Barely makes the news
Mourning the days when all we talked about was font choice, reference styles and glam humping.
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Barely makes the news
Nobody knows anything
Couple of things: 1) @drugmonkey.bsky.social is multiplying the MYF grants by 4 here, so the real number of missing new R grants is over 2,000. 2) it's very variable from IC to IC. The NCI is currently at 31%, which is just awful. The NIAAA is a shell of it's former self at just 7%.
We have an Open Rank tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Nutrition & Integrative Physiology! Looking for a new colleague interested in making the University of Utah their new home to build a metabolic research program. Please share! @uofunuip.bsky.social
You mean landscaping?
Who cares, amirite?
My pre-labor day reward was to get laid off, do me a favor and sign up to get my now-independent reporting and writing
NEW: Lawmakers unwilling to battle Trump directly have been quietly hopeful the courts would resolve President Trump's bid to commandeer their power of the purse. It hasn't happened, and now the hour of reckoning has arrived. w/ Jen Scholtes www.politico.com/news/2025/09...
Cynical take on the House NIH appropriations bill: there is little point going on the record with a big cut to the NIH if the WH/OMB will do it for you.
So, kudos to both #Democrats & #Republicans in the House for their draft mark-up for next year's #budget, which maintains funding for #NIH (just like the Senate). This is rare, true #bipartisanship and should be praised. But #RussellVought will not be stopped by an appropriations bill. Why? 1/
Major decisions await, but I think it is a fair interpretation to conclude that months of sustained opposition, litigation, and advocacy have improved the starting point for House and Senate negotiation on HHS funding.
As for the top line $, the House Republican summary describes it as follows appropriations.house.gov/news/press-r... "Providing $48 billion in funding to support biomedical research, a necessary counter to China’s growing threat in basic science research."
The House discretionary budget bill is now out for FY26, including a proposed *slight boost* in NIH funding & many other components that will take time to unpack. Bill text: appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-su... A few key points including IDC analysis in a provisional 🧵
Weak ass interview with @coons.senate.gov on @npr.org this morning about appropriations, rescissions etc. Basically, these guys have got nothing in response to Trump and the GOP. He won't even call it a constitutional crisis and makes it sound like totally normal politics. Embarrassing.
At 3 am on a Sunday morning on Labor day weekend. The (lower) courts are just about keep things in check....for now.
Drew Ensign will get what's coming to him eventually, as will Miller, Vought, Jay, Memoli, RFK...the list goes on.
Good point.
Did Goering, Goebbels and Himmler have such a good time during the Nazis’ 12-year reign that it was worth what came afterward, with their names enduring as symbols of degradation and evil? Asking for Marco Rubio.
This CANNOT be fixed in 4 years. Clinical trials are METICULOUS. Certain people at certain disease stages at certain ages with certain criteria and certain preparations done. It can be so absolutely difficult finding these people. ESPECIALLY children. We’re DONE scientifically as a country
Pritzker gets it
You think we didn’t notice how it wasn’t until they came for IDC and an entire University that you got your collective ass into the game? And how comparatively muted you were when the DEI attacks kicked off?
Blow, after blow, after blow. Now we are supposed to risk everything to fuck over the final embers of our careers? Some of us are dumb enough to do that but do NOT come for those who are tired of this shit.
Clearly designed to get SCOTUS to overturn the Impoundment Act, which I think they almost certainly will now.
Plot twist: Vought is no longer even bothering to ask Congress to sign off on this latest rescission. Big red flag for the NIH.
Explainer from @emineirmakyucel.bsky.social on how they claim this would work ...
The New York Post claims Trump has begun to use Russ Vought's "pocket rescissions" gambit to override Congress' power of the purse. nypost.com/2025/08/28/u...
BREAKING: per email sent to agency staff NIH will _NOT_ reterminate the ~900 grants which were reinstated. "[W]e would strongly recommend against re-terminating such grants, because it will likely be viewed as a reapplication of the now-vacated Challenged Directives."
NEW: Don't ask too many questions, but... NIH may not re-terminate the 900ish grants at issue in the main NIH lawsuits after all. To the PIs of reinstated grants, SPEND NOW! 🧵 Here's what NIH is probably thinking. Bear with me:
You're not going to believe this but Susan Collins is "extremely alarmed"
This guy is a dangerous fucking clown. Jesus Christ. Enough already.
#NIH is hanging by a thread. The #CDC has been decimated. #RFK Jr. and Russell #Vought are psychopaths--I don't say this frivolously--they are cold, calculating, inflicting violence on millions through public policy. It is where we are right now. These men are not normal. 1/
It’s crazy that America just like. Destroyed science. Just looked at its golden goose and went “wow should we kill this? And not for the gold, but just because we fucking hate this thing” And if you tell random people about it they go “no, that doesn’t seem true” and just refuse to believe you
Ewwwww
Special mention: Where I Wanna Be
It begins and ends at Illmatic for me. (TP-2 runs a close second, but...errrrrrmmmm that didn't stand the test of time).
Update: it got funny again
WASHINGTON — You could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, the saying goes, but, in Washington, a federal grand jury just declined to indict a man for throwing a salami sub. www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...
Spread scores lol. Is that a joke?
Logical advice but currently we are dealing with study sections getting 80-100 grants, and out of those <4 have a chance. Reviewers can communicate the merit skillfully & recommend a 1-2 range but it basically comes down to a few committee members giving it a 2 vs 1 for the score to go from 6% to 3%
Fucking hell. It's North Korea
John Roberts, my man. He was always going to keep testing you. You laid down a marker, and he passed right on by. Your move.
NYT: "legally dubious" = illegal
WARNING WARNING WARNING #ResearchAdmini I am hearing reports of NIH Awards being issued with ~15% indirect cost rate without comment. I believe the hope is that they will be accepted with noticing this.
Paul, go back to Twitter my guy.
George Koob a Trumper or something?
Says a guy who thinks normal people wear a Rollie or an AP.
He's getting a lot of stick for this, but it does look oddly satisfying. You haven't lived if you haven't smashed up a tennis racket or wrapped a golf club around a tree.
Mark Cuban is the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It's not a criticism. It's just how we are used to processing things. A 1%ile grant getting skipped was very rare and likely for very different reasons compared to now. I just don't see any value in the comparison tbh.
I get it, and I know the data, but this is precisely the problem that scientists face right now. We're programmed to rationalize and look for patterns in data and scream "look, we've seen this before!!" My take: we're comparing apples to oranges here and any attempt to normalize this is damaging.
A quick 🧵 on this ruling, which as Steve notes, effectively requires grant recipients challenging grant freezes/cancellations in two fora - Federal Claims to recoup wrongfully withheld grants, and District Court to challenge the policy/basis on which the admin is illegally withholding grants ...
I wasn't talking about life...
This will be over one day.
It is interesting that NIH percentile ranks may or may not mean anything anymore, depending upon factors such as institutional dysfunction. This might be the bleakest I've felt about the future of the NIH since a lot of this stuff can't be reversed.
I honestly don't think scores mean much of anything right now. I think how functional and/or aligned with OMB/WH your main IC is is probably the main factor. Lets face it: they have successfully destroyed the NIH as we all know it.
This is the story everywhere now. I honestly don't think paylines mean much. No idea what's going on aside from OMB/WH blocks. It's an absolute disaster that will be felt in FY26.
The wait to replace a Green Card increases by 1,000% english.elpais.com/usa/2025-07-... In one of the most worrying calculations, it is expected that some applicants from India in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories will have to wait up to 80 years to obtain permanent residency ALONSO MARTÍNEZ JUL 15, 2025
Omg, JD Vance getting heckled by people yelling ‘COUCH F*CKER’ as he visits Union Station to survey Trump’s militarization of D.C.
"new funding opportunities are anticipated for FY2027" You mean AFTER Vought has destroyed the NIH? Got it.
NIH progress on new R01s in FY 2025 drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/08/18/n...
People don't care because it isn't impacting them....yet.
WHERE ARE THE FUCKING DEMOCRATS?? They should be walking the streets of DC right now.
A more cynical view is that this demonstrates that there are in fact NIH staff at some ICs that are choosing to play ball with the administration.
I've got one sitting at ~4% and heard this from the PO last week: "The NEI Grant Management is working hard to get the January Council round awards out of the door, and I’m hopeful this will happen within the next a few days." Do I believe them? Already had to lay someone off.
Once again, there is for how to backfill 15-25% of the budget of every R1 university in the country, & 👇 is coming for every institution & voters/parents/students have no idea what this will mean in terms of courses/degrees/opportunities that will no longer exist. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Seems like NIA and others are still under historical norms for Total Cost of external awards Total funding in plot is calculated by summing total cost by funding IC, not awarding IC
Yeh they'll be all "we must work across the aisle to restore democracy" and then a few years later we'll be right back where we are now.
They (whoever they is) just aren't allowing new awards to go out. I think it's as simple as that. The rest is just noise.
Okay, that was just for new awards. It's actually much more bleak looking at total awards and allocations through the same point last year. NIGMS is short over 1,600 R01 equivalents and has spent over $1B less (~30%) compared to this date last year.
Wish I could say this won't be true, but we are talking about Dems.
NIAAA is just sad. Only NINR looks worse.
It is impossible to explain to civilians how it feels to finally, FINALLY, land a clearly within-payline NIH grant score and then have it go unfunded because of all this regime bullshit. You all have my sympathies. Unfair doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Now maybe the ICs have gamed out every scenario. And you are hearing the straight dope. It’s possible. My NIAAA focused peeps were hearing “zero new grants” many weeks ago. They are mostly correct but I think I saw 1 new R01 come out recently.
If they can avoid R01 MYFs, then presumably more grants can be paid, no? As far as I know, no other ICs have release official paylines. I'm only going by what my PO told me is the payline at DK. I just hope they spend what they have available.
As long as they spend all the FY25 allocation, no problem.
Basically, yes. Proof is in the pudding isn't it?
Over 2.5 million Israelis joined today’s anti-Netanyahu protests, organisers estimate. 300,000 are now in Tel Aviv's Hostage Square. (Haaretz)
Probably all the MYF awards are smaller R21s? But I doubt that would have had the impact on the paylines that it apparently has. Something feels off about this.
Oh great, Nate Silver thinks he should be a reviewer now. What a bellend.
Was the MYF policy thing just a smokescreen?
For NIDDK, I see 5 new R01s issued since 8/8, 4 of which were A1s. Since 7/1, only 28 new R01s have been issued (15 A1s). Seems very low, but having trouble using Reporter on my phone to look at FY24. From what I can tell, only 1/28 are MYF. So why exactly are the paylines so low?
If you're still clinging on to the hope that the NIH will somehow return to normal in FY26, I just don't know what to say to you at this point.
It's away to Man U opening game of the season. Take that W all day long. Don't overthink it.
Rough estimate, half of US labs closed in the next couple of years. Those lucky enough to get paid this cycle will surely sit out on submitting for a bit, right? Right?
Few examples: 1) understand where the payline is and what score compression looks like. I suspect a 1 will be required. Maybe 1 or 2 apps will be funded per SS. 2) be kind to ESI/NI and other discriminated groups 3) maybe drop the whole "this is an A1 but I'm going to pretend it's not" approach.
What do you think it means?
The White House is mobilizing red state military forces to occupy a Democratic stronghold and let me tell you: No one has ever pretended something isn't happening harder than Democratic leaders are pretending this isn't happening right now.
At a minimum I would expect every reviewer to understand the reality of the current landscape. Bare minimum. Review your pile of grants accordingly.
there are 250 Democrats in Congress who should be out on the streets telling these folks to go home right now
And I think the rules that are typically obeyed in SS actually facilitate this shit. You can't talk about this, you can't mention that, you can't say you reviewed this app as an A0. Even having fully remote meetings prevents any informal side chats about these issues.
I think most study section members prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend like everything is fine. "Errrm this is a resubmission of a grant that scored 3%, but a few moderate to minor experimental details dampened my enthusiasm. I'm staying at a 4 to set the range" That kind of shit
Study sections will be performative, and we'll happy participate like a bunch of desperate twats clinging to normalcy.
Naderites gave us Dubya and his wars. Bernie Bros gave us Trump. Pull your fucking head out of your fucking ass, Democrats. Don’t like one candidate? Well promote another Democrat you prefer. And stfu attacking any Democrat right now. Attack the real enemy if you feel fighty.
This is absolutely awful. The reduction in new (type 1) NIH awards is deliberate sabotage by the WH/OMB facilitated by Memoli and Jay, and probably a bunch of others inside the NIH that we don't know about.....yet.
Sadly, this is not true these days. Ask me how I know.....
Sadly not true anymore. Mine was pending, did a JIT (including bloody IRB approval as it's a clinical study) then suddenly pulled from paylist when paylines were cut in late July. Brutal experience.
Predictable. This will be even worse because now there will be a shit ton of A0s with <10% (or even 5%) coming back as A1s. Bad enough. But if these randomly go to SEPs, we may as well just throw in the towel.
That's my impression too. Not sure the paylines mean much right now.
Just heard the same from NIDA PO: “Your application will get council clearance on Sept 3, however it's unlikely the funding plan will go through in the fall, most likely funding decisions will get pushed to later in 2026, once NIH has a budget.”
And a muppet