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marshapiercephd.bsky.social
#Scientist 🧪 👩🏻‍⚕️ #Educator #neurosky 🧠 #pharmsky 💊 #IL14 Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Midwestern University. All opinions my own. she/her ORCID 0000-0002-7265-0104 https://facultyprofiles.midwestern.edu/117-marsha-louise-pierce
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Federal officials on Wednesday appear to have "revoked" the layoffs of more than 400 CDC employees who had been abruptly dismissed months ago, which may reinstate the entire staff of a laboratory that tracks viral hepatitis and most employees in one of the CDC's environmental health divisions.

Happy Loving Day! ❤️

It’s me. 🥴

Everyone I knew who covered disinformation got laid off, their bosses got bullied into firing them, or they changed their beats from actual Nazi harassment campaigns. It cannot be stressed the damage the paid-for Substack “free speech” guys did in the service of fascism and against real free speech.

It'd be a terrible thing if this tipline were flooded with reports of the invasive plants and animals across these United States. In Illinois in particular, it would be just awful if they got a bunch of calls about Black carp, Spiny water flea, and Zebra mussel. Not to mention the Buckthorn!

RFK is going to be responsible for a lot of death and suffering

You do not have to say “pro vaccine groups.” You can say the vast majority of doctors and scientists and the American Medical Association.

"The board approved those scholars over the winter after a yearlong selection process.. the board learned that the office of public diplomacy at the agency had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based mainly on their research topics." As the article notes, this is illegal.

NIH terminates network aimed at stopping pandemics before they start | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

"I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was," said former DOGE engineer Sahil Lavingia www.npr.org/2025/06/02/n...

The risks “go far beyond just targeted ads. When this data falls into the wrong hands, it can affect users’ job prospects and lead to workplace surveillance, health insurance discrimination, and cyberstalking. It has even been used to limit access to abortion in the U.S., the study warns.”

Welcome to the fight #AmericanMedicalAssociation. Good to have you on board.

Coupled with the savaging of NOAA & NWS, this means states are going to be caught unprepared when hurricanes strike, resulting in more damage that they’ll be even less capable of cleaning up. A disaster on top of a disaster.

As we say on the internet, "some personal news." After 39 years on the job I am retiring as an NYU professor. In this thread I will take a few moments to reflect on my academic career. Spoiler alert: I am not leaving the field, or the fight for a public service press. 1/

EVERYONE, The Onion is extremely on sale for the next five days. $75 gets you a year's worth of the last good newspaper delivered to your real life mailbox. Father's Day is in five days. America's dads love being duped by wrong information. Buy one for each of your 7 dads. membership.theonion.com

And as I always harp on when this comes up— not just cervical cancer! HPV causes penile cancer, anal cancer, head and neck cancers. It is important for people of every gender to get the vaccine, and in the US you can get it up to age 45

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 We all should be applauding our brave #NIH colleagues and joining in by speaking up 📢, calling our congressional leaders, writing our hometown newspapers 🗞️, any way to tell the stories of what is happening to science and research 🔬 🧬 Now is the time! 📣

One of the things mentioned here is that they arrived in unmarked cars and wore casual clothing, so if staff hadn’t had the courage to tell them to go away, how would you know they were federal agents and not random adult men abducting children? This should be the biggest conservative mom panic ever

The NIH has, for now, walked back a policy requiring universities and other research institutes to certify that they do not have unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or boycotts of Israel in order to receive research dollars. www.statnews.com/2025/06/09/n...

The Bethesda Declaration: A Call for NIH and HHS Leadership to Deliver on Promises of Academic Freedom and Scientific Excellence www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...

This is the kind of thing that is going to happen constantly now that we have an unaccountable masked gang with complete impunity: Random scammers, stalkers and criminals are just going to pretend to be ICE, because why not?

I think it's important to continuously reiterate that federal science funding grants in the US (and elsewhere) are made because the government, with the input of panels of independent experts, have concluded that the work being done is IN THE INTEREST OF THE NATION.

How white supremacy responds to protesters who did it the “right” way

Here is the english version of my interview with @manuelansede.bsky.social from El Pais. Manuel is a curious journalist who loves science and it shows. He also likes my tattoo 😂. english.elpais.com/science-tech...

Just in from DC Bar - labor attorney Diane Seltzer defeats securities attorney Brad Bondi in a closely watched race with record turnout.

NIH is cutting research on mRNA vaccines. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya signed a petition calling for a halt on the vaccines & said many people view it as a "bad platform." But in 2021 he wrote a white paper praising the technology as an example of the type of breakthrough science NIH should fund.

If you weren't angry enough already, here are the rates of non-competitive renewals through May. 4008 Non-competitive renewals were due to be funded in May. The total funded was 99! Some is due to terminations, but most is due to slow grant making due to DOGE review and other impediments. 1/2

These are (or were) ongoing projects... no study section review or Advisory Council approval required.

“Our American scientific engine, the NIH and NSF, built with the future in mind, is good for the economy, it improves lives, and it’s one of the true wonders of the world. And I am heartbroken to say that today it is under attack.” – excellent op-ed by neuroscientist @visscherlab.bsky.social

"Tanner, a chemist at the Univ. of Mississippi working to develop a novel approach for treating glioblastoma, was notified in April that the grant was terminated. “I would like to cure brain cancer,” Dr. Tanner said. “I think that's not particularly controversial.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It’s amazing how corporate media never belabors this point for MAGA. I recall endless “Twitter is Dems’ social media bubble” stories. Now that Twitter is MAGA-central and Truth Social the digital Mein Kampf, it’s … the Left that has to worry about operating in a bubble? Really?

This reminds me of Amanda Blount’s #SecondCivilWarLetters hashtag from years ago. www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropo...

Honestly I think if this place was actually irrelevant we wouldn’t have to deal with the same freaking editorial every week for an entire year and a half

A study finds, US based academic research institutes account for 50% of new medical drugs in the last 4 years. 🧪 www.statnews.com/2025/06/06/u... #science #savescience #stat

Two veterans made their way onto a military base in Washington State and attacked a soldier with a hammer as they tried to steal combat equipment, the authorities said. The theft led investigators to a house full of Nazi paraphernalia and a stockpile of stolen weapons.

Out now in @nathumbehav.nature.com: Cuts to NIH funding will impact the economy and employment nationwide. We visualize these losses and advocate for a theory-driven approach to communicating local, self-relevant impact. w/ @joshuasweitz.bsky.social + SCIMaP team: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Worth noting LBJ used the National Guard to protect and expand civil rights; DJT is doing exactly the opposite.

Happy Pride Month. ❤️ #pridemonth2025 #happypridemonth

This isn't a stalled gender revolution. It's a gender counter-revolution. And the most troubling part is that it's younger men and boys the leading charge. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/o...

Some context folks may need to understand this decision: A promise of funding from NIH/NSF can now be taken away at any time. This can put unis and lead researchers in a tight spot financially and reptuationally. Grant apps make promises that only funding can keep. 🧵🧪

The Trump administration’s freezing in April of $790 million in federal research funding for Northwestern University has left concerned lab directors without key grant money from the National Institutes of Health.