In some ways, this week’s news felt more like “business as usual” than we’ve seen in awhile. And then the ACIP meeting happened. Get those vaccines, folks.
Not for nothing, but there are only 16 joint legislative days left in the current federal budget.
Onto the news:
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted this morning to recommend delaying when most babies begin to be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
The other news out of ACIP is that the committee has now begun a broad review of the childhood vaccine schedule. The president issued a memo today with a similar sentiment.
Tracy Beth Høeg has been appointed as the acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). Stat and BioPharma Dive have additional coverage. Dr. Høeg is the fifth head of CDER this year.
The New York Times had a piece this week that provides some very effective visualizations on the disbursement of federal research funding this year.
There were multiple announcements from NIH this week.
Emergency modifications to peer review due to delays arising from the government shutdown.
NOT-OD-26-018 - Includes information on the new requirements forms to be used for biosketches, Current and Pending (Other) Support, and NIH Biographical Sketch Supplements.NOT-OD-26-019
NOT-OD-26-019 - Rescinds requirements for investigators to contact NIH program officers before requesting over $500,000 in direct funding per year.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has published a request for information, inviting feedback on how the agency might accelerate the scientific enterprise. The prompts are quite broad, ranging from policy changes to leveraging AI tools and findings from meta-science. Comments are due 12/26.
Inside Higher Ed has a piece on the consequences of the recent changes to the NIH Public Access Policy.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its AI strategy this week.
An instructor at the University of Oklahoma who gave a zero to a student’s reaction paper has been placed on leave as the University investigates the student’s claim that the grade due to religious discrimination.