Tom Inglesby

If she’s given license to make decisions on vax and other pub health issues, provided budget to preserve CDC's public health programs, allowed to retain human capital, operations, scientific workforce CDC needs, I’ve no doubt she’ll be a very effective CDC leader during challenging time. /end

Has had roles at White House OSTP, National Sec Council, HSARPA, HRSA, most recently establishing the new ARPA-H as first Dep Director. She is good and fair to people, wants to make people's lives better. She is epitome of a senior public servant who doesn't do politics but gets things done. 2/x

Trump picks Susan Monarez to run the CDC Monarez is the CDC's acting director and a longtime biosecurity expert with ties to former President Biden’s flagship health initiative.

I have known Dr. Susan Monarez for many years, and she has always been committed to science, health, following the evidence where it leads, and doing the right thing. She trained in infectious diseases and has had many scientific and leadership jobs across the federal government. 1/x

In a fast moving epidemic, rapid tests are tools that can help people get the right treatment more quickly and help families stay healthier.

Destroying $500M worth of covid tests in the national stockpile would be a terrible waste of resources. They are an insurance policy against a resurgent new variant - of course we all hope that kind of variant doesn't occur, but why destroy tests that would be invaluable in that scenario. 1/x

Governance of high consequence risks is not only important for countries w/ leading edge biotech, its also big issue for low+middle income countries without these technologies. Because if things goes very wrong and epidemics/pandemics result, LMICs will disproportionately shoulder the impact. /end

For countries doing work in these fields, this kind of governance should become a commitment to responsibility and an expectation. 9/x

Few countries yet have rules that govern some of the greatest risks in biological science, e.g. governing the creation of novel strains of pathogens that could lead to pandemics, governing AIxbio pandemic risks, requiring genome synthesis screening. 8/x

We should do what we can to strengthen the norm against bioweapons development of use – BWC very important. WHO also key in providing recommendations and tech guidance to member states on how to prevent and prepare for biological events, whether they are deliberate or related to lab accidents. 7/x

Political leaders at Paris AI Summit were eager to drive frontier model AI forward asap, and did not much focus on biosecurity or biosafety – so the scientific and technical community working on these issues will need to develop potential solutions and then make the case back to policy leaders. 6/x

Convergence of AI and life sciences will bring great breakthroughs and scientific and medical transformations, and we can’t slow those down. But we do also have to protect against the greatest risks – esp. pandemic risks – that this convergence could spark
5/x

Policy officials aren’t very interested in talking about pandemics right now – many have moved on. But a new pandemic could occur without warning. It’s the job of tech community to keep making the case for preparedness to policy leaders. 4/x

H5N1 bird flu is very serious risk & influenza should be at top of pandemic concerns. But other viral families could spark pandemic too, as coronavirus family did w/ COVID. We need to be preparing med countermeasures, esp vaccine prototypes, across viral families posing greatest pandemic risks. 3/x

Great to be in dialogue w/ Mayesha Alam, @jaimeyassif.bsky.social and Andrew Hebbeler biosecurity challenges and potential solutions. A lot of constructive ground covered. Few of the points I worked to make in that session: 2/x

Protecting the World from Pathogens: Biosecurity in the Age of Transformational Tech This is "Protecting the World from Pathogens: Biosecurity in the Age of Transformational Tech" by Foreign Policy on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos…

At the just concluded Munich Sec Conference #MSC2025 @munsecconf.bsky.social, @foreignpolicy.com held an Emerging Threats Forum, and it was good to be part of the Forum’s session on Biosecurity in the Age of Transformational Tech. 1/x

Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders (Gift Article) A core group of so-called disease detectives, who track outbreaks, was apparently spared. But other young researchers are out of jobs.

Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders. Story by @sherylnyt.bsky.social Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/u...

This kind of indiscriminate firing of HHS employees is detrimental to the country and to the health of Americans and should stop and be reversed. /end

There will be less young talented people going into life sciences research in the country which help our peer competitor countries do better in science and technology over us, and so many more primary, secondary, tertiary negative consequences. 5/x

What this translates to in the long run is less new medicines to treat sick Americans, less committed people going into government so key government health services will degrade. 4/x

Will likely also result in the loss of major research projects in government and the country's research community, loss of nurses caring for patients at the NIH Clinical Center. 3/x

These could include the scientific officials handling new medicine approval, those in charge preparedness for major emergencies and outbreaks, and the loss of best new talent who had decided to come into government. 2/x

Here’s Where Trump’s Government Layoffs Are—As Firings At FAA Begin The Trump administration has laid off thousands amid cost-cutting efforts.

Mass firings of HHS employees across HHS, without even knowing what those employees contributed in the mission of their offices is likely to lead to loss of HHS functions that are important to the country. 1/x

EIS officers help to keep the public healthy and safer from diseases like bird flu. It would be the equivalent of firing the firefighters or the police officers in the nation's most respected training programs. This action should be reversed. / end

EIS officers are on front lines all around the country to stop epidemics from taking off and responding to them emergently when they happen. In cities and states, helping to strengthen responders. 2/x

Firing the whole new cadre of Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers is a serious mistake. Its considered the best disease detective training program in the world. 1/ x

Overall, though, there is a strong can-do attitude by so many at the MSC, and at a time when there are so many serious problems to contend with, the MSC mtg overall is a jolt of adrenaline aimed at finding new ways to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. /end

Announced plan for US to withdraw from @WHO would be major blow to system – there is some hope (which I share) that negotiations, commitments to reforms, changes to donor funding formulas et al could prevent it from happening. But very serious negative consequences if it goes forward. 9/x

And also the extraordinarily negative impact on programs that protect people’s health, inc. interruption of clinical trials for life saving vaccines and distribution of medicines, and how these reversals in aid will degrade countries' ability to detect & respond to health emergencies 8/x

There was very high concern about precipitous drop in foreign health and development aid, most acutely and precipitously from the US, but not only the US 7/x

There is some, but not yet enough, appreciation of the large biosecurity risks that AI’x convergence with biology may bring; the importance of gene synthesis screening still not widely enough appreciated. 6/x