Marc Lipsitch

Sam Harris | #425 - Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic? Sam Harris speaks with Marc Lipsitch about pandemic preparedness.

Check out "Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?"- CCDD Director, @mlipsitch.bsky.social's conversation with Sam Harris, host of the Making Sense podcast. www.samharris.org/podcasts/mak...

Republicans, before you vote to close 1 of 4 nursing homes, can you update us on where those people will go?

Maybe call a few seniors in your state and go over plans for where they go next?

Or call the son whose dad has dementia and tell him how he can be a full-time caregiver?

Predicting antibody kinetics and duration of protection against SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination from sparse serological data Author summary Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has played a key role during the COVID-19 pandemic to lower transmission rates and reduce the number of severe cases. This is due to a vaccine-induced ris...

A new study by Julia Deichmann, @mlipsitch.bsky.social and collaborators at the Sheba Medical Center, Israel uses mathematical modeling to predict antibody kinetics and duration of protection against SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination using sparse serological data. Read it here at bit.ly/43XY9mK

Linkage-based ortholog refinement in bacterial pangenomes with CLARC Abstract. Bacterial genomes exhibit significant variation in gene content and sequence identity. Pangenome analyses explore this diversity by classifying g

New tool for pangenome analysis! CLARC refines bacterial gene clusters using functional annotation + linkage—not just sequence. New publication by @indragon.bsky.social & collaborators, advised by @mlipsitch.bsky.social & @billhanage.bsky.social. Read more at bit.ly/4ek0Y51

What it’s really like … to know I’m going to miss my Harvard graduation because of Trump’s travel ban Like many other international students I have had my educational dreams suspended without reason – and learned plenty about racism and resilience

Deeply affecting article by an @hsph.harvard.edu PhD student denied the opportunity to graduate due to blanket exclusion of Sierra Leone citizens by the US Government. A very particular example of pointless cruelty by the US Government. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

There is a link for non-NIH individuals to sign in support. Already several Nobelists and others have

Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE Support NIH Staff Now!

Remarkable open letter to the director from NIH staff on the health, financial,academic freedom, and other impacts of changes at the agency. www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

Denying Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on America

"The policy’s narrow-mindedness will make America small again.”

I am simply at a loss to express how stupid this is.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/b...

NIH cuts have doomed my research in Bangladesh — but US citizens will pay too - The Boston Globe Global partnerships have led to major scientific breakthroughs and saved millions of lives. Now, those collaborations are in jeopardy.

Great piece by @hsph.harvard.edu colleague Maitreyi Mazumdar about how NIH's evisceration of overseas research collaborations harm the US as well as the partner countries www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/29/o...

The C.D.C. Now Says Healthy Kids Don’t Need Covid Shots. Is That True?

Thanks Dani Blum @nytimes.com for breaking down the science on kids, pregnant people, and COVID shots www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/w...

Worth noting: we previously projected that if pregnant individuals been vaccinated at the same rate as age- and state-matched women, we would have averted 20% of maternal COVID-19 deaths (i.e., 8% of ALL maternal deaths) from March-November 2021.

doi.org/10.7326/ANNA...

US health agencies like CDC and NIH and FDA remain full of dedicated and exceptional scientists and health professionals doing the right thing for public health. But this example shows they can be overruled by an exceptionally unqualified secretary of HHS.

I'm fortunate to live in a state with a high-quality health department that provides information based on science. For those who don't I recommend Canadian www.canada.ca/en/public-he... or UK www.gov.uk/government/o... advice.

As the quality of health advice becomes more politicized and arbitrary, and less science-based Americans are going to have to turn to state health officials (some of them) or other countries for good advice.

The Department of Health and Human Services has a process for making and updating recommendations like this, using expert scientists and clinicians. RFK is deliberately putting Americans' health at risk and sidestepping good science for political reasons.

The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program was central in improving the evidence base for health policies and interventions, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central & Southern Asia - figure by @aasli.bsky.social.
Our preprint on the termination of the DHS Program: osf.io/preprints/so...

I'm a current Harvard graduate student and I found out today that I had my NSF GRFP terminated without notification. I was awarded this individual research fellowship before even choosing Harvard as my graduate school

Please consider a comment today if you are in the US. See the advice (shared from an email I received) in the follow-up posts below this one. Tomorrow is the deadline. This is an important part of scientific freedom in this country.

If thousands of scientists say that political interference with grants assessment is going to destroy the scientific integrity of federal grants, the agency will have to explain why the rule doesn’t do that (which it can’t because this is precisely why the new regulation is being instituted).

The agency must act in a rational way, providing reasons for not taking particular objections into account and justifying its proposal in ways that are legally acceptable.

By law, the proposing agency (in this case, the office of personnel management headed by Project 2025 coordinator Russell Vought) must take comments into account and respond to them, thereby forming a record that can be challenged in subsequent litigation.

Time Sensitive: Public comment on Schedule F (removing civil service protections for many federal employees INCLUDING THOSE WITH AUTHORITY OVER GRANTS) ends tomorrow. Notice is here: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/... . Comment here (green button) www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... .

A partial solution is to post preprints of everything (so far still free). But the junior scientists who lead much of this work need peer-reviewed publications (and sadly the name of the journal still matters way too much in evaluations) so this solves only part of the problem.

An easily overlooked consequence of research funding cancellations: completed research these days requires hundreds to several thousand dollars to be published due to publication fees from journals. Without support for these fees many pieces of scientific work will be near invisible.

If Justice Dept. Can’t Prosecute Trump’s Foes, It Will ‘Shame’ Them, Official Says

This is pure authoritarianism. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/u...

🎓 The GOP’s reconciliation bill is a direct hit on higher ed:
– $351B in cuts education & workforce programs
– eliminating subsidized student loans
– Taxes on scholarships & endowments
– & more.

ACE calls it a “full-out assault” on access to college. Read below ⬇️
www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pa...

Proposed cut to NIH for fiscal 2026- $18 billion

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Scientists are pushing to get their grants reinstated — and some are winning The grant termination letters say there are no appeals. Yet dozens of appeals have succeeded as biomedical researchers lobby and sue to restore funding.

Important public service reporting from @statnews.com on how people are getting their NIH grants reinstated www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/r...

Given that there are 435 voting members of Congress, I would have hoped for more than 25% of House members to support American innovation in science and technology. 112? That’s it? No one else wants answers?!?!