• QUOTE OF THE DAY

    “Some people believe that the term anti-vaxxer is a pejorative,” the physician Robert Malone wrote on June 9. “I do not — I view it as high praise.” “The term ‘anti-vaxxer,’” he continued, “it is not a slur, but a compliment.”

    — Quoted in David Wallace-Wells’s article, New York Times, 18 June 2025 (on 11 June 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed Malone to the advisory board that steers America’s vaccine policy)

  • TARGETING SCIENCEACIP Draft Agenda Revives Anti-Vaccine Boilerplate Topics

    By Lisa Schnirring

    RFK Jr. replaced scientists on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with anti-vaxx activists. On Wednesday, true to form, the new ACIP members issued a draft meeting agenda which contains topics which have become common talking points of vaccine-efficacy deniers.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHNIH Terminates GoF Research; OMB Proposes 54% Cut to CDC Budget in FY 2026

    HHS announced it would terminate funding for gain-of-function (GoF), while OMB proposed budget includes 54% cut to CDC budget in FY 2026. The cuts include a $1.4 billion cut to chronic disease prevention and $794 million in cuts to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STD, and TB prevention.

  • SERIAL KILLERSWhat Warped the Minds of Serial Killers? Lead Pollution, a New Book Argues.

    By Kate Yoder

    Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer, and others terrorized the Pacific Northwest. “Murderland” asks what role polluters played.

  • GUNSGuns Kill More U.S. Children Than Other Causes, but State Policies Can Help, Study Finds

    By Nada Hassanein

    More American children and teens die from firearms than any other cause. Black children, especially, suffer when laws allow more guns to circulate, researchers found. There are more deaths — and wider racial disparities — in states with more permissive gun policies, according to a new study.

  • TARGETING SCIENCEKennedy’s HHS Sent Congress ‘Junk Science’ To Defend Vaccine Changes, Experts Say

    By Jackie Fortiér

    A document the Department of Health and Human Services sent to lawmakers to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to change U.S. policy on covid vaccines cites scientific studies that are unpublished or under dispute and mischaracterizes others. One health expert called the document “willful medical disinformation,” adding: “It is so far out of left field that I find it insulting to our members of Congress that they would actually give them something like this.”

  • TARGETING SCIENCERFK Announces New ACIP Members, Including Vaccine Critics

    By Lisa Schnirring

    HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory committee, replacing them with a group of eight new members, some of whom are vaccine skeptics.

  • TARGETING SCIENCERFK Jr’s Shakeup of Vaccine Advisory Committee Raises Worries About Scientific Integrity of Health Recommendations

    By Santosh Kumar Gautam

    HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the immunization experts serving on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and replaced them with eight new members. The newly appointed members have expertise in psychiatry, neuroscience, epidemiology, biostatistics, and operations management. Many of them are vaccine skeptics who have actively spread vaccine-related misinformation, particularly relating to COVID-19 vaccines.

  • COMMON-SENSE NOTES // By Idris B. OdunewuGlobal Anxiety and the Security Dimension: From Personal Despair to Political Violence

    Uncertainty and despair—born of economic insecurity, social isolation, and widening inequality—have fueled a striking surge in anxiety across the United States. But this mental-health crisis is not confined by borders.

  • TARGETING SCIENCE“The Bethesda Declaration”: Sounding the Alarm on the Growing Chaos at NIH

    More than 300 officials and scientists from all of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers, have signed and sent a letter to Jay Bhattacharya, the Trump-nominated director of NIH, harshly criticizing the sweeping changes which have plunged the agency into chaos.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHEconomic Impact Report Warns of Setbacks to Public Health Progress Amid Federal Budget Cuts

    A new report details the far-reaching impacts of 2025 federal funding cuts on public health infrastructure, research institutions, workforce development, and the broader US economy. The report provides the first comprehensive look at how widespread grant freezes, budget reductions, and agency restructurings are destabilizing academic public health institutions nationwide.

  • FOOD SECURITYU.K. Government Not Sufficiently Prepared for the Increasing Risk from Animal Disease

    Outbreaks of animal diseases have occurred in each of the past six years and the U.K. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) have worked hard to manage them. It’s likely that DEFRA and APHA would struggle to cope with a more severe outbreak of animal disease. Long term resilience is being undermined by the necessity of focusing on increasingly frequent outbreaks and there is no long-term strategy.

  • THREATS TO U.S. S&T LEADERSHIPA Brief History of Federal Funding for Basic Science

    By Jake Miller

    Biomedical science in the United States is at a crossroads. For 75 years, the federal government has partnered with academic institutions, fueling discoveries that have transformed medicine and saved lives. Recent moves by the Trump administration — including funding cuts and proposed changes to how research support is allocated — now threaten this legacy.

  • ARGUMENT: VACCINE POLICY BY PROCLAMATIONVaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity

    By Stephanie Soucheray

    Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.

  • COMMON-SENSE NOTES // By Idris B. OdunewuThe Silent Epidemic: America’s Growing Anxiety Crisis

    Anxiety—once dismissed as mere nerves or a passing phase—has become one of the most prevalent and debilitating public health issues facing Americans today. how did we get here—and what do we do now?