Morgan Philbin, PhD

Budget released today:
40% cut to NIH
50% cut to NSF
If enacted, this will destroy academic research in the United States. It will also have a major trickle down effect on the entire academic ecosystem

Trump DOJ: Providing Basic Sewer Services to Black People Is Actually “Illegal DEI” The Trump administration has nixed a 2023 settlement that was building modern sanitation infrastructure in Lowndes County, a predominantly Black county in Alabama.

there's a county in Alabama where Black people are literally getting sick because the government doesn't provide a working sewer system, and Trump's Justice Department is trying to keep it that way

apparently Black people with indoor plumbing is "illegal DEI"

ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

NYT home page: more prominent coverage for "7 Americans React to Sweeping Tariffs" and "A Sticky Miso Salmon Bowl for Busy Weeknights" than for "Anti-Trump Protests in All 50 States"

If "protests in all 50 states" wanted above-the-fold coverage in @nytimes.com, they should have been "seven random Americans" instead

I will never never forget living through the summer of '95 in Chicago during grad school with no AC. We slept on the cement floor in lab. So so many elderly folks died. Closing the LIHEAP program, which still has millions left to distribute is evil callous cruelty.

Fuck these eugenic assholes.

Your daily reminder that health, particularly women’s health, remains under attack from every angle in this country….

The PRAMS data are vital for shaping evidence based clinical care; their loss will lead to increases in morbidity and mortality. It’s absolutely unconscionable….

Everyone who works for PRAMS (the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System) at CDC was terminated today. That appears to be the end of a critical program which monitored infant and maternal health nationwide across pregnancy, childbirth & postpartum. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/prams...

The entire National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) team at SAMHSA was terminated today.

Do not listen to the platitudes of this administration when they say they care about drug overdose, addiction, mental health, or suicide.

HHS Re-Org: Implications for Public Health The HHS reorganization could create gaps in state, local, and tribal public health programs.

The HHS reorganizing--nice overview, including an org chart that suggests issues. E.g., "NIH is 1st & foremost a research agency...CDC is a public hlth agency...putting 'sci into action'... (M)oving key Centers out of (CDC)...thus removes the 'action' component, potentially resulting in gaps..." 🛟🧪😷

Who else is at SBM with us??

Mahmoud Khalil’s Detention Is a Trial Run The pro-Palestine student was arrested without due process for exercising his right to free speech. He will not be the last.

The detention of Mahmoud Khalil puts all Americans fundamental rights at risk. And if you can’t see that because you oppose his politics, well that’s exactly the reaction Trump and his cronies are counting on. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Scientists need to realize this list will grow. It used to be abortion and climate change. Staying quiet won’t keep your area off lists like this.

Bumper sticker "I bought this before Elon went crazy"

No you didn't. You just weren't paying attention.

-

Photo: Maddie McGarvey for the New York Times.

The Words Federal Agencies Are Removing From Their Sites Under Trump Federal agencies have issued guidance to employees on hundreds of terms to limit or avoid using. An analysis of government websites shows many of the same words being removed.

This list of words to avoid is terrifying, and obviously has zero scientific rationale (you can't even study mice w/o 'sex'..)

And the fact that the "Gulf of Mexico" is on the list next to DEI, BIPOC and LGBTQ shows just how asinine this whole endeavor is...

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Sitting on the sidelines won't save institutions, federal grants, or the people we need to be rallying behind with our science and advocacy.

Get out there and fight back, especially if you're an institution with money and power.

www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/03...

Pentagon Wipes Records of Famed WWII Plane 'Enola Gay,' Named After the Pilot's Mom, Because 'DEI Is Dead' A Defense Department purge of 'DEI' content has caused tens of thousands of photos and stories to be flagged for deletion, many of which have nothing to do with DEI. One image on the chopping block is...

While I have so many issues with what the Enola Gay did, I can def get behind it's new status as a queer icon 🏳️‍🌈...

(The pentagon wiped records of the Enola Gay because it ran afoul of Trump's BS gender ideology 🙄)

people.com/pentagon-wip...

Thanks to @ryanenos.bsky.social & Steven Levitsky for calling on Harvard to stand up for democracy. From Orban to Modi, authoritarians depend on the silence of academic institutions like ours. We need to speak up while we still can. There is no room for cowardice.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

I’m assuming that when Jeff Bezos says “personal liberties” he means abortion rights and gender identity, right??? Right???

Sharing a new @jama.com paper on substance use in homeless populations (see thread below).

As people who use drugs and experience homelessness become increasingly marginalized we need data like these to highlight relevant policy interventions vs criminalization.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return at a time when federal employees are being laid off

All of the inane Trump firings are horrific, and as somebody who grew up spending lots of time in nature and using it as a form of solace this hits particularly close to home 🌳🏕️

www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Our two papers on abortion bans and fertility/infant mortality are now out.

In 14 states w/ abortion bans, fertility increased 1.7% and infant mortality increased 6%.

Key takeaway is that these impacts were disproportionately felt among those w/ greatest structural disadvantages.

Links below.

Anyone Can Push Updates to the DOGE.gov Website "THESE 'EXPERTS' LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN."

One of the most important roles of the NSF is to support science and tech ecosystem in the US. This ecosystem drives basic science breakthroughs that industry can build on. It also supports the education of a skilled workforce so that actual tech firms don’t have to hire utter imbeciles like these.

Trump administration to fire thousands at health agencies The Trump administration is set to eliminate thousands of federal health care jobs Friday, targeting employees across agencies who were hired in the past one to two years.

BREAKING: StatNews reports that more than 5,000 HHS employees across NIH, CDC and other public health and research agencies will be fired this afternoon. www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/f...

BREAKING: NIH admits funding freeze is illegal, will resume issuing grants An internal memo issued February 12 was obtained by Popular Information.

Taking this as a definite win since I wasn't expecting something being illegal to actually stop anybody in this administration...

popular.info/p/breaking-n...

SOURCES: Clayton Kershaw, the longest-tenured Los Angeles Dodger, will be back for an 18th season.

He is just 32 strikeouts away from being the 20th pitcher in baseball history to record 3,000.

🔗 www.nytimes.com/athletic/612...

Kendrick Lamar has 22 Grammies and a damn Pulitzer if you don’t know who he is that’s a You problem

"Sure there's an American flag built literally from the backs of Black men, but I can't imagine what message Kendrick was trying to send." - white guy at the new york times, basically

Louisiana coerced unhoused people into an unheated warehouse – and paid $17.5m for it Dozens of New Orleanians were bused to a site with insufficient heating and blankets days before the city is to host the Super Bowl

In preparation for today’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, state police forced over 100 homeless men and women onto buses under threat of arrest, dumping them in an unheated warehouse. Tents destroyed, belongings lost. Press are barred from the warehouse.

The price tag for this cruelty? $17.5 million

AND IT’S ILLEGAL FOLKS: “None of the funds appropriated in this title may be used to modify or implement any change to the indirect cost rates applied to grants & contracts funded by the NIH w/o the prior approval of the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives & the Senate.” 1/