Tag: study section

Aluminum hydroxide

RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 4: Aluminum edition (or: Everything old is new again…again)

Last week, news stories reported that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had convened an "aluminum working group." Among the "scientists" there are antivax scientists about whom I've been writing for over a decade. Everything old antivax is new again.

/ October 13, 2025
National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Lysenkoism 2.0 and the dismantling of the NIH

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "make America healthy again" is basically Lysenko 2.0. It's come to the NIH and is destroying the crown jewel of US biomedical research with ideology and cronyism.

/ May 12, 2025
An NIH study section

Are NIH study sections a waste of time?

Since the nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for NIH Director, I've been seeing a suggestion from certain contrarian doctors for a "randomized trial" of study sections vs. a "modified lottery" to determine which grant applications are funded by the NIH. Just what the heck is Dr. Vinay Prasad talking about?

/ December 9, 2024
The NIH grant process is not The Godfather.

Improving how the NIH decides which grants to fund: Reality vs. conspiracy

Last week, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a plan to decrease the problem of reputational bias in grant funding. I couldn't help but contrast how hard the NIH tries to use the most rigorous scientific criteria to decide whose grants to fund with the conspiracy theory that Anthony Fauci personally doles out NIH dollars like a mob boss...

/ December 12, 2022