31 ms·

NIH hit with freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring

284 points by carbocation 2y ago

nothrowaways 2y ago
This seems more like a coup in developing countries as time goes by.
- andrewstuart2 2y ago
  If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. But it certainly looks like an authoritarian power transfer.
  - scarecrowbob 2y ago
    I am affected by this and I didn't vote for this. It's easy to say that "the American People" voted for this, but it's not correct to say that I am personally being affected by my bad choices. I think the elections were "fair", for what its worth- I just don't agree that "fairness" makes me blame-worthy when I face the consequences of other folks actions.
    - sour-taste 2y ago
      I 100% agree with what you said, but no one looks back and remembers the people who voted against Hitler, or says 'there were some good people in Nazi Germany'.
      - aaomidi 2y ago
        What is possible though is a form of actual resistance. There is nothing forcing us to just share a union so to speak.
        generalizations 2y ago
        States rights has been too closely associated in the popular mind with slavery and racism (via arguments over what the civil war was really about). It'll be tough to disassociate those enough to make a persuasive argument for secession.
        XorNot 2y ago
        At the point you actually want a secession movement people aren't worried about the optics of it. It's not happening because the actual cost of secession, civil war and everything else is staggering. These are one way, permanent changes where a large number of the agitators will not live to see the better world. It's compromise, carnage and collateral damage. Doing anything else is a better option 100% of the time. Nobody's going to hear "we're seceding because we're sick of dying from lack of healthcare" and think "ooh, I wonder if it's secretly about slavery?"
        generalizations 2y ago
        No, but the folks talking about it will be given labels like 'racist'...and that makes it a lot harder for them to gain traction.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      I agree with you completely, but this gets at a debate that's been going on since the ancient days about whether democracy is actually good or not. Whether a tyrant is elected by a fair majority or inherits the throne at best (or Divine Right of Kings, whatever) makes little difference IMHO. That said, while I have criticisms for democracy and do enjoy pointing out it's imperfections when people talk about democracy as some self-evident ideal, I do think it's probably the best system of government in a sea of less than ideal choices.
      - peterashford 2y ago
        I'd argue the problem lies less with democracy, more with the media. Democracy requires an informed populace. The success of populist politicians shows you don't have that
        rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
        I'd the cause is advertising-based business model of the media industry, then. Too few people pay for news these days. So the news aren't the product and we ended mis- and ill-informed.
        from-nibly 2y ago
        If it worked it would work. If having an informed populace is required for democracy to work then it doesn't work. Especially when you ask the question, "informed about what"?
        light_hue_1 2y ago
        I'm tired of hearing that people aren't informed. They were informed. Trump told them that science is crap, that tariffs are good, that we should punish immigrants, that he would pardon the jan 6th people, etc. This is what people voted for and what they wanted. Hate and retribution. When Democrats finally stop with this false narrative that if only people knew better, they'd vote for Democrats, maybe we'll start actually winning again.
        2y ago
    - grahamj 2y ago
      All eligible voters are collectively responsible for the outcome of the election. You can't be proud of democracy if you won't shoulder the blame when it renders poor outcomes.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        There's a difference between shouldering the burden of the outcome and the outcome indicating that you made bad choices.
        grahamj 2y ago
        I didn’t say burden and choices, I said blame and responsibility.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        Right… in response to someone talking about choices.
    - klipt 2y ago
      Elon Musk found that if you throw billions at getting our low propensity rural voters you can sway the election by enough percents.
      - Tostino 2y ago
        That's true, but man am I mad at the Democrats for entirely abandoning that demo for decades before. It lead to this situation.
    - refurb 2y ago
      You’re over complicating things. You are a willing participant in the political system. You agree to live by the results of the election, even if you don’t personally agree with them. You’re not personally responsible for the results, but you are a willing participant in the system that caused them.
      - scarecrowbob 2y ago
        "Willing" in what sense? What's my realistic alternative? Lay it on me. I didn't vote, for what it's worth. I don't think it's ethical to participate in that kind of thing. The US is 2 crimes and a real estate scam in a trench coat. When I was younger, I indeed thought that maybe it had some legitimacy, but after having read quite a lot of the history of the millions that the government here has enslaved and murdered I no longer thing it's legitimate. I understand that they have the guns and the power, but realistically I am not a willing participant in this system.
        refurb 2y ago
        > "Willing" in what sense? What's my realistic alternative? Lay it on me. Leave the country. I did it. > I didn't vote, for what it's worth. I don't think it's ethical to participate in that kind of thing. That's your choice. You have plenty of options. Get involved politically. Organize. Fund raise. Plenty of opportunity to affect the outcome. But you'd rather just complain about it online.
        scarecrowbob 2y ago
        Yeah, "just colonize somewhere else" is pretty much the response that I expected. I spent last night doing a shift till 4 in the morning at a warming center for folks who don't have houses, and I've spent the last several months working on taking an off grid chunk of property to a place where I can host full families of folks to "come and play music". None of that makes the US government one bit more legitimate.
        2y ago
  - nickff 2y ago
    Authoritarian power transfers usually involve (immediate) executions, or at least the imprisonment/exile of important people from the previous government/administration/regime, to stabilize the new regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Survival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Surviva...
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      Presumably authoritarian regimes only execute/imprison/exile dissidents if they think it's necessary to eliminate opposition. An authoritarian regime which does not think there's much of a threat to opposition probably wouldn't bother.
      - aaomidi 2y ago
        There is a huge cost in executions. Especially in places where they have not been super common place and super public.
      - jojobas 2y ago
        Serves to prove it's not an authoritarian regime? They know they won by not so much and are likely to lose next time, especially given Trump can't run anymore.
    - groby_b 2y ago
      TBF, we're only on day 2. (I am 90% certain it won't come to that, but there's a 10% queasiness left that hasn't been ameliorated by the haphazard approach untethered from legality that we've seen so far)
      - jayknight 2y ago
        "This guy is running around giving everyone pardons. The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-hannity-interview-biden-pardons-b2684659.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases. Maybe that's not out right execution, but Trump definitely wants revenge.
  - UncleOxidant 2y ago
    Unfortunately, a good chunk of people who voted for him really didn't pay much attention beyond him promising to lower prices. But this is the electorate we have - a lot of them just can't be bothered with much detail as attention spans are short these days.
    - travisporter 2y ago
      No they listened about TikTok
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        for 13 hours? I suppose we never specificied how long it had to be banned for.
    - stevenwoo 2y ago
      I listened to and watched a lot of interviews with people who voted for Trump. They just said he didn’t mean it whenever they were confronted with quotes from Trump that obviously disagreed with their views as evidenced by earlier questions in the interviews. Or take the many Muslims in Dearborn who still claim Trump is better than Harris would be on Israel/Palestine - they refuse to believe the evidence despite action days in,(or from trumps last term) it’s not possible to argue rationally with these people. Not only are they barely paying attention, they only see and hear what they want to.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - computerthings 2y ago
    If someone clicks on "click here to update your password" in a phishing email, are they choosing what actually happens, or what they thought would happen? Even if they should have known, and could have known, I think it's objectively true that they didn't.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      it depends on the advancement of society to be honest. I wouldn't blame someone getting scammed in 2000 over a "Hot sexy singles in your area, click now!". I would 100% blame them in 2020+. I don't know how far we've come in regards to email phishing to make a call on that.
      - computerthings 2y ago
        The claim I'm contradicting is that they knew full well, not that they should have known.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    *23% of American people voted for this.
    - linsomniac 2y ago
      I'd put that number closer to 67%: adding in the 90M eligible voters who, you know, didn't.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        How many of those 90M were in one of the few states where your vote matters?
        linsomniac 2y ago
        I dunno, probably similar to how many of the 75M that did vote. I'll still stand by the point though: 23% is an unreasonable number to throw out.
  - vcryan 2y ago
    Every 4 years, American voters get to choose between garbage and trash.
    - krapp 2y ago
      This constant false equivalence between parties is part of the reason we got here. The Democrats are terrible but somehow I doubt Kamala Harris would be doing this much damage two days in. I don't think people would be wondering whether Tim Walz actually did a Nazi salute at the inauguration. It can be the case that both parties are evil, and they are, but that America still chose the greater evil.
      - leesec 2y ago
        So many false equivalences and assumptions in these few sentences alone lol. Why don't we wait at least a few months before deciding if their actions are evil or not.
        krapp 2y ago
        Why are we suddenly pretending that Trump is an unknown quantity? We know what he's about, and we know what his agenda is. It was literally published to the public with bullet points and everything.
  - sundaeofshock 2y ago
    Trump spent a huge amount of his time during the election disavowing Project 2025. Did people vote for a change in government? Yes, but they didn’t vote for this this theocratic authoritarian bullshit.
    - wstrange 2y ago
      You are telling me Trump lied? Shocked...
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        You'd think he'd do that? Go on the ~~internet~~ podium and tell lies? nevermind he never had a plan for any of the issues people voted for him on. A still vague plan on fixing inflation (spoilers: he cannot do as much to fix inflation as many think), still rough numbers on what these tarriffs are supposed to do. What else did conservatives think he was going to do... ----- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyg5jdgzy1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyg5jdgzy1o ‘You want to come to America? Earn it, like I did’ well he is indeed hastening the deportation... nevermind conservatives with undocumented workers only lose from this and don't want to pay americans minimum wage. Well done. 'He invokes fear in the rest of the world’ Yeah, I guess pissing off all our friends and getting cozy with China/Russia will invoke fear. Hey, Maybe Trump is more honest than I thought. Of course, when it comes to making lives worse for the world.
    - frob 2y ago
      If you believed his disavowl, I've got a bridge... fuck it. Just give me your bank account number and I promise there will be $47 million in it tomorrow morning.
    - krapp 2y ago
      Trump has been pushing theocratic authoritarian bullshit for nearly a decade. It's what Trumpism is known for. It's what his supporters are known to support. We're not doing this historical revisionism now. This is exactly what people voted for.
    - a12k 2y ago
  - swatcoder 2y ago
    > If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. No, if you trust the election results, it's a legitimate election by defined process and there are no grounds to contest it. But "The American people voted for this" is a distinct, strong, affirmative statement that doesn't hold. The people that voted for this are the people that voted for it, and even among the people who voted for the incoming administration (who only represent a third or so of eligible American voters and an even smaller share of American people), this isn't what many of them were voting for.
    - vkou 2y ago
      If this isn't what they were voting for, what did they think they were voting for? Did none of them believe that he would actually do the crazy shit he said he would? Did none of them pay attention to the insanity of his first term? I have a simpler explanation: they all know what they were voting for, and none of them give a shit. It's the same as the mob cheering and applauding the sieg heil on Monday. They know it's deplorable and unamerican and they don't care. Because the only thing that matters is that their boy will stick it to the enemy.
      - sudosysgen 2y ago
        Given the binary choice, much if the American people simply didn't vote. You can't present a false dichitomoty, and then act as if any downstream choice is full approval.
        vkou 2y ago
        They always had the choice of not voting. The people who voted for this actively engaged and endorsed it. It strains credulity for them to claim ignorance.
        sudosysgen 2y ago
        Plenty of Americans chose not to vote, many others did mainly out of massive social pressure.
  - paxys 2y ago
    Looking at history authoritarian power transfers usually start with a vote, or at least wide spread public support.
  - fpgaminer 2y ago
    It doesn't look like, it is. e.g. violent coup and Nazi salutes during inauguration. Are people expecting the rise of authoritarianism to look different or something? This is the exact same fascist playbook that's been run every time. I really thought WW2 would have taught humanity as a whole the lesson but apparently not.
    - theGnuMe 2y ago
      I think we as a society forget once the previous generation is gone.
  - derbOac 2y ago
    Americans also voted for their US Senators and Representatives. It's funny how these discussions forget about that, which is part of the problem. It's also worth remembering how the Trump campaign consistently denied Project 2025, and ridiculed those who suggested it was their agenda. Maybe it won't go there but so far it seems to be headed in that direction, and if so actively lying about your agenda raises questions about exactly what the American electorate was voting for.
  - NelsonMinar 2y ago
    It's a stretch to say the American people voted for gutting our health research capabilities.
    - krapp 2y ago
      I take it you haven't encountered the contempt that Trump supporters have for "mainstream science," particularly anything to do with biomedicine? Not even remotely a stretch. Ever since COVID they view those "health research capabilities" in the same way everyone else views the experimentation of Joseph Goebbels and Unit 731. Most of them still think Biden and Fauci cooked it up in a lab.
  - pstuart 2y ago
    I'm not so sure about them. https://old.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/ https://old.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/
  - tzs 2y ago
    Trump got 49.8% of the vote. 50.2% went to other candidates (48.32% Harris, 0.56% Stein, 0.49% Kennedy, 0.42% Chase, 0.42% others). If anyone is curious, here are the Presidents since the 19th century who got at least 50% of the vote: Biden Obama (both terms) Second Bush (second term) First Bush Reagan (both terms) Carter Nixon (second term) Johnson Eisenhower (both terms) Second Roosevelt (all four terms) Hoover Coolidge Harding Taft First Roosevelt McKinley The lowest since 1900 is Wilson's first term at 41.8%, followed by Clinton's first term at 43%, Nixon's first term at 43.4%, and Trump's first term at 46%. You might think that Wilson at 41.8% must have lost the popular vote but actually he beat the person with the second highest popular vote total by over 14%. That was back when the US had more than two viable parties. The vote went 41.84% to Wilson (Democrat), 27.4% to Teddy Roosevelt (Progressive), 23.17% to the incumbent Taft (Republican), 5.99% to Debs (Socialist), and the rest to a few others. Similar with Clinton's 43%. That was about 5% more than second place. That year Ross Perot running as an independent got 18.91%. Same with Nixon. His 43.42% was the biggest slice of the popular vote, followed by Humphrey at 42.72%. George Wallace running for the American Independent party got 13.53%.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    The media has been sane washing Trump for the last 9 years. If Trump had been treated like the joke he has always been he wouldn't have been elected.
- whyenot 2y ago
  I keep on thinking maybe it's time to move somewhere else. I'm a first generation American, so I'd just be doing what my parents did before me. The problem is, I have no idea what country I would move to.
  - phkahler 2y ago
    Hang in there, this is a long overdue correction. It's gonna over correct a bit, but then things should be better than before. The rhetoric of Trump being a dictator is way overblown. If this didn't happen we'd be heading toward bankruptcy around the time your kids grow up.
    - thefreeman 2y ago
      right. because he did so much to reduce the deficit last time.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        yup, loves nothing more than to reduce the deficit /s people are tragically funny these days I swear
      - phkahler 2y ago
        Because covid? Congress wanted to pass a covid relief bill sending $700B to corporations. Trump said to get the money to the people so they increased it to do so. Biden happily kept the budget way overblown even though covid was essentially over. Neither party has addressed the budget in decades. One wants to spend more and the other wants to cut taxes. Neither fixes anything.
        kacesensitive 2y ago
        The deficit was increasing from 2017, long before covid.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        so.. how does this make things better long term if you just said neither side fixes anything?
- bitlax 2y ago
  Except it's not a coup and it's not a developing country but ok. Drink some water.
  - austinjp 2y ago
    It is most assuredly a coup. It just took a few years rather than a few days.
  - grahamj 2y ago
    It's not developing anymore, that's for sure. Now it's devolving.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    "just business as usual". i guess after you work hard to normalize these interventions on the thrid world, it becomes second nature here too.
- generalizations 2y ago
  Remember what happened to Trump after his first term. He's extremely invested in making sure that he won't be raided/arrested/etc again at the end of this term. The power structures that tried that the first time won't be here in 4 years...his personal freedom depends on it.
  - sebazzz 2y ago
    If he is still around. He is older than when Biden started at his term.
WesternWind 2y ago
Pretty sure a bunch of statistics that might be used to argue against Republican talking points are going to disappear or not be updated. Maybe they won't even get to be collected. It's a lot easier to lie if you prevent scientists and health care professionals from undercutting you with inconvenient truths. As someone who has worked in public health and epidemiology, this kind of open ended restriction is extremely concerning. Also appears to undercut the whole free speech thing that President Trump supposedly supports, and that the constitution provides for in the first amendment.
- duxup 2y ago
  Free speech, states rights, government accountability, any serious sense of libertarianism and so on are all with the caveat of “if I like it” as far as the current Republican Party is concerned.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  > Also appears to undercut the whole free speech thing that President Trump supposedly supports Saying he supports "free speech" and actually doing it are two different things. In reality he supports speech that supports his preferred narrative of reality and opposes speech that doesn't.
- 762236 2y ago
  If you've worked as a scientist, why not gather evidence before jumping to conclusions? For example, you could inquire of the administration why they did this. They're actually putting in quite an effort at transparency.
  - ayakang31415 2y ago
    Because for some people, this is not a scientific peer-reviewed discussion, but rather typical conversation normal people have over dinner table with gut feelings and limited information. Just assume that "I believe", "in my opinion", "AFAIK" are implied for statements like above.
  - WesternWind 2y ago
duxup 2y ago
> Another consequence of the communications pause, according to an NIH staffer involved with clinical trials at NIH's Clinical Center, is that agency staff cannot meet with patient groups or release newsletters or other information to recruit patients into trials. Another unknown is whether NIH researchers will still be allowed to submit papers to peer-reviewed journals. That seems unnecessary at best.
- arcticbull 2y ago
  None of this is necessary, that's the point.
  - crooked-v 2y ago
    Or to put it another way, "The cruelty is the point."
    - doomroot13 2y ago
      I think arcticbull is saying NIH is not necessary, essentially in favor of the freezes.
      - arcticbull 2y ago
        I am not in favor of shuttering one of the agencies responsible for public health, although I can see why my comment could be read either way. If you believe in reform there are compassionate ways to do it.
        tptacek 2y ago
        CDC probably does more public health? The work NIH funds through its grant process is not broadly "public health"; it's virtually all American biotechnology research and bio/biochem basic research. Public health deals with the interface of health knowledge and public policy and communication; people credentialed in public health are not, generally, practicing scientists as we'd think about them. NIH grant researchers, on the other hand, are wearing white lab coats and working with fume hoods.
timzaman 2y ago
[flagged]
- duxup 2y ago
  Read the whole article.
- willmarch 2y ago
  [dead]
- chasd00 2y ago
  I just listened to an NPR newscast where they were clutching at their pearls and then whispered “this is common when a new administration comes in” and then went right back to screeching. Not looking forward to 4 years of this.
  - calgarymicro 2y ago
    This is common? Did the Biden admin halt all communications, grants, travel, etc.? NPR posts transcripts of their programs, do you have a link so I can see what they said?
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Some parts are usual, but the article notes how extreme other parts are, and how unprecedented and suddent a few others are. So little of A, a lot of B.
rUsHeYaFuBu 2y ago
> Even more troubling to many researchers is a pause on study sections that many received word of today. Without such meetings, NIH cannot make research awards. Cancer and many other topics of research will be hurt by this.
- peppertree 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - duderific 2y ago
      I don't know if they are more competent now. There are just fewer people willing to push back, and few to no guardrails in place for when the leader doesn't adhere to the usual governmental and ethical norms.
      - Jerrrry 2y ago
        [flagged]
        rUsHeYaFuBu 2y ago
        Nonplussed here. In what way is normality returning to the social order? Or are you pegging the 'normal' social order to some particular time in the past?
        Jerrrry 2y ago
        [flagged]
        krapp 2y ago
londons_explore 2y ago
The overarching goal seems to be "Achieve more, more efficiently, with fewer resources". But making that happen when there are 20+ levels of management between the guy doing the work and the guy making the rules seems impossible.
- phkahler 2y ago
  So cut 15 levels of management. Budget cuts to match. Carry on.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    As long as they're not fucking up the NIH grantmaking process, I (ruthlessly) don't care, and am not going to allocate attention to it. But once they do start fucking up grants, they're throwing a monkeywrench in basically all American therapeutic research and basic science, which is a big problem, since one of the government's primary missions should be to set in motion whatever things will end human cancer.
    - jghn 2y ago
      My understanding is that study sections have been cancelled and that is a key part of the grant review process.
    - dekhn 2y ago
      The impact of these travel restrictions is to cancel/delay grant review meetings, which could plausible "fuck up the NIH grantmaking process". However, grant review can really be done remotely. And there are many other embedded inefficiencies in granting. For example, when my PI and I applied for an R01 (the basic individual investigator grant that is core to funding early investigators) we had to print a 500 page application which contained duplicate data, full CVs, pages and pages of boilerplate, and fedex it to NIH where it sits in a room with all the other applications (it's been 20 years; maybe this doesn't happen anymore?). The review committees instead get a digital copy and the grant meeting itself is really just a bunch of people sitting in a circle making yes/no decisions.
frob 2y ago
[flagged]
- nothrowaways 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Johanx64 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dylan604 2y ago
    I reject the premise of your entire comment. Of course they can hide actual scientific data and replace it with their own version. They will tell anyone and everyone over and over that their version is the truth and people will believe it as such. They will also believe that anyone trying to dispute it is wrong and vilify them. This has already happened in 1.0, and plenty of other examples of it from history. But one would have to crack open a history book to know about that, and the populace is trending to banning books rather than opening them.
    - p_ing 2y ago
      > Of course they can hide actual scientific data and replace it with their own version. They'll just break out the magic markers on all the dis-favorable weather reports.
      - voganmother42 2y ago
        After a few sips of bleach things tend to get blurry
    - Johanx64 2y ago
      Well, you see laws of physics and periodic table doesn't swap out every time there's a change in administration. Neither are field effect transistors swapped out for vacuum-tubes with a different ruling party. That makes a pretty good first order approximation of what is and isn't scientific, and worth spending taxpayer dollar on. Science isn't prescriptive (doesn't tell you what to do), it's descriptive. Prescriptions are policy and have nothing to do with science.
tptacek 2y ago
Here's a really excellent piece on the guts of how NIH's processes work: https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/distinguishing-real-from-invented https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/distinguishing-real-...
chevman 2y ago
For anyone that's been in corp/BigCo land for some time, this is the typical corp reboot playbook. Pause all hiring, freeze travel and other casual expenditures, relook at all major initiatives/projects/programs, etc. Definitely something (IMHO) worth doing every 5-7 years in any environment. Can't imagine what it will uncover in government where I'm guessing it hasn't happened in much longer in most cases.
- ross23 2y ago
  While I agree with the sentiment that continual evaluation of how any organization operates is a good thing, there is an extensive corpus of studies on the fallacies of treating the management of public services like private business. There is a good reason why there isn’t much (successful) precedent around this type of thing being done before.
  - txomon 2y ago
    I would argue with that looking at Argentina. I do see however there is not enough data to be biased against any side, but disruptive changes in management are in my perception more effective on changing the status quo. Achieving change against current incentives with politically mindful measures I'd say is very time consuming and slow. In regards to your point I agree that treating public services as companies that can't be running at a loss is been demonstrated to be bad, but there is a fine line between trying to make public services profitable VS trying to make them more efficient.
    - shigawire 2y ago
      Using Argentina as an example is wild. They have a pretty singular situation.
- travisporter 2y ago
  Agree with pausing hiring and causal expenditures. Why block external communication? What does that do
- lanstin 2y ago
dekhn 2y ago
Some of these changes, if continued and expanded, will likely have long-term negative effects on the US's position in science. I have my issues with NIH but to fix NIH requires subtlety. This seems more designed to "punish those liberal researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_sp...
- whyenot 2y ago
  This is surgery with a butter knife. It's going to cause a lot of unnecessary disruption and pain which could have been avoided with a more nuanced approach. What we are seeing with this and some of the new administration's other initiatives, is the abandonment of US soft power in the world.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    Huh, I like the way you phrased that: "abandonment of US soft power in the world". But I think there is also punitive aspect: they are intentionally "punishing" the people at NIH they perceive as being liberal and favoring other countries.
    - tired_and_awake 2y ago
      It's a good point. There is a target on the back of scientists who do research that is perceived as social science but is infact biology. Seems like they then construct myths of waste/corruption (just read this thread) and punish everyone.
    - gunian 2y ago
      the purge is real :)
  - grahamj 2y ago
    Even if these idiots wanted subtlety they're too stupid to make it happen. They just want to do big, bold things but have no idea how to actually make anything better.
guelo 2y ago
It's scary to think that Trump seems to actually believe right wing media's black and white propaganda. The end point of this kind of anti-intellectual, anti-urban movement is something like Pol Pot's killing fields.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
  Doesn't it seem a tiny wee bit like a hyperbole?
  - guelo 2y ago
    Probably. But this political movement won't stop with this term. 2016 Trump was more moderate than today's Trump. The next time the movement is stopped it will come back even more ferociously, especially since the movement is fed constant propaganda about being aggrieved and revenge fantasies.
    - riiii 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - tclancy 2y ago
    Dunno. Wasn’t there for the ramp up.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    What I think we're re-discovering is that it's not so straightforward to tell while it's happening. I'm willing to bet during the rise of people like Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. many people were concerned, and many others were saying it was nothing and they were just being hyperbolic. However, it was the same with times when it didn't turn out like that. What concerns me most about this, is the general attitude of entirely dehumanizing specific groups of people. That, I expect, is the crux that makes atrocities possible, and it is happening now.
    - shigawire 2y ago
tired_and_awake 2y ago
174 scientists either at the NIH or funded by the NIH have won the Nobel prize. https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/nobel-laureates https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/nobel-l... Odds are if you or someone you know has been treated with ... Any kind of modern medicine ... You have personally been impacted by NIH. That ignores the epidemiological knock on effects that we all benefit from oh and the whole "understanding of biological systems". But screw it, they need to get in line with the party.
- dekhn 2y ago
  NIH also played a big role in the creation of biotech industry (funding much of the basic research that set the foundation for amazing medical treatments). I guess we'll have to depend more on the largesse of billionaires.
  - chii 2y ago
    > funding much of the basic research it's unfortunate that these funding don't actually bring in profits with which to maintain and continue future funding. It's why i somewhat dislike the publicly funded research model, because the commercialization of basic research is what leads to profit in the future, and this part is poorly done by gov'ts (or very well done by private parties looking to profit off public research). I say that to change the system, these basic research should have IP associated with it, by which if companies use it, they pay a royalty after they achieve profit of $X (where X can be decided based on the research itself). It's obvious that taxes aren't sufficient.
    - dekhn 2y ago
      NIH-funded research generates IP owned by the university that contracted with the NIH to do the work. This is due to Bayh-Dole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act).
    - kmos17 2y ago
      Not everything needs to be profit generating, government funded research is how we get breakthroughs with very wide ranging benefits, especially when we are talking about advances in medicine. Profit making will often have the opposite effect by incentivizing the protection of existing monopolies, fake innovations to protect patentable revenue streams, and anti competitive regulatory capture.
deleted 2y ago
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renewiltord 2y ago
The travel part makes sense to me: as HN is pro-remote-work they should understand that these researchers can simply make their presentations via tele-attendance. The rest of the "refrain from releasing anything until a Presidential appointee can look at it first" seems very commissar-like. The HHS screwed the pooch on COVID, making a lot of nonsensical claims that ruined the reputation of public health in the population's eyes. I still don't like the idea of the Commissar reviewing every paper on bird-flu (our newest epidemic) but I can see the motivation.
- PaulKeeble 2y ago
  In medical research there is an awful lot of tissue, blood and other samples that go into the NIH's work. They run numerous labs and biobanks and a part of what they do is transit samples and the personal and sometimes equipment to various labs across the country.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Certainly, and in Silicon Valley there is hardware, semiconductors, and other tangible items that go into work. But clearly that's not what we're discussing since the article says: > Today, the scientist encountered one group of early-career researchers who were scheduled to attend and present at a distant conference next week—presentations that are now impossible. What's the big deal? Present via Zoom. We should probably cancel all conference travel.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  The actual presentations are usually the least important part of a conference. Most conferences would be better if you could cancel 80% of the program but still convince the same people to attend (and their employers to pay). Then there would be more time for informal discussions and ad hoc work, which often lead to new ideas and new collaborations.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    I have heard on HN that ideation and collaboration does not decrease if everyone works remote.
aliasxneo 2y ago
Why do most people in this thread assume this move intends to politicalize the NIH? I don't think the administration thoroughly thought out the consequences of this decision, but that's a typical government move. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  > Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. This quote does not apply in a place where the actor has specifically promised to be malicious. Now, you may not see their promises as malicious and that is your prerogative. But that quote isn’t applicable for a ton of people when it comes to Trump.
  - aliasxneo 2y ago
    I would have to disagree with the criteria. More times than not, I've seen people who have promised maliciousness (AKA bullies) make really stupid decisions. It seems to go hand-in-hand in a lot of cases. Either way, this seems like a political flip-flop, with the opposing party now putting on the tin hats. That's just the way it looks to me as an independent.
    - p_j_w 2y ago
      How is it putting on a tin foil hat to call someone out for being malicious when they've promised to be malicious?
      - aliasxneo 2y ago
        My original comment was regarding the claim that this is being done to politicize the NIH. To me, it requires the same tin hat that conservatives put on when they were making all sorts of crazy assumptions about the government's moves during Covid. I never said you had to put on a tin foil hat to call someone malicious. I'm just saying that malicious people tend to do stupid things which have unintended consequences they didn't fully realize.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
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every 2y ago
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travisporter 2y ago
My issue is more with the CDC. Are there state institutions that can take up the slack locally? Asking for a friend with kids who wants to move to a place with a lower risk of getting measles
- 11101010001100 2y ago
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schmookeeg 2y ago
I assume the NIH was singled out as some sort of vengeance for the CV19 response? Hopefully they'll restore some semblance of order after the pound of flesh is theatrically exacted.
- ericd 2y ago
  Sounds like it's happening in at least some other parts of the government, too. This order seems to have paused disbursement of even some already-committed funding: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unle... "Sec. 7. Terminating the Green New Deal. (a) All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, and shall review their processes, policies, and programs for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursements of such appropriated funds for consistency with the law and the policy outlined in section 2 of this order. Within 90 days of the date of this order, all agency heads shall submit a report to the Director of the NEC and Director of OMB that details the findings of this review, including recommendations to enhance their alignment with the policy set forth in section 2. No funds identified in this subsection (a) shall be disbursed by a given agency until the Director of OMB and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy have determined that such disbursements are consistent with any review recommendations they have chosen to adopt."
Dove 2y ago
Calm down, guys. It's transitional, and it's not unusual. From the article: > The hiring freeze is governmentwide, whereas a pause on communications and travel appears to be limited to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency. Such pauses are not unprecedented when a new administration comes in. But some NIH staff suggested these measures, which include pulling job ads and rescinding offers, are more extreme than any previously. ... > Previous administrations have imposed communications pauses in their first days. And the administration of Barack Obama continued a cap on attendance at scientific meetings first imposed by the George W. Bush administration, which in some cases meant staff canceled trips to meetings. > But an immediate, blanket ban on travel is unusual, says one longtime researcher in NIH's intramural program. “I don't think we've ever had this and it's pretty devastating for a postdoc or graduate student who needs to present their work and network to move ahead in their career,” the researcher says. This is not an extraordinary event. It is not an attack on the NIH. It is a transitional pause, which is substantially normal when administrations change hands. The wailing and moaning is silly. Give it a week.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >But some NIH staff suggested these measures, which include pulling job ads and rescinding offers, are more extreme than any previously. > halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting. > “People are just at a loss because they also don’t know what’s coming next. I have never seen this level of confusion and concern in people that are extremely dedicated to their mission,” the scientist says. >But an immediate, blanket ban on travel is unusual, says one longtime researcher in NIH's intramural program. “I don't think we've ever had this and it's pretty devastating for a postdoc or graduate student” who needs to present their work and network to move ahead in their career, the researcher says. "Usual" but overly extreme. Seems to fit 2025.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  FWIW, I was around (i.e. working on NIH funded grants) for the last transition, and I don't remember this happening. I agree and hope that it might not be an ominous sign, but I don't think it's the norm. We're being asked to pull out of not only conferences, but even out of cross-organizational Zoom chats that involve certain institutions. Where I work, the people who've been doing this longer than me are not saying "relax everybody, this is fine," they seem to be freaking out a little bit too.
kazinator 2y ago
I can fix it: s/NIH/DOD/ :)
sega_sai 2y ago
I am waiting to see what will happen with NASA, NSF... Obviously it's less important than health, but still thousands of people, lives.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  if musk et al cannot fill all the positions they have open with people leaving NIH, be sure NASA is certainly next.
deleted 2y ago
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aksss 2y ago
> "The hiring freeze is governmentwide, whereas a pause on communications and travel appears to be limited to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency. Such pauses are not unprecedented when a new administration comes in."
trhway 2y ago
My guess is what happening is influenced by and patterned after the Musk's Twitter initial period - getting rid of what Musk didn't like from the start, review and cuts/layoffs of what didn't pass the review. With all the due respect to the science having been done at/with NIH, one can suspect that the bureaucracy there is out of control similar to what we see at academia. The huge sign that the things got really rotten is that NIH couldn't own its work in Wuhan on the coronavirus, and that Fauci needed preemptive pardon. So some dead tissue debriding seems to be in order.
- silexia 2y ago
  The government grows like a cancer as it has no mechanism like bankruptcy to remove dead wood. Agencies start out with a mission, then turn into a business, and finally become a con job. Most agencies are deep into the corrupt territory at this point.
fungiblecog 2y ago
The USSR wasn't doomed by communism per se. it was doomed by prioritising ideology and politics over any other considerations. The US is now in the same doom-spiral.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Kinda telling the NIH to mask up HHS suspended their association with the Eco health Alliance, so I'm not sure what vector is of worry. https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-formally-debars-ecohealth-alliance-dr-peter-daszak-after-covid-select-reveals-pandemic-era-wrongdoing/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-formally-de... https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-says-grantee-failed-report-experiment-wuhan-created-bat-virus-made-mice-sicker https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-says-grantee-fai...
nojvek 2y ago
Likely many folks who depend on funding from NIH voted for Trump. Feel sorry for those who didn’t vote for him. No sympathy for those who did.
- sandinmyjoints 2y ago
  Can you be more specific -- who are you thinking of?

284 points by carbocation 2y ago

nothrowaways 2y ago

This seems more like a coup in developing countries as time goes by.

andrewstuart2 2y ago
If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. But it certainly looks like an authoritarian power transfer.
- scarecrowbob 2y ago
  I am affected by this and I didn't vote for this. It's easy to say that "the American People" voted for this, but it's not correct to say that I am personally being affected by my bad choices. I think the elections were "fair", for what its worth- I just don't agree that "fairness" makes me blame-worthy when I face the consequences of other folks actions.
  - sour-taste 2y ago
    I 100% agree with what you said, but no one looks back and remembers the people who voted against Hitler, or says 'there were some good people in Nazi Germany'.
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      What is possible though is a form of actual resistance. There is nothing forcing us to just share a union so to speak.
      - generalizations 2y ago
        States rights has been too closely associated in the popular mind with slavery and racism (via arguments over what the civil war was really about). It'll be tough to disassociate those enough to make a persuasive argument for secession.
        XorNot 2y ago
        At the point you actually want a secession movement people aren't worried about the optics of it. It's not happening because the actual cost of secession, civil war and everything else is staggering. These are one way, permanent changes where a large number of the agitators will not live to see the better world. It's compromise, carnage and collateral damage. Doing anything else is a better option 100% of the time. Nobody's going to hear "we're seceding because we're sick of dying from lack of healthcare" and think "ooh, I wonder if it's secretly about slavery?"
        generalizations 2y ago
        No, but the folks talking about it will be given labels like 'racist'...and that makes it a lot harder for them to gain traction.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    I agree with you completely, but this gets at a debate that's been going on since the ancient days about whether democracy is actually good or not. Whether a tyrant is elected by a fair majority or inherits the throne at best (or Divine Right of Kings, whatever) makes little difference IMHO. That said, while I have criticisms for democracy and do enjoy pointing out it's imperfections when people talk about democracy as some self-evident ideal, I do think it's probably the best system of government in a sea of less than ideal choices.
    - peterashford 2y ago
      I'd argue the problem lies less with democracy, more with the media. Democracy requires an informed populace. The success of populist politicians shows you don't have that
      - rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
        I'd the cause is advertising-based business model of the media industry, then. Too few people pay for news these days. So the news aren't the product and we ended mis- and ill-informed.
      - from-nibly 2y ago
        If it worked it would work. If having an informed populace is required for democracy to work then it doesn't work. Especially when you ask the question, "informed about what"?
      - light_hue_1 2y ago
        I'm tired of hearing that people aren't informed. They were informed. Trump told them that science is crap, that tariffs are good, that we should punish immigrants, that he would pardon the jan 6th people, etc. This is what people voted for and what they wanted. Hate and retribution. When Democrats finally stop with this false narrative that if only people knew better, they'd vote for Democrats, maybe we'll start actually winning again.
        2y ago
  - grahamj 2y ago
    All eligible voters are collectively responsible for the outcome of the election. You can't be proud of democracy if you won't shoulder the blame when it renders poor outcomes.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      There's a difference between shouldering the burden of the outcome and the outcome indicating that you made bad choices.
      - grahamj 2y ago
        I didn’t say burden and choices, I said blame and responsibility.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        Right… in response to someone talking about choices.
  - klipt 2y ago
    Elon Musk found that if you throw billions at getting our low propensity rural voters you can sway the election by enough percents.
    - Tostino 2y ago
      That's true, but man am I mad at the Democrats for entirely abandoning that demo for decades before. It lead to this situation.
  - refurb 2y ago
    You’re over complicating things. You are a willing participant in the political system. You agree to live by the results of the election, even if you don’t personally agree with them. You’re not personally responsible for the results, but you are a willing participant in the system that caused them.
    - scarecrowbob 2y ago
      "Willing" in what sense? What's my realistic alternative? Lay it on me. I didn't vote, for what it's worth. I don't think it's ethical to participate in that kind of thing. The US is 2 crimes and a real estate scam in a trench coat. When I was younger, I indeed thought that maybe it had some legitimacy, but after having read quite a lot of the history of the millions that the government here has enslaved and murdered I no longer thing it's legitimate. I understand that they have the guns and the power, but realistically I am not a willing participant in this system.
      - refurb 2y ago
        > "Willing" in what sense? What's my realistic alternative? Lay it on me. Leave the country. I did it. > I didn't vote, for what it's worth. I don't think it's ethical to participate in that kind of thing. That's your choice. You have plenty of options. Get involved politically. Organize. Fund raise. Plenty of opportunity to affect the outcome. But you'd rather just complain about it online.
        scarecrowbob 2y ago
        Yeah, "just colonize somewhere else" is pretty much the response that I expected. I spent last night doing a shift till 4 in the morning at a warming center for folks who don't have houses, and I've spent the last several months working on taking an off grid chunk of property to a place where I can host full families of folks to "come and play music". None of that makes the US government one bit more legitimate.
        2y ago
- nickff 2y ago
  Authoritarian power transfers usually involve (immediate) executions, or at least the imprisonment/exile of important people from the previous government/administration/regime, to stabilize the new regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Survival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Surviva...
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    Presumably authoritarian regimes only execute/imprison/exile dissidents if they think it's necessary to eliminate opposition. An authoritarian regime which does not think there's much of a threat to opposition probably wouldn't bother.
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      There is a huge cost in executions. Especially in places where they have not been super common place and super public.
    - jojobas 2y ago
      Serves to prove it's not an authoritarian regime? They know they won by not so much and are likely to lose next time, especially given Trump can't run anymore.
  - groby_b 2y ago
    TBF, we're only on day 2. (I am 90% certain it won't come to that, but there's a 10% queasiness left that hasn't been ameliorated by the haphazard approach untethered from legality that we've seen so far)
    - jayknight 2y ago
      "This guy is running around giving everyone pardons. The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-hannity-interview-biden-pardons-b2684659.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases. Maybe that's not out right execution, but Trump definitely wants revenge.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  Unfortunately, a good chunk of people who voted for him really didn't pay much attention beyond him promising to lower prices. But this is the electorate we have - a lot of them just can't be bothered with much detail as attention spans are short these days.
  - travisporter 2y ago
    No they listened about TikTok
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      for 13 hours? I suppose we never specificied how long it had to be banned for.
  - stevenwoo 2y ago
    I listened to and watched a lot of interviews with people who voted for Trump. They just said he didn’t mean it whenever they were confronted with quotes from Trump that obviously disagreed with their views as evidenced by earlier questions in the interviews. Or take the many Muslims in Dearborn who still claim Trump is better than Harris would be on Israel/Palestine - they refuse to believe the evidence despite action days in,(or from trumps last term) it’s not possible to argue rationally with these people. Not only are they barely paying attention, they only see and hear what they want to.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- computerthings 2y ago
  If someone clicks on "click here to update your password" in a phishing email, are they choosing what actually happens, or what they thought would happen? Even if they should have known, and could have known, I think it's objectively true that they didn't.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    it depends on the advancement of society to be honest. I wouldn't blame someone getting scammed in 2000 over a "Hot sexy singles in your area, click now!". I would 100% blame them in 2020+. I don't know how far we've come in regards to email phishing to make a call on that.
    - computerthings 2y ago
      The claim I'm contradicting is that they knew full well, not that they should have known.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  *23% of American people voted for this.
  - linsomniac 2y ago
    I'd put that number closer to 67%: adding in the 90M eligible voters who, you know, didn't.
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      How many of those 90M were in one of the few states where your vote matters?
      - linsomniac 2y ago
        I dunno, probably similar to how many of the 75M that did vote. I'll still stand by the point though: 23% is an unreasonable number to throw out.
- vcryan 2y ago
  Every 4 years, American voters get to choose between garbage and trash.
  - krapp 2y ago
    This constant false equivalence between parties is part of the reason we got here. The Democrats are terrible but somehow I doubt Kamala Harris would be doing this much damage two days in. I don't think people would be wondering whether Tim Walz actually did a Nazi salute at the inauguration. It can be the case that both parties are evil, and they are, but that America still chose the greater evil.
    - leesec 2y ago
      So many false equivalences and assumptions in these few sentences alone lol. Why don't we wait at least a few months before deciding if their actions are evil or not.
      - krapp 2y ago
        Why are we suddenly pretending that Trump is an unknown quantity? We know what he's about, and we know what his agenda is. It was literally published to the public with bullet points and everything.
- sundaeofshock 2y ago
  Trump spent a huge amount of his time during the election disavowing Project 2025. Did people vote for a change in government? Yes, but they didn’t vote for this this theocratic authoritarian bullshit.
  - wstrange 2y ago
    You are telling me Trump lied? Shocked...
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      You'd think he'd do that? Go on the ~~internet~~ podium and tell lies? nevermind he never had a plan for any of the issues people voted for him on. A still vague plan on fixing inflation (spoilers: he cannot do as much to fix inflation as many think), still rough numbers on what these tarriffs are supposed to do. What else did conservatives think he was going to do... ----- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyg5jdgzy1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyg5jdgzy1o ‘You want to come to America? Earn it, like I did’ well he is indeed hastening the deportation... nevermind conservatives with undocumented workers only lose from this and don't want to pay americans minimum wage. Well done. 'He invokes fear in the rest of the world’ Yeah, I guess pissing off all our friends and getting cozy with China/Russia will invoke fear. Hey, Maybe Trump is more honest than I thought. Of course, when it comes to making lives worse for the world.
  - frob 2y ago
    If you believed his disavowl, I've got a bridge... fuck it. Just give me your bank account number and I promise there will be $47 million in it tomorrow morning.
  - krapp 2y ago
    Trump has been pushing theocratic authoritarian bullshit for nearly a decade. It's what Trumpism is known for. It's what his supporters are known to support. We're not doing this historical revisionism now. This is exactly what people voted for.
  - a12k 2y ago
- swatcoder 2y ago
  > If you trust the election results, and I generally do because I have no proof otherwise, then the American people voted for this. No, if you trust the election results, it's a legitimate election by defined process and there are no grounds to contest it. But "The American people voted for this" is a distinct, strong, affirmative statement that doesn't hold. The people that voted for this are the people that voted for it, and even among the people who voted for the incoming administration (who only represent a third or so of eligible American voters and an even smaller share of American people), this isn't what many of them were voting for.
  - vkou 2y ago
    If this isn't what they were voting for, what did they think they were voting for? Did none of them believe that he would actually do the crazy shit he said he would? Did none of them pay attention to the insanity of his first term? I have a simpler explanation: they all know what they were voting for, and none of them give a shit. It's the same as the mob cheering and applauding the sieg heil on Monday. They know it's deplorable and unamerican and they don't care. Because the only thing that matters is that their boy will stick it to the enemy.
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      Given the binary choice, much if the American people simply didn't vote. You can't present a false dichitomoty, and then act as if any downstream choice is full approval.
      - vkou 2y ago
        They always had the choice of not voting. The people who voted for this actively engaged and endorsed it. It strains credulity for them to claim ignorance.
        sudosysgen 2y ago
        Plenty of Americans chose not to vote, many others did mainly out of massive social pressure.
- paxys 2y ago
  Looking at history authoritarian power transfers usually start with a vote, or at least wide spread public support.
- fpgaminer 2y ago
  It doesn't look like, it is. e.g. violent coup and Nazi salutes during inauguration. Are people expecting the rise of authoritarianism to look different or something? This is the exact same fascist playbook that's been run every time. I really thought WW2 would have taught humanity as a whole the lesson but apparently not.
  - theGnuMe 2y ago
    I think we as a society forget once the previous generation is gone.
- derbOac 2y ago
  Americans also voted for their US Senators and Representatives. It's funny how these discussions forget about that, which is part of the problem. It's also worth remembering how the Trump campaign consistently denied Project 2025, and ridiculed those who suggested it was their agenda. Maybe it won't go there but so far it seems to be headed in that direction, and if so actively lying about your agenda raises questions about exactly what the American electorate was voting for.
- NelsonMinar 2y ago
  It's a stretch to say the American people voted for gutting our health research capabilities.
  - krapp 2y ago
    I take it you haven't encountered the contempt that Trump supporters have for "mainstream science," particularly anything to do with biomedicine? Not even remotely a stretch. Ever since COVID they view those "health research capabilities" in the same way everyone else views the experimentation of Joseph Goebbels and Unit 731. Most of them still think Biden and Fauci cooked it up in a lab.
- pstuart 2y ago
  I'm not so sure about them. https://old.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/ https://old.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/
- tzs 2y ago
  Trump got 49.8% of the vote. 50.2% went to other candidates (48.32% Harris, 0.56% Stein, 0.49% Kennedy, 0.42% Chase, 0.42% others). If anyone is curious, here are the Presidents since the 19th century who got at least 50% of the vote: Biden Obama (both terms) Second Bush (second term) First Bush Reagan (both terms) Carter Nixon (second term) Johnson Eisenhower (both terms) Second Roosevelt (all four terms) Hoover Coolidge Harding Taft First Roosevelt McKinley The lowest since 1900 is Wilson's first term at 41.8%, followed by Clinton's first term at 43%, Nixon's first term at 43.4%, and Trump's first term at 46%. You might think that Wilson at 41.8% must have lost the popular vote but actually he beat the person with the second highest popular vote total by over 14%. That was back when the US had more than two viable parties. The vote went 41.84% to Wilson (Democrat), 27.4% to Teddy Roosevelt (Progressive), 23.17% to the incumbent Taft (Republican), 5.99% to Debs (Socialist), and the rest to a few others. Similar with Clinton's 43%. That was about 5% more than second place. That year Ross Perot running as an independent got 18.91%. Same with Nixon. His 43.42% was the biggest slice of the popular vote, followed by Humphrey at 42.72%. George Wallace running for the American Independent party got 13.53%.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  The media has been sane washing Trump for the last 9 years. If Trump had been treated like the joke he has always been he wouldn't have been elected.
whyenot 2y ago
I keep on thinking maybe it's time to move somewhere else. I'm a first generation American, so I'd just be doing what my parents did before me. The problem is, I have no idea what country I would move to.
- phkahler 2y ago
  Hang in there, this is a long overdue correction. It's gonna over correct a bit, but then things should be better than before. The rhetoric of Trump being a dictator is way overblown. If this didn't happen we'd be heading toward bankruptcy around the time your kids grow up.
  - thefreeman 2y ago
    right. because he did so much to reduce the deficit last time.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      yup, loves nothing more than to reduce the deficit /s people are tragically funny these days I swear
    - phkahler 2y ago
      Because covid? Congress wanted to pass a covid relief bill sending $700B to corporations. Trump said to get the money to the people so they increased it to do so. Biden happily kept the budget way overblown even though covid was essentially over. Neither party has addressed the budget in decades. One wants to spend more and the other wants to cut taxes. Neither fixes anything.
      - kacesensitive 2y ago
        The deficit was increasing from 2017, long before covid.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        so.. how does this make things better long term if you just said neither side fixes anything?
bitlax 2y ago
Except it's not a coup and it's not a developing country but ok. Drink some water.
- austinjp 2y ago
  It is most assuredly a coup. It just took a few years rather than a few days.
- grahamj 2y ago
  It's not developing anymore, that's for sure. Now it's devolving.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  "just business as usual". i guess after you work hard to normalize these interventions on the thrid world, it becomes second nature here too.
generalizations 2y ago
Remember what happened to Trump after his first term. He's extremely invested in making sure that he won't be raided/arrested/etc again at the end of this term. The power structures that tried that the first time won't be here in 4 years...his personal freedom depends on it.
- sebazzz 2y ago
  If he is still around. He is older than when Biden started at his term.

WesternWind 2y ago

Pretty sure a bunch of statistics that might be used to argue against Republican talking points are going to disappear or not be updated. Maybe they won't even get to be collected. It's a lot easier to lie if you prevent scientists and health care professionals from undercutting you with inconvenient truths. As someone who has worked in public health and epidemiology, this kind of open ended restriction is extremely concerning. Also appears to undercut the whole free speech thing that President Trump supposedly supports, and that the constitution provides for in the first amendment.

duxup 2y ago
Free speech, states rights, government accountability, any serious sense of libertarianism and so on are all with the caveat of “if I like it” as far as the current Republican Party is concerned.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
> Also appears to undercut the whole free speech thing that President Trump supposedly supports Saying he supports "free speech" and actually doing it are two different things. In reality he supports speech that supports his preferred narrative of reality and opposes speech that doesn't.
762236 2y ago
If you've worked as a scientist, why not gather evidence before jumping to conclusions? For example, you could inquire of the administration why they did this. They're actually putting in quite an effort at transparency.
- ayakang31415 2y ago
  Because for some people, this is not a scientific peer-reviewed discussion, but rather typical conversation normal people have over dinner table with gut feelings and limited information. Just assume that "I believe", "in my opinion", "AFAIK" are implied for statements like above.
- WesternWind 2y ago

duxup 2y ago

> Another consequence of the communications pause, according to an NIH staffer involved with clinical trials at NIH's Clinical Center, is that agency staff cannot meet with patient groups or release newsletters or other information to recruit patients into trials. Another unknown is whether NIH researchers will still be allowed to submit papers to peer-reviewed journals. That seems unnecessary at best.

arcticbull 2y ago
None of this is necessary, that's the point.
- crooked-v 2y ago
  Or to put it another way, "The cruelty is the point."
  - doomroot13 2y ago
    I think arcticbull is saying NIH is not necessary, essentially in favor of the freezes.
    - arcticbull 2y ago
      I am not in favor of shuttering one of the agencies responsible for public health, although I can see why my comment could be read either way. If you believe in reform there are compassionate ways to do it.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        CDC probably does more public health? The work NIH funds through its grant process is not broadly "public health"; it's virtually all American biotechnology research and bio/biochem basic research. Public health deals with the interface of health knowledge and public policy and communication; people credentialed in public health are not, generally, practicing scientists as we'd think about them. NIH grant researchers, on the other hand, are wearing white lab coats and working with fume hoods.

timzaman 2y ago

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duxup 2y ago
Read the whole article.
willmarch 2y ago
[dead]
chasd00 2y ago
I just listened to an NPR newscast where they were clutching at their pearls and then whispered “this is common when a new administration comes in” and then went right back to screeching. Not looking forward to 4 years of this.
- calgarymicro 2y ago
  This is common? Did the Biden admin halt all communications, grants, travel, etc.? NPR posts transcripts of their programs, do you have a link so I can see what they said?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Some parts are usual, but the article notes how extreme other parts are, and how unprecedented and suddent a few others are. So little of A, a lot of B.

rUsHeYaFuBu 2y ago

> Even more troubling to many researchers is a pause on study sections that many received word of today. Without such meetings, NIH cannot make research awards. Cancer and many other topics of research will be hurt by this.

peppertree 2y ago
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- jcgrillo 2y ago
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  - duderific 2y ago
    I don't know if they are more competent now. There are just fewer people willing to push back, and few to no guardrails in place for when the leader doesn't adhere to the usual governmental and ethical norms.
    - Jerrrry 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - rUsHeYaFuBu 2y ago
        Nonplussed here. In what way is normality returning to the social order? Or are you pegging the 'normal' social order to some particular time in the past?
        Jerrrry 2y ago
        [flagged]
        krapp 2y ago

londons_explore 2y ago

The overarching goal seems to be "Achieve more, more efficiently, with fewer resources". But making that happen when there are 20+ levels of management between the guy doing the work and the guy making the rules seems impossible.

phkahler 2y ago
So cut 15 levels of management. Budget cuts to match. Carry on.
- tptacek 2y ago
  As long as they're not fucking up the NIH grantmaking process, I (ruthlessly) don't care, and am not going to allocate attention to it. But once they do start fucking up grants, they're throwing a monkeywrench in basically all American therapeutic research and basic science, which is a big problem, since one of the government's primary missions should be to set in motion whatever things will end human cancer.
  - jghn 2y ago
    My understanding is that study sections have been cancelled and that is a key part of the grant review process.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    The impact of these travel restrictions is to cancel/delay grant review meetings, which could plausible "fuck up the NIH grantmaking process". However, grant review can really be done remotely. And there are many other embedded inefficiencies in granting. For example, when my PI and I applied for an R01 (the basic individual investigator grant that is core to funding early investigators) we had to print a 500 page application which contained duplicate data, full CVs, pages and pages of boilerplate, and fedex it to NIH where it sits in a room with all the other applications (it's been 20 years; maybe this doesn't happen anymore?). The review committees instead get a digital copy and the grant meeting itself is really just a bunch of people sitting in a circle making yes/no decisions.

frob 2y ago

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nothrowaways 2y ago
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Johanx64 2y ago
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- dylan604 2y ago
  I reject the premise of your entire comment. Of course they can hide actual scientific data and replace it with their own version. They will tell anyone and everyone over and over that their version is the truth and people will believe it as such. They will also believe that anyone trying to dispute it is wrong and vilify them. This has already happened in 1.0, and plenty of other examples of it from history. But one would have to crack open a history book to know about that, and the populace is trending to banning books rather than opening them.
  - p_ing 2y ago
    > Of course they can hide actual scientific data and replace it with their own version. They'll just break out the magic markers on all the dis-favorable weather reports.
    - voganmother42 2y ago
      After a few sips of bleach things tend to get blurry
  - Johanx64 2y ago
    Well, you see laws of physics and periodic table doesn't swap out every time there's a change in administration. Neither are field effect transistors swapped out for vacuum-tubes with a different ruling party. That makes a pretty good first order approximation of what is and isn't scientific, and worth spending taxpayer dollar on. Science isn't prescriptive (doesn't tell you what to do), it's descriptive. Prescriptions are policy and have nothing to do with science.

tptacek 2y ago

Here's a really excellent piece on the guts of how NIH's processes work: https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/distinguishing-real-from-invented https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/distinguishing-real-...

chevman 2y ago

For anyone that's been in corp/BigCo land for some time, this is the typical corp reboot playbook. Pause all hiring, freeze travel and other casual expenditures, relook at all major initiatives/projects/programs, etc. Definitely something (IMHO) worth doing every 5-7 years in any environment. Can't imagine what it will uncover in government where I'm guessing it hasn't happened in much longer in most cases.

ross23 2y ago
While I agree with the sentiment that continual evaluation of how any organization operates is a good thing, there is an extensive corpus of studies on the fallacies of treating the management of public services like private business. There is a good reason why there isn’t much (successful) precedent around this type of thing being done before.
- txomon 2y ago
  I would argue with that looking at Argentina. I do see however there is not enough data to be biased against any side, but disruptive changes in management are in my perception more effective on changing the status quo. Achieving change against current incentives with politically mindful measures I'd say is very time consuming and slow. In regards to your point I agree that treating public services as companies that can't be running at a loss is been demonstrated to be bad, but there is a fine line between trying to make public services profitable VS trying to make them more efficient.
  - shigawire 2y ago
    Using Argentina as an example is wild. They have a pretty singular situation.
travisporter 2y ago
Agree with pausing hiring and causal expenditures. Why block external communication? What does that do
lanstin 2y ago

dekhn 2y ago

Some of these changes, if continued and expanded, will likely have long-term negative effects on the US's position in science. I have my issues with NIH but to fix NIH requires subtlety. This seems more designed to "punish those liberal researchers" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_spite_one%27s_face https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_to_sp...

whyenot 2y ago
This is surgery with a butter knife. It's going to cause a lot of unnecessary disruption and pain which could have been avoided with a more nuanced approach. What we are seeing with this and some of the new administration's other initiatives, is the abandonment of US soft power in the world.
- dekhn 2y ago
  Huh, I like the way you phrased that: "abandonment of US soft power in the world". But I think there is also punitive aspect: they are intentionally "punishing" the people at NIH they perceive as being liberal and favoring other countries.
  - tired_and_awake 2y ago
    It's a good point. There is a target on the back of scientists who do research that is perceived as social science but is infact biology. Seems like they then construct myths of waste/corruption (just read this thread) and punish everyone.
  - gunian 2y ago
    the purge is real :)
- grahamj 2y ago
  Even if these idiots wanted subtlety they're too stupid to make it happen. They just want to do big, bold things but have no idea how to actually make anything better.

guelo 2y ago

It's scary to think that Trump seems to actually believe right wing media's black and white propaganda. The end point of this kind of anti-intellectual, anti-urban movement is something like Pol Pot's killing fields.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
Doesn't it seem a tiny wee bit like a hyperbole?
- guelo 2y ago
  Probably. But this political movement won't stop with this term. 2016 Trump was more moderate than today's Trump. The next time the movement is stopped it will come back even more ferociously, especially since the movement is fed constant propaganda about being aggrieved and revenge fantasies.
  - riiii 2y ago
    [flagged]
- tclancy 2y ago
  Dunno. Wasn’t there for the ramp up.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  What I think we're re-discovering is that it's not so straightforward to tell while it's happening. I'm willing to bet during the rise of people like Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, etc. many people were concerned, and many others were saying it was nothing and they were just being hyperbolic. However, it was the same with times when it didn't turn out like that. What concerns me most about this, is the general attitude of entirely dehumanizing specific groups of people. That, I expect, is the crux that makes atrocities possible, and it is happening now.
  - shigawire 2y ago

tired_and_awake 2y ago

174 scientists either at the NIH or funded by the NIH have won the Nobel prize. https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/nobel-laureates https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/nobel-l... Odds are if you or someone you know has been treated with ... Any kind of modern medicine ... You have personally been impacted by NIH. That ignores the epidemiological knock on effects that we all benefit from oh and the whole "understanding of biological systems". But screw it, they need to get in line with the party.

dekhn 2y ago
NIH also played a big role in the creation of biotech industry (funding much of the basic research that set the foundation for amazing medical treatments). I guess we'll have to depend more on the largesse of billionaires.
- chii 2y ago
  > funding much of the basic research it's unfortunate that these funding don't actually bring in profits with which to maintain and continue future funding. It's why i somewhat dislike the publicly funded research model, because the commercialization of basic research is what leads to profit in the future, and this part is poorly done by gov'ts (or very well done by private parties looking to profit off public research). I say that to change the system, these basic research should have IP associated with it, by which if companies use it, they pay a royalty after they achieve profit of $X (where X can be decided based on the research itself). It's obvious that taxes aren't sufficient.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    NIH-funded research generates IP owned by the university that contracted with the NIH to do the work. This is due to Bayh-Dole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act).
  - kmos17 2y ago
    Not everything needs to be profit generating, government funded research is how we get breakthroughs with very wide ranging benefits, especially when we are talking about advances in medicine. Profit making will often have the opposite effect by incentivizing the protection of existing monopolies, fake innovations to protect patentable revenue streams, and anti competitive regulatory capture.

deleted 2y ago

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renewiltord 2y ago

The travel part makes sense to me: as HN is pro-remote-work they should understand that these researchers can simply make their presentations via tele-attendance. The rest of the "refrain from releasing anything until a Presidential appointee can look at it first" seems very commissar-like. The HHS screwed the pooch on COVID, making a lot of nonsensical claims that ruined the reputation of public health in the population's eyes. I still don't like the idea of the Commissar reviewing every paper on bird-flu (our newest epidemic) but I can see the motivation.

PaulKeeble 2y ago
In medical research there is an awful lot of tissue, blood and other samples that go into the NIH's work. They run numerous labs and biobanks and a part of what they do is transit samples and the personal and sometimes equipment to various labs across the country.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Certainly, and in Silicon Valley there is hardware, semiconductors, and other tangible items that go into work. But clearly that's not what we're discussing since the article says: > Today, the scientist encountered one group of early-career researchers who were scheduled to attend and present at a distant conference next week—presentations that are now impossible. What's the big deal? Present via Zoom. We should probably cancel all conference travel.
jltsiren 2y ago
The actual presentations are usually the least important part of a conference. Most conferences would be better if you could cancel 80% of the program but still convince the same people to attend (and their employers to pay). Then there would be more time for informal discussions and ad hoc work, which often lead to new ideas and new collaborations.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  I have heard on HN that ideation and collaboration does not decrease if everyone works remote.

aliasxneo 2y ago

Why do most people in this thread assume this move intends to politicalize the NIH? I don't think the administration thoroughly thought out the consequences of this decision, but that's a typical government move. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

aaomidi 2y ago
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. This quote does not apply in a place where the actor has specifically promised to be malicious. Now, you may not see their promises as malicious and that is your prerogative. But that quote isn’t applicable for a ton of people when it comes to Trump.
- aliasxneo 2y ago
  I would have to disagree with the criteria. More times than not, I've seen people who have promised maliciousness (AKA bullies) make really stupid decisions. It seems to go hand-in-hand in a lot of cases. Either way, this seems like a political flip-flop, with the opposing party now putting on the tin hats. That's just the way it looks to me as an independent.
  - p_j_w 2y ago
    How is it putting on a tin foil hat to call someone out for being malicious when they've promised to be malicious?
    - aliasxneo 2y ago
      My original comment was regarding the claim that this is being done to politicize the NIH. To me, it requires the same tin hat that conservatives put on when they were making all sorts of crazy assumptions about the government's moves during Covid. I never said you had to put on a tin foil hat to call someone malicious. I'm just saying that malicious people tend to do stupid things which have unintended consequences they didn't fully realize.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

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every 2y ago

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travisporter 2y ago

My issue is more with the CDC. Are there state institutions that can take up the slack locally? Asking for a friend with kids who wants to move to a place with a lower risk of getting measles

11101010001100 2y ago
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schmookeeg 2y ago

I assume the NIH was singled out as some sort of vengeance for the CV19 response? Hopefully they'll restore some semblance of order after the pound of flesh is theatrically exacted.

ericd 2y ago
Sounds like it's happening in at least some other parts of the government, too. This order seems to have paused disbursement of even some already-committed funding: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unle... "Sec. 7. Terminating the Green New Deal. (a) All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, and shall review their processes, policies, and programs for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursements of such appropriated funds for consistency with the law and the policy outlined in section 2 of this order. Within 90 days of the date of this order, all agency heads shall submit a report to the Director of the NEC and Director of OMB that details the findings of this review, including recommendations to enhance their alignment with the policy set forth in section 2. No funds identified in this subsection (a) shall be disbursed by a given agency until the Director of OMB and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy have determined that such disbursements are consistent with any review recommendations they have chosen to adopt."

Dove 2y ago

Calm down, guys. It's transitional, and it's not unusual. From the article: > The hiring freeze is governmentwide, whereas a pause on communications and travel appears to be limited to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency. Such pauses are not unprecedented when a new administration comes in. But some NIH staff suggested these measures, which include pulling job ads and rescinding offers, are more extreme than any previously. ... > Previous administrations have imposed communications pauses in their first days. And the administration of Barack Obama continued a cap on attendance at scientific meetings first imposed by the George W. Bush administration, which in some cases meant staff canceled trips to meetings. > But an immediate, blanket ban on travel is unusual, says one longtime researcher in NIH's intramural program. “I don't think we've ever had this and it's pretty devastating for a postdoc or graduate student who needs to present their work and network to move ahead in their career,” the researcher says. This is not an extraordinary event. It is not an attack on the NIH. It is a transitional pause, which is substantially normal when administrations change hands. The wailing and moaning is silly. Give it a week.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>But some NIH staff suggested these measures, which include pulling job ads and rescinding offers, are more extreme than any previously. > halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting. > “People are just at a loss because they also don’t know what’s coming next. I have never seen this level of confusion and concern in people that are extremely dedicated to their mission,” the scientist says. >But an immediate, blanket ban on travel is unusual, says one longtime researcher in NIH's intramural program. “I don't think we've ever had this and it's pretty devastating for a postdoc or graduate student” who needs to present their work and network to move ahead in their career, the researcher says. "Usual" but overly extreme. Seems to fit 2025.
karaterobot 2y ago
FWIW, I was around (i.e. working on NIH funded grants) for the last transition, and I don't remember this happening. I agree and hope that it might not be an ominous sign, but I don't think it's the norm. We're being asked to pull out of not only conferences, but even out of cross-organizational Zoom chats that involve certain institutions. Where I work, the people who've been doing this longer than me are not saying "relax everybody, this is fine," they seem to be freaking out a little bit too.

kazinator 2y ago

I can fix it: s/NIH/DOD/ :)

sega_sai 2y ago

I am waiting to see what will happen with NASA, NSF... Obviously it's less important than health, but still thousands of people, lives.

1oooqooq 2y ago
if musk et al cannot fill all the positions they have open with people leaving NIH, be sure NASA is certainly next.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

aksss 2y ago

> "The hiring freeze is governmentwide, whereas a pause on communications and travel appears to be limited to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency. Such pauses are not unprecedented when a new administration comes in."

trhway 2y ago

My guess is what happening is influenced by and patterned after the Musk's Twitter initial period - getting rid of what Musk didn't like from the start, review and cuts/layoffs of what didn't pass the review. With all the due respect to the science having been done at/with NIH, one can suspect that the bureaucracy there is out of control similar to what we see at academia. The huge sign that the things got really rotten is that NIH couldn't own its work in Wuhan on the coronavirus, and that Fauci needed preemptive pardon. So some dead tissue debriding seems to be in order.

silexia 2y ago
The government grows like a cancer as it has no mechanism like bankruptcy to remove dead wood. Agencies start out with a mission, then turn into a business, and finally become a con job. Most agencies are deep into the corrupt territory at this point.

fungiblecog 2y ago

The USSR wasn't doomed by communism per se. it was doomed by prioritising ideology and politics over any other considerations. The US is now in the same doom-spiral.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Kinda telling the NIH to mask up HHS suspended their association with the Eco health Alliance, so I'm not sure what vector is of worry. https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-formally-debars-ecohealth-alliance-dr-peter-daszak-after-covid-select-reveals-pandemic-era-wrongdoing/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-formally-de... https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-says-grantee-failed-report-experiment-wuhan-created-bat-virus-made-mice-sicker https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-says-grantee-fai...

nojvek 2y ago

Likely many folks who depend on funding from NIH voted for Trump. Feel sorry for those who didn’t vote for him. No sympathy for those who did.

sandinmyjoints 2y ago
Can you be more specific -- who are you thinking of?