Today’s update is mostly catchup from last week, but there’s (heart)breaking news about the NIH Minority Biomedical Research Support Program. Spoiler alert: Last week’s Supreme Court decision is already being used as precedent.
In an announcement set to be posted tomorrow, HHS has cancelled the NIH Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Program. The announcement cites various executive orders and, notably, the precedent set by last week’s Supreme Court ruling. Stat has some additional reporting.
The New York Times has a pair of pieces detailing the current state of affairs at Harvard and Columbia. The gist is mostly that Harvard has made some concessions to the Administration despite continuing their litigation and, while some federal funding has been restored to Columbia, a great deal of uncertainty remains.
There’s been a fair bit of reporting over the last few days about what COVID vaccination will look like in the fall. It appears likely that there will be more restrictions than in previous years. The Daily Beast has a report that’s been picked up in a few other places which states that the vaccine will be pulled from the market “within months” – but I have yet to see anything close to a second source on this.
Last week, the FDA announced that it had begun daily (rather than quarterly) publication of adverse event data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS)
The Wall Street Journal has a piece about how researchers are amending the language used in their grants to avoid using terms that may bring extra scrutiny.
HHS is the latest agency to derecognize labor union representation for staffers, stating that the move was necessary for “removing unnecessary obstacles to mission-critical work.”
This Atlantic piece on the politicization of science has been making the rounds on social media.