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Reposted by Theresa O

Theresa Kim, PhD, MS @tyk314.net · 17h

@aaronecarroll.bsky.social of @academyhealth.bsky.social says, "The capacity to collect, analyze, and share high-quality, nonpartisan data is essential to good governance, accountability, and the health of every community...” Thanks, @josh-caplan.bsky.social.
#defenddata #HHSstrong #NCES

AcademyHealth Warns of "Collapse in the Nation's Health Evidence Infrastructure" Following Cuts to the National Center for Health Statistics | AcademyHealth

academyhealth.org

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HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 2d

The entire HR department at the CDC is gone. Everyone at the IRB, which makes sure studies are conducted ethically and rigorously, and the ethics office, which oversee conflicts of interest for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

‘Instability and confusion’ as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half

Trump administration says 700 notices were sent in error, while top CDC officer says ‘they didn’t think through what they were doing’

www.theguardian.com

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Mad Houser/AltHUD @madhouser.altgov.info · 1d

4th was the incredibly woke office of housing counselors. You know the people who help people figure how to do such woke things such as improving their credit scores, lowering debt, or even how to keep their homes in times of crisis. Not even offices serving the so called American dream are safe.

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Mad Houser/AltHUD @madhouser.altgov.info · 1d

3rd was part of an office called the Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC), a relatively benign place that oversees among other things, inspections for all of HUD’s rental assistance programs. They oversee the inspections that make sure Section 8 and Public Housing properties are not slum housing.

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Mad Houser/AltHUD @madhouser.altgov.info · 1d

If CPD grants was 1st, 2nd at HUD to receive the boot was the Office of Environment and Energy. I know you’re all super surprised based on the name right? But this office was doing some pretty incredible work guiding HUD policy around floodplain management, energy codes & building technology.

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 3d

Terminations of this type were found to be illegal and this was confirmed by this Supreme Court.

The NIH "leadership" that did this or allowed it to happen should be ashamed (but I know they are not).

a woman says go feel shame while standing in front of a window

ALT: a woman says go feel shame while standing in front of a window

media.tenor.com

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 3d

This is a powerful account from a PhD student whose fellowship was terminated by NIH because it was part of a "diversity" program without any other considerations or understanding of what the program or the students were actually doing.

undark.org/2025/10/09/o...

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NIH Student Grant Cancellation Will Weaken Scientific Innovation

The termination of federal F31 diversity fellowships puts many graduate students in a bind — and U.S. science at risk.

undark.org

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Heather Randell @heatherrandell.bsky.social · 2d

Economists! We’re hiring an assistant professor who focuses on domestic labor or public economics. The Humphrey School is wonderful and Minneapolis is the best city ever in my humble opinion.

More details here:
hr.myu.umn.edu/psc/hrprd/EM...

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Job Description
Assistant Professor
About the Job
The Humphrey School of Public Affairs seeks applications for a full-time, tenure track faculty position at the assistant professor or advanced assistant professor level in social policy with a field of specialization in the domestic (U.S.) applied policy areas of labor or public economics. The faculty member will join a vibrant community of interdisciplinary scholars at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and support graduate students pursuing the Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) and other master's-level professional degree programs, and the Ph.D. in Public Affairs program.
Successful candidates must demonstrate the potential to develop an innovative and socially impactful research portfolio that addresses contemporary questions related to social policy.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 3d

⚠️ STATES, LOCALS, TRIBAL NATIONS, TERRITORIES ⚠️

HHS has eliminated EVERY SINGLE SAFEGUARD FOR DATA PROTECTION AT CDC. Giving data to CDC is no longer safe and puts your residents at risk.

Unless and until all CDC’s data protections are restored you should consider CDC a bad actor.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 3d

More CDC Cuts :: NCHS Edition 📊🔫

At least 1/3 of the staff at the National Center for Health Statistics has been cut (and remain cut). This is catastrophic for our nation’s health data.

Say goodbye to national health statistics that you can trust, healthcare surveys, NHANES and data systems.

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Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 4d

There are so few academic jobs, and thousands of excellent scholars are all trying to move at the same time due to location.

‘Fear and hopelessness’: study finds one in four professors consider leaving US south

Survey by American Association of Professors shows nearly quarter of respondents are switching due to states’s politics

www.theguardian.com

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AltSpaceForce 🚀🇺🇲 @altspaceforce.altgov.info · 4d

Special education.
Targeting the most vulnerable children and families in our society for the lulz.
Tell me again how very Christian this is.
The cruelty here is unfathomable.

Special education staff decimated after Trump administration shutdown firings: Sources

The nation’s special education services have been significantly damaged after Fridays’s mass layoffs within the Department of Education, sources told ABC News.

abcnews.go.com

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Sara Partridge, PhD @sarapartridge.bsky.social · 4d

Reporting from @zachschermele.bsky.social at USA Today with more details ⬇️

www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 4d

⚠️ USAToday reporter confirms the office in charge of special education funding has been “decimated”:

Zach Schermele
Follow
@ZachSchermele
NEW: The Education Dept. layoffs continued overnight, w/ the main office in charge of special ed funding being
"decimated," as one person described.
"They cut just about everyone that works with IDEA funding," said another.
"I'm not sure how these programs exist moving forward."
10:21 AM • 10/11/25 • 2.1K Views

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 6d

Thoughtful and well-informed op-ed from @ianlmorgan.bsky.social

Definitely worth a read!

www.the-scientist.com/nih-leadersh...

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NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers

Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.

www.the-scientist.com

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 5d

The editors of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) were apparently fired today.

The precursor to MMWR began in 1878 to address emerging public health threats rapidly.

We are not “great” without it. We are vulnerable to threats from sporadic foodborne illness to bioterrorism.

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Voilà: Francis Gagnon @chezvoila.com · 8d

This is really one of the best charts by @ourworldindata.org 📊

Amazing how much research and work goes into creating a chart like this. And it's such a good insight into society.

What Americans die from and the causes of death the US media reports on.

4 stacked bar charts. showing in short that while heart diseases and cancer constitutes 55% of the causes of death, they receive about 7% of the media coverages. Homicide is under 1% but receives between 42% and 52%. Terrorisme barely registers in the causes of death, but gets between 11% and 18%.

The first stacked bar is causes of death in the US in 2023
Heart diseases 29%
Cancer 26%
Accidents 9.5%
Stroke 6.9%
Lower respiratory diseases (6.2%)
Alzheimer's disease (4.8%)
Diabetes (4.0%)
Kidney failure (2.4%)
Liver disease (2.2%)
Suicide (2.1%)
COVID-19 (2.1%)
Influenza/Pneumonia (1.9%)
Drug overdose (1.8%)
Homicide (<1%)
Terrorism (<0.001%)

Media coverage of these causes of death in 2023 in...
New York Times
Heart disease (2.8%)
Cancer (4.1%)
Accidents (9.7%)
Suicide (3.8%)
COVID-19 (5.3%)
Drug overdose (7.5%)
Homicide (42%)
Terrorism (18%)

Washington Post
Heart disease (2.9%)
Cancer (4.7%)
Accidents (5.9%)
Suicide (3.3%)
COVID-19 (7.9%)
Drug overdose (9.5%)
Homicide (46%)
Terrorism (12%)

Fox News
Heart disease (2.3%)
Cancer (3.8%)
Accidents (6.1%)
Suicide (4.1%)
COVID-19 (6.0%)
Drug overdose (9.8%)
Homicide (52%)
Terrorism (11%)

Note: Based on the share of causes of death in the US and the share of mentions for each of the causes in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Fox News. All values are normalized to 100%, so the shares are relative to all deaths caused by the 12 most common causes + drug overdoses, homicides and terrorism. These causes account for more than 75% of deaths in the US.
A "media mention" is a published article in one of the outlets which mentions the cause (e.g. "influenza) or related keywords (e.g. "flu") least twice.
Data sources: Media mentions from Media Cloud (2025); deaths data from the US CDC (2025) and Global Terrorism Index.

Fox News

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Reposted by Theresa O

Jay D. Aronson @jaydaronson.bsky.social · 13d

You can listen to my recent interview with WBUR's Here & Now:
www.npr.org/2025/10/01/n...

Undercounted: The hidden deaths in America’s jails : Here & Now Anytime

Over a four-year period between 2019 and 2023, about 1,000 people died annually in U.S. jails. Nearly one-third of those deaths don't have a cause of death, according to an analysis of federal data by...

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Theresa O

ProPublica @propublica.org · 13d

Crystal Carter went to tour an apartment. Rent was $1,500 a month.

“I’ll be paying with a Section 8 voucher,” she said.

“Yeah,” the landlord said. “I don’t do Section 8.”

This is what housing voucher discrimination looks like 👇

(Published 2020 w/ @ctmirror.org)

How Wealthy Towns Keep People With Housing Vouchers Out

Section 8 vouchers should give low-income people the opportunity to live outside poor communities. But discriminatory landlords, exclusionary zoning and the federal government’s hands-off approach lea...

www.propublica.org

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 15d

The fiscal year is over.

So how was the NIH appropriation committed?

A long thread with institute by institute results about where the money went.

a white cat is sitting on a box with the words where written on it .

ALT: a white cat is sitting on a box with the words where written on it .

media.tenor.com

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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 16d

Staff members at the NIH seem to have done the impossible: spend the agency's $48 billion budget.

“Everyone has been rallying together to clean up the mess, but it’s a mess that did not need to be made,” an NIH program officer told me.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

NIH races to spend its 2025 grant money — but fewer projects win funding

Despite political obstacles, officials are on track to disburse all of the research funds allocated to US biomedical behemoth.

www.nature.com

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Alt NIH Bluesky 🧪 @altnih4science.bsky.social · 19d

Followup
“This is only one institute at NIH, but it’s good news. Other institutes may not have done as well.”

Also we’d add: Russ Vought tried to stop NIH spending to create illegal impoundment, and THIS YEAR, he failed. He’ll be stronger next year as more NIH staff have left.

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Reposted by Theresa O

Alt NIH Bluesky 🧪 @altnih4science.bsky.social · 19d

Hearing from someone in NIH program:

“Our final Task Order for $6.2M went out today. Every obstacle DOGE put up to keep us from funding new TOs and extending others was overcome. My fired contract officers were rehired. It was a lot of work, but we did it.
For now.”

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Pam Davis-Kean, PhD @umpamdk.bsky.social · 16d

Thank you all the program officers at NIH that persisted through the 2025 fiscal year and were able to fund 99% of the total FY2024 budget. I know this has take a toll on everyone at NIH. Thank you for supporting important health and behavior science and helping to keep the U.S. a leader in science.

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 16d

The fiscal year ends tomorrow.

Here are results from NIH Reporter downloaded an hour ago.

The total amount of funding committed for FY2025 at this point is 99.0% of that for FY2024. The same difference could be due to a variety of technical factors.

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$A graph showing the fraction of annual grant funding committed for NIH for fiscal years 2015 to 2025. The fiscal year 2025 lagged behind but then caught up over the last two months.$

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Reposted by Theresa O

Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 18d

Clarence Thomas on precedent: He doesn't feel bound. www.rawstory.com/clarence-tho...

Justice Thomas signals during speech the court is open to tossing aside prior rulings

In a rare public appearance, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas hinted that the nation’s highest court may very well be considering tearing up legal precedents that have been in effect fo...

www.rawstory.com

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