Shonna McBride

With over 80 fried chicken restaurants in the ATL metro, we’ve got delicious, deep-fried projectiles at the ready. I’d love to see some wings spinning at them like crispy battered throwing stars. Extra points if you add spicy sauce.

Either that, or they'll fling fully dressed Chicago dogs and leave officers wheezing and teary from sport-pepper juice in their eyes

Anyone else having trouble logging into eRA Commons?

I guess I’ll be in my office a while. I should work on that paper..

Just to give the TL;DR on this one:

*The* main purpose of the EO is to move funding priorities and decisions away from experts and career professionals over to political appointees. With the ultimate power held by Vought / OMB.

FFS HHS.. FML

Pro-raw milk and anti-vaccination is the policy position of the US Department of Health and Human Services. WTF. WTAF. I can't. I'm sorry, I just can't.

"We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted..."

Words really don't mean anything anymore, do they?

The incompetence is staggering, the political motives, clear as day.

www.hhs.gov/press-room/h...

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775.
I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

RFK Jr. has just cancelled all HHS research projects on mRNA vaccines, announcing that HHS has ended $500 million in funding for them.

This is a man who just demanded randomized clinical trials for COVID19 vaccines, and now he’s refusing to fund them.

The reason you don't give ground on trans rights - beyond the simple morality of it being wrong to do so - is because you don't give ground on rights period, and if you're willing to let it slide for one marginalized group it means everyone else is just a matter of price

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premier techno-superpower may be over.

Thanks everyone, it’s been fun being a scientist in the US. 👋

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over.

😔😔

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Let's please keep the remaining staff at NIH, NSF, etc in our thoughts even as you lose sleep over your own lab and scientific career.

They are enduring pure chaos to try to hold the fort.

See snapshot from wapo.st/4feKKuu (gift 🔗) saying they are "barely holding it together"

The deadly risk of trying to reach food in Gaza An NPR journalist in Gaza describes his experience seeking food from a site run by private American contractors, facing Israeli military fire, crowds fighting for rations, and masked thieves.

. @npr.org is one of the only US national news organizations that still has a reporter inside Gaza, Anas Baba, and he keeps reporting even though he himself is starving. This piece is unbelievably powerful.
www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...

It has taken medical science 200 years to advance humans to the point where people are so healthy and living so long that they can deny that science and medicine is what got us here.

the one thing i genuinely did not anticipate from this administration was its vicious, know nothing hostility to any and everything that might even be adjacent to science and scientific research. they genuinely one to destroy the entirety of the nation’s research capacity. and for what, exactly?

💯

I pledge that I will not provide any service to Columbia University. I will not speak at conferences held at or organized by Columbia. I will not publish with Columbia publications or provide peer reviews for them. I will not provide outside tenure evaluations for Columbia departments. I will not contribute in any way to the institution until everyone who is responsible for this week’s shameful decision has resigned, retired, or been fired, and until Columbia repudiates their catastrophic choice.

I wonder if the Columbia leadership realizes (or cares) how much blowback there might be from *within* the academy.

This post, from a Cornell Law professor, is worth reading:

3d.laboratorium.net/2025-07-25-c...

Amid Fear of Retaliation, N.S.F. Workers Sign Letter of Dissent

"In the letter, the signatories warned that National Science Foundation grants now underwent a 'covert and ideologically driven secondary review process'...”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/s...

🧪 UPDATE: All 63 House appropriators will meet **this Thursday** about science funding levels.

They'll deliberate on the proposed multi-billion dollar cut to NSF's budget ($9.0B --> $7.0B).

If you think that's bad for our country, here's who to call: appropriations.house.gov/about/member...

Analysts report that cutting the NIH budget by 10% would prevent 30 additional new medications from coming to market in the next three decades.

Trump is proposing a 40% cut to the NIH budget. We could potentially lose hundreds of life-saving treatments.

Drawing of three scientists - from the NIH, EPA and NASA - standing together

This morning, NASA released the #VoyagerDeclaration. This afternoon, NIH #BethesdaDeclaration signers met w/ Jay Bhattacharya. Earlier, EPA staff were terminated for their act of resistance.

I made this in solidarity. @altnih4science.bsky.social @altnasa.bsky.social @alt-epa-workers.bsky.social

Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas As part of president’s shuttering of USAID, destruction of the contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000

The Trump regime has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad — it will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were intended for women in Africa, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

My quote of the day

A Video Quote

Medical miracles don't happen overnight. You have to invest in them. Our investments are in trouble.

(From Francis Collins on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, July 16, 2025)

Everyone, please repost this very important numbers. They could’ve lives.

😫

From a time when childhood vaccines were just a figment of imagination.

Row after row of baby headstones.

NIH director is replacing his top outside advisory board Some worry new members of the long-running Advisory Committee to the Director will mirror agency chief Jay Bhattacharya’s views

RFK Jr. and his toady Jay Bhattacharya have just dismantled the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, an outside group of advisors who provide guidance on a range of topics.

They will be likely be replaced with another layer of toadies. Toadies all the way down.