Heading into the weekend we have another shutdown, this one partial and hopefully short. But, as always, there’s lots of news.
Stay tuned to the end of this week’s summary for a little blog post.
Government Shutdown
The Senate passed has passed its version of a spending package to fund the majority of the government for the next fiscal year.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security was taken out of the legislative package and will be subject to at least one two-week continuing resolution.
Because the House will not vote on the bill until Monday, the government will be partially shut down over the weekend.
Federal Research Policy
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has released how it will evaluate grant proposals moving forward. The major difference here is the addition of the leadership review.
The NIH Record has ceased publication after 76 years.
As reported by Science, US government agencies lost more than 10,000 PhD level scientists last year.
The MAHA Institute hosted a panel discussion today “Reclaiming Science: The People’s NIH Round Table”, featuring NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. You can watch it if you want, but it would probably be more informative to read some excellent student journalism out of Duke.
Public Health
Last week, the CDC briefly paused and then unpaused $5 billion worth of public health infrastructure grants. According to reporting in Stat, the pause was to allow the CDC to implement a new review process to “ensure alignment with administration and agency priorities”.
Health Secretary RFK Jr has appointed new members to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) and the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services.
CBS News announced a new set of contributors this week, it includes several individuals associated with the Make America Healthy Again movement as well as the phrenology curious (Editor’s Note: I don’t actually know if that was supposed to be a joke or not?).
Higher Education
Texas and Florida have decided to restrict the ability of public universities to hire individuals under the H1-B visa program.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, ordered Texas universities and agencies to halt H-1B visa petitions until 2027.
This week the Board of Governors for the University of Florida moved forward a proposal to freeze the hiring of individuals under the H1-B visa program until 2027. This proposal follows from a directive issued by Florida governor Ron DeSantis last October.
The Department of Education intends to develop new regulations this spring to make it easier for new accreditors to gain recognition and to curb diversity, equity and inclusion standards.
HHS and Department of Education have referred their cases against Minnesota Department of Education to the DOJ.
Editor’s Note
Every single week I question why this newsletter is focused (almost) exclusively on events affecting the scientific research enterprise and higher education in the United States. Indirect cost rate caps and grant cancellations are not trivial stories, of course, but pale in comparison to the many horrors - those that play on repeat on our screens and those that we may never know.
I wouldn’t dream of speaking for my colleagues throughout science and higher education, but science is not my calling. Science is my job. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the nature of Truth™. Instead, I just try to do the best work that I can and help others do the same. But it is, undeniably, a characteristic of our times that centers of science and education are under threat while, simultaneously, harm is being made into the shape of inquiry and instruction.
I had several thousands words written about all this, including references to hallucinated citations, pseudoscience on government websites, politics in science, science in politics, capitulation, and a weird tangent about a nosy squirrel and philosophy of science. Ultimately, I decided that nobody needs to read all that. The answer to “Why?” comes down to I am stubborn “because the scientific research enterprise, education, and the many horrors can not be disentangled.” There are so, so many factors at play in our current state but maybe there is some small value in documenting developments in this small niche?
Stay safe and take care of your neighbors.