Joshua Weitz
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joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Joshua Weitz
@joshuasweitz.bsky.social

Professor of Biology & Institute for Health Computing, U of Maryland; explores how viruses impact human & environmental health;

'Asymptomatic' (JHU Press - https://bit.ly/asymptomatic_book)
&
'Science Matters' (https://substack.com/@joshuasweitz) .. more

Joshua S. Weitz is an American biologist. He is both a professor of biology and the Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at the University of Maryland. Previously, he was a professor at Georgia Tech, where he was the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences. In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. .. more

Biology 28%
Environmental science 26%
Pinned
Today, our #SCIMaP team released an impact analysis of the White House proposed FY 2027 NIH and NSF budgets.

Bottom-line: if enacted, cuts to science and medical research would lead to $35B in economic losses and 150,000 lost jobs in communities all across the US.

scienceimpacts.org

🧵

"Perspectives" formally... was using shorthand.

Out of touch OpEd in @nejm.org arrives even as WH escalates efforts to seize political control of NIH funds.

The proposed remedies are naive, e.g. prioritizing MAHA preferred research.

Riding this out and/or collaborationism won't end the war.

But it will ensure degradation of national capacity.
The End of the War on Biomedical Science? | NEJM
The turmoil of the past 20 months has inflicted lasting damage on American science and public health. But history and recent events suggest that the attacks will subside.
www.nejm.org

Many uncertainties remain on details of this meeting.

But 1.5+ years of grant terminations, staff dismissals, fired boards, and OMB proposals all point in the same direction: the admin wants political control of what research is funded.

That is a path to ruin.

www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control
The move came after the NIH director refused Trump’s request to cut Harvard grants in an Oval Office meeting.
www.politico.com
This miracle is the fruit of generations of enormous and bipartisan investments of public research support for our universities.

Future versions of this miracle are what we are currently losing, due to the US Administration’s decision to shatter the public’s partnership with our universities. 
A cancer vaccine succeeded in a clinical trial in preventing the recurrence of melanoma, a result experts say is a breakthrough for mRNA-based treatments.

Trials for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases' vaccines are also underway.
A melanoma vaccine was hailed as a breakthrough. Which cancers are next?
Trials investigating mRNA vaccines for lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and other diseases are already underway.
www.washingtonpost.com

There are many reasons why advance messaging might be perceived as politically useful especially in light of recent NIH leadership decisions to use (opaque) interagency transfers to send biomedical research $ to DoD.
New:

Officials battled over NIH in the Oval Office today, per people familiar.

RUSS VOUGHT criticized NIH "woke" spending and floated executive order to review its grants.

JAY BHATTACHARYA defended NIH's alignment with Trump.

TRUMP appeared to side with Vought.

with @rbeggin.bsky.social

There are many reasons why advance messaging might be perceived as politically useful especially in light of recent NIH leadership decisions to use (opaque) interagency transfers to send biomedical research $ to DoD.
New:

Officials battled over NIH in the Oval Office today, per people familiar.

RUSS VOUGHT criticized NIH "woke" spending and floated executive order to review its grants.

JAY BHATTACHARYA defended NIH's alignment with Trump.

TRUMP appeared to side with Vought.

with @rbeggin.bsky.social
Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash
A heated debate took place in the Oval Office on Friday, with some Trump officials accusing the National Institutes of Health of funding grants that conflict with the president’s agenda.
www.washingtonpost.com
New:

Officials battled over NIH in the Oval Office today, per people familiar.

RUSS VOUGHT criticized NIH "woke" spending and floated executive order to review its grants.

JAY BHATTACHARYA defended NIH's alignment with Trump.

TRUMP appeared to side with Vought.

with @rbeggin.bsky.social
Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash
A heated debate took place in the Oval Office on Friday, with some Trump officials accusing the National Institutes of Health of funding grants that conflict with the president’s agenda.
www.washingtonpost.com

(slashes... ah well)

Reposted by Dawn J. Wright

The White House budget proposal for FY27 slash NSF funding by more than 50% and would drastically reduce support for PhDs, postdocs & investigator-initiated research.

Selling something is not the same as doing something.

Science is hard.

This 'new golden age' won't make it easier.
“On Thursday, Mr. Gorton said that “the success of the polio vaccine was a massive medical fraud” and that widespread vaccination was a “public health disaster.” He received a standing ovation…

Mr. Kennedy spoke next, linking arms with the group even as measles cases continue to rise”
RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’
The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.”
www.nytimes.com