold standard for science.”

It just keeps getting worse.
Yay for #Standupforscience!
tinyurl.com/42xfpmby

@aaas.org
@academyhealth.bsky.social
@nationalacademies.org

May 31, 2025 “I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine told her colleagues on June 1, 1950.

Profound.
tinyurl.com/5ybs7p4k

Beyond the backlash: What evidence shows about the economic impact of DEI From civil rights to corporate boardrooms, efforts to expand inclusion have long shaped American life. What does research show about the returns – and limits – of today’s DEI programs?

"Racism, too, carries an economic toll. A 2020 analysis from Citi found that systemic racism has cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion since 2000."
tinyurl.com/ydwvzrnx

Opinion | DOGE Has Left Do-Gooder Washington in Ruins I live in D.C., and I’ve always cherished my friends and neighbors who signed on for public service. Now they’re being chased out of town.

"Our country has always run on the quiet competence of people committed to their work, whether they’re keeping credit card companies from ripping us off or making sure our airplanes land safely."
tinyurl.com/4r278sr6

I spent all of Monday and Tuesday watching capstone presentations from students in our program. Media, Medicine and Health at Harvard Medical School.

These people (doctors and future doctors) want to save the world. So many of them are international students. They deserve the wind at their backs.

The Beauty That Moral Courage Creates A lovely paradox of doing good in the world is that it does you good too.

I love Arthur C. Brooks's Thursday column in @theatlantic.com.
This week's really resonated:
"...choose what’s morally beautiful, and you will be rewarded."
Every single day is a choice to find moral beauty, especially in a country so focused on power, wealth, and hate.
tinyurl.com/2v538ahp

A line graph depicting cumulative grant funding by the National Science Foundation from 1990 to 2025, with funding amounts on the vertical axis and timeline indicators on the horizontal axis. The graph highlights funding trends over the years, with a specific emphasis on Biden’s term and this year (which is the lowest).

Here’s how Trump’s war on science is going. NSF funding is at the lowest level in decades. We’ll lose knowledge, generations of scientists, and US competitiveness.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

TED Partners with Academic Travel Abroad to Launch TED Branded Travel Program The initiative is designed to transform travel into an immersive, educational journey.

So proud of my sister launching this new partnership!
tinyurl.com/22694mp3

Judge rules Trump administration cannot carry out $11B in public health funding cuts It’s the second time a federal judge has sided with states in their legal battle to stop the Trump administration from slashing funds for public health initiatives.

Excellent news. Let's hope the cuts are permanently stopped.
tinyurl.com/y93ebcaf
@academyhealth.bsky.social
@nationalacademies.org
@apha.org

WELL DONE @AcademyHealth! We must challenge the disappearance of public data!!
academyhealth.org/blog/2025-05...

An excellent post from @aaronecarroll.bsky.social, CEO @academyhealth.bsky.social
"When we produce and communicate research, we embrace moral responsibility, not neutrality."
@aaas.org
@nationalacademies.org
@rasushrestha.bsky.social
@helenburstinmd.medsky.social
tinyurl.com/mtm5hm9w

Medicaid: CBO releases preliminary estimates of House Budget reductions

Proposal would lead to $912 billion in cuts over 10 yrs, $715 billion from health provisions. Proposal would raise uninsured by 13.7 million, including 8.6 million from new proposal
timothymcbride.substack.com/p/medicaid-c...

The Actual Math Behind DOGE’s Cuts If you thought Elon Musk was really trying to cut costs, you weren’t in on the joke.

"Cost reductions from laying off federal employees have been too small to show up in the data. This is not surprising, because even laying off one quarter of the 2.3 million federal civilian employees would shave off just 1 percent of federal spending"
tinyurl.com/34vd9bp7

Basic research advances science, and can also have broader impacts on modern society Basic research that doesn’t have a specific industrial or experimental application still adds value outside the lab by engaging people with exciting research.

So important that NSF uses "broader impacts" as a criterion for funding! Wish NIH did more of this.
@academyhealth.bsky.social
@aaas.org
@nationalacademies.org

tinyurl.com/67efftcp

24-hour vigil to save Medicaid takes over National Mall "This is a matter of life and death for millions of people," said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin.

At a 24-hour vigil to protect Medicaid on the National Mall in Washington, DC, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) was to the point: to protect democracy, Medicaid has to be protected, too.

Under Texas’ Abortion Ban, Where a Woman Lives Can Determine Her Risk of Developing Sepsis While the rates of dangerous infections spiked across the state after it banned abortion in 2021, women in Houston fared far worse than those in Dallas, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind ana...

NEW: The rate of sepsis in Houston surged 63% after Texas banned abortion.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where hospital leaders empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, it rose just 29%.

What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences A global study seeks insights into what helps people feel happy, healthy and satisfied – and what holds them back.

I had not heard of the 4 B's that
religious communities offer:
BELONGING: social support
BONDING: spiritual connection
BEHAVING: cultivation of character through religious practices n norms
BELIEVING: embracing hope, forgiveness n shared spiritual convictions.
tinyurl.com/yjece3sf

What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences A global study seeks insights into what helps people feel happy, healthy and satisfied – and what holds them back.

"...younger adults today face growing mental health challenges, financial insecurity and a loss of meaning that are disrupting the traditional U-shaped curve of well-being."
@theconversation.com
@academyhealth.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/yjece3sf

How Democrats and Republicans cite science: study reveals stark differences Democratic-led congressional committees and left-wing think tanks reference research papers more often than their right-wing counterparts.

"A statistical analysis revealed that congressional reports are now more likely to cite science papers than before. But, in every 2 yr congressional cycle, documents from committees under D control had a higher probability of citing research papers"
tinyurl.com/57w7vwt6
@academyhealth.bsky.social

Supporting medical science in the USA The pursuit of rigorous medical science is not compatible with capitulation to government demands aimed at weaponising and eroding science. On April 14, Edwin R Martin Jr, the Trump-appointed interim ...

Proud of @thelancet.bsky.social for this editorial:
"Science and medicine in the USA are being violently dismembered while the world watches."
tinyurl.com/3hh28s6j
@academyhealth.bsky.social
@aaas.org
@nationalacademies.org
@drsforamerica.bsky.social
@cmssmed.bsky.social
@jama.com