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Vignesh Raman

@vigneshraman.bsky.social
360 followers 618 following 72 posts

Thoracic Surgeon. Duke trained. Tamil nomad from Singapore. Thoracic surgery, oncology, literary fiction, Indian classical music, justice, and equity. He/him. 🏳️‍🌈

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Reposted by Vignesh Raman
Thanh Neville, MD, MSHS @thanh-neville.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I am so triggered by RJK Jr's comment about ICU's being empty during #COVID. I re-read what I wrote after one of the surges. How do others forget. The trauma was--and is--real.
huffpost.com
I'm An ICU Doctor. I’m Haunted By What I’ve Seen During The Recent COVID-19 Surge.
“I can’t stop thinking about the 40-something man who told me, ‘I can’t die like this. I just got engaged and have a 6-month-old baby.’ I encouraged him to be positive, but that didn’t stop him from d...
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Uché Blackstock, MD @ucheblackstockmd.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I care less about what we call this work and more about whether we are actually doing it. Grateful to my HMS classmate and @forbes.com contributor Dr. Sachin Jain for this thoughtful conversation about health equity and trust. Link to article: www.forbes.com/sites/sachin...
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
it's incredible that as long as you do the right amount of bigotry you can just rob the country blind and enough people will not care, even though those same people will be filled with incandescent rage if someone uses food stamps to buy a 12 pack of diet coke
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Breast cancer mortality dropped 58% from 1975 to 2019. Localized, early detected breast cancer has a 99% 5 year survival rate. Modern mammogram tech was developed by NASA for telescopes. Last year, RFK Jr. cancelled 87 research grants on breast cancer. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/u...
nytimes.com
Susie Wiles, Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Has Breast Cancer
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
I get tired of saying it, but I’ll say it again: the nature of oppression in America is that they workshop it first on Black, Latino, Asian & Native people. But it is always, in the end, coming for everyone.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.” That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
🚨🚨🚨 "At least 63 times since 2007, data from some of the 28 human genomic repositories that the N.I.H. controls was improperly released to researchers, used for unapproved purposes or made vulnerable to theft..." (Gift Link) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...
nytimes.com
Genetic Data From Over 20,000 U.S. Children Misused for ‘Race Science’
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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Another great piece from @aniloza.bsky.social on how cutting words harms science and erases human beings. Every day I am heartened by the community of NIH people who are pushing back. @nihvigils.bsky.social @27unihted.bsky.social @savehealthresearch.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/10/29/n...
statnews.com
Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next
The titles of more than 700 multi-year NIH grants have been changed this year, according to an analysis by Jeremy Berg, a former agency official
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Dinushika Mohottige MD, MPH @dmohottige.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
>2,100 research projects funded by the NIH were terminated in 2025...In this comment, patients, care partners, and scientists share our perspective about what's at stake...and why advocacy is essential to our path forward @natureportfolio.nature.com @apha.org @aclu.org www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Briana @bri-elyse1.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
What's happening to Colbert and Kimmel is diabolical, absolutely. But censorship to this degree has been happening. People simply ignored it bc it happened to Black and Brown people first. Melissa Harris Perry, Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, Don Lemon. Marc Lamont Hill. Karen Attiah just this week.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 15/09/2025
i have said this before but when “getting rid of race in admissions” for the administration means “you can’t even try to reach out to underrepresented communities and encourage them to apply and if you do it is illegal discrimination against white people” then the actual goal here is segregation
thecrimson.com
Harvard Ends Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program as Trump Targets Race in Admissions | News | The Harvard Crimson
By ending the minority recruitment program in May, Harvard shuttered a more than 50-year-old initiative to encourage minority high school students to apply.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
Black women have every right to be furious. The irresponsible choices of white voters has for many of us, taken our livelihood with consequences for our homes, the education of our children, our ability to care for parents. It’s unconscionable. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/u...
nytimes.com
In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
They’re not saying it because msm has refused to report on the truth about racism & white supremacy in this country in any sustained manner. They will say “Democratic cities” over and over. But what of Portland, Seattle, Nashville, Jacksonville, Miami?
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
RFK Jr must resign and I believe those of us who work in healthcare, public health, health research, or any related field should demand his resignation
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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
I don’t have a problem with someone evaluating my science abilities if I have the ability to examine theirs. Let’s do televised qualifying exams for all the political appointees who will be evaluating science grants and proposals. Let’s start with directors of institutes and cabinet secretaries.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Right-wingers are so insecure and covetousness that after they gathered public goods, land, economy and education for themselves they wanted the one thing we had: the story of oppression. They want this more than anything else b/c of the powerful narrative & culture we created from it.
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Garnet Henderson @garnethenderson.com · 31/07/2025
NEW: A JAMA study finds that "between August 2022 and December 2024 ... Idaho lost 94 of the 268 OBGYN physicians practicing obstetrics." Just 20 new OBGYNs moved to Idaho in that time, "and 114 of the 268 baseline obstetricians" stopped practicing, left the state, or retired.
jamanetwork.com
Change in OB/GYN Physicians Practicing Obstetrics After the Dobbs Decision
This cohort study evaluates changes in the number of obstetrics and gynecology physicians practicing in Idaho after the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision.
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Aguirre-Ghiso Lab @jaguirreghisolab.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Delighted to see this story out and collaborate with amazing teams led by @jdegregori.bsky.social Mercedes Rincon & @roelvermeulen.bsky.social. Proud to see science propelled by our lab @cdi-einstein.bsky.social expanded to better understand cancer dormancy. Congrats! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs - Nature
Mouse models show that respiratory infections from viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can trigger metastasis of dormant breast cancer cells in the lungs, a finding supported by epidemiological d...
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Roel Verhaak @roelverhaak.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
PO just confirmed that our 5th percentile R01 is not getting funded. Past NCI Payline at 4 percent. Cant believe it.
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Leora Horwitz @leorahorwitzmd.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Heard from #AHRQ that the entire grants staff has been let go! They are unable to issue funds for grants already funded, let alone fund new grants. This is outrageous and will make Americans poorer and sicker. Why? A brief thread about just some recent AHRQ-funded research: #MedSky #HealthPolicy
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
www.wired.com/story/how-tr...
wired.com
How Trump Killed Cancer Research
Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
New hair-raising piece from CNN about the National Cancer Institute... www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/h...
cnn.com
World’s premier cancer institute faces crippling cuts and chaos | CNN
The Trump administration’s broadsides against scientific research have caused unprecedented upheaval at the National Cancer Institute, the storied federal government research hub that has spearheaded ...
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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Framing this around “viewpoint diversity” and the supposed expediency of tracking professors’ political donations is absolutely brilliant. www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
cavalierdaily.com
A dive into the Board of Visitors’ political donations
Here is a look at Board members’ political donations — all but one of whom has records of political donations which are overwhelmingly to Republican candidates and campaigns.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 27/06/2025
"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."
slate.com
The United States Is About to Embark on a Terrifying Experiment in Mass Statelessness
This scenario, until recently, might have read like a dystopian projection. But after the court’s decision on Friday, it is no longer hypothetical.
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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
kind of just endlessly sad and grieving that there are so few voices in the public sphere making the basic principled argument that immigration is an affirmative good in every way and the best way for this country to serve humanity is to welcome people who want or need to leave their homes
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Vignesh Raman @vigneshraman.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
Great read and opportunity for reflection on a Saturday morning: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
theatlantic.com
The Bliss of a Quieter Ego
We live in a world of noisy narcissism, but you can escape the cacophony—and be happier.
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Reposted by Vignesh Raman
Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
It's not useful but I just can't believe we let people who believe this shit within light years of power
Screenshot from Trump's budget request showing an $18 billion cut to NIH and then a paragraph full of incredible bullshit, here is most of it, sorry for so much alt text but I ran out of characters:

The Administration is committed to restoring accountability, public trust, and transparency at the NIH. NIH has broken the trust ofthe American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health. While evidence ofthe origins ofthe COVID- 19 pandemic leaking from a laboratory is now confirmed by several intelligence agencies, the NIH's inability to prove that its grantstothe Wuhan Institute ofVirology were not complicit in such a possible leak, or get data and hold recipients of Federal funding accountable is evidence that NIH has grown too big and unfocused. Further, the NIH has been involved in dangerous gain-of-function research and failed to adequately addressit, which further undermines public confidence in NIH. The NIH has also promoted radical gender ideology to the detriment ofAmerica's youth. For example, the NIH funded a study titled "Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones," in which two participantstragically committed suicide. The Budget proposes to reform NIH and focus NIH research activities in line with the President's commitment to MAHA, including consolidating multiple overlapping and ill-focused programs into five new focus areas with associated spending reforms: the National Institute on Body Systems Research; National Institute on Neuroscience and Brain Research; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Disability Related Research; and National Institute on Behavioral Health.
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pennsurgery.bsky.social @pennsurgery.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
New study led by Kriyana Reddy and @drlolafayanju.bsky.social finds that increased distance to care prolongs time to surgery (TTS) for rural patients with breast cancer. But rurality, independent of distance, has an intrinsic protective effect on TTS.
journals.lww.com
The Effect of Rurality on Time to Surgery and Overall... : Annals of Surgery
hip between rurality, proximity to care, TTS, and OS remains unknown. Methods: We identified females≥18 years with stage 0-III breast cancer diagnosed 2004-2019 who received upfront surgery in the ...
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
"The NIH budget has not increased in more than 20 years despite research being more expensive to conduct. This is a necessary data point for policymakers to consider as they determine funding priorities." 🧪 jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
NIH Funding Has Stagnated Since 2003
This Viewpoint explores how funding has changed at the National Institutes of Health over time and discusses how continued investment is necessary to maintain the current level of biomedical research.
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Rebecca Fielding-Miller @rebeccafieldingmiller.com · 22/03/2025
Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women. More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications. I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.
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Patrick Hickey, MD @pwhickey.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Headed home from the meeting of medical school pediatric chairs - many of them also Chief Medical Officers for children’s hospitals. so much at stake for the health of children- all children
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Riordan Ledgerwood, MD (they/he) @ledgemd.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
This week has been a lot. In light of my imminent separation from the U.S. Army (one way or another at this point), I’m gonna say my piece.
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Vignesh Raman @vigneshraman.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Where do you get international news? I've stopped NYT and WaPo subscriptions and Reuters/AP seem inadequate.
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
after the overturning of roe, black infant mortality has spiked nearly 11% in states with abortion bans: www.reuters.com/world/us/inf...
reuters.com
Infant mortality rises in states with abortion bans, study finds
Increases in infant mortality have been found in U.S. states that enacted abortion bans or severe restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling that guaranteed a right to the procedure, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
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Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 12/02/2025
People who are telling you that there's a lot of fraud in Medicaid are lying to you in order to try to convince you to support taking healthcare away from children on dialysis. Because the only way to convince enough normal people to harm disabled children is by lying.
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Daniel Gorelick @danielgorelick.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Trainees who applied for an NIH diversity fellowship whose applications were withdrawn/not being reviewed, there's a NYTimes reporter who wants to talk, especially interested in applicants with disabilities. DM me & I'll put you in touch, will keep all contact confidential. Please amplify
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Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
„Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis, as I did for my book Serving the Reich, cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders“ 🧪
chemistryworld.com
Scientific institutions have a long history of anticipatory obedience
Societies should learn from this and speak up to support inclusion
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
I actually wish the media would stop using "DEI" and "diversity hiring" and just get to the essence of the thing and ask: "Are you saying that this crash was caused by desegregating the races?" And see what happens.
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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
If this administration reminds of nothing else, it makes clear something I say all the time: race is the central organizing feature of American politics and American life. Nothing else comes close. These fools can’t even talk about a tragic plane crash without talking about “DEI.”
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Gender affirming care saves trans and non-binary youths lives. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care
This cohort study investigates whether gender-affirming care is associated with decreased depression, anxiety, and suicidality among transgender and nonbinary youths.
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Thanh Neville, MD, MSHS @thanh-neville.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
I am in year 2 of a 5yr NIH R01 grant that aims to bring the @3wishesprogram.bsky.social to #LA's underserved patients. It took me 3 years (4 tries) to get this grant. I have research coordinators & investigators whose salaries depend on the grant. I am so angry right now. #medsky
cnn.com
All federal grants and loan disbursement paused by White House | CNN Politics
The White House budget office has ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans, according to an internal memorandum sent Monday.
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
You really must not just stop HIV drugs suddenly; obviously, Trump has indeed just done this, but this was ethically AND scientifically catastrophic Suddenly stopping risks drug resistance, so you may not be able to put people back on the same drugs again - you'd need costlier, more complex regimes
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Vignesh Raman @vigneshraman.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
@sifill.bsky.social is always on point.
open.substack.com
It Is MLK Day. Do Not Despair. This Year Especially, We Have Work To Do.
With delicious anticipation, we imagined it.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
"California paid in a lot more [to the federal government] than it got back — $83 billion in total. So did Washington state and much of the Northeast. Most red states were in the reverse position, getting much more from DC than they paid in return."
paulkrugman.substack.com
In Praise of California
It has its flaws — what place doesn’t? — but it plays a big role in America’s greatness
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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social · 14/12/2024
In 2018, I published an editorial in USA Today about how angry women were and how little tolerance the world has for angry women. I did not imagine we would have even more reasons to be angry now, in 2024. But here we are, as I write in the first essay for my Substack, live now
arghavan.substack.com
I'm even angrier.
I thought I was angry in 2018, 2 years into Trump's first term, with a new assault on decency every week. I could not have even conceived of the anger of this moment.
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Vignesh Raman @vigneshraman.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Another fantastic paper by @charlesswanton.bsky.social about the role of extrachromosomal DNA in cancer: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Origins and impact of extrachromosomal DNA - Nature
A study examines the diversity of extrachromosomal DNA elements in cancer, and provides details on the frequency and origin of extrachromosomal DNA and its role in the development of different types o...
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Genevieve Boland, MD, PhD @gmboland.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Highlighting amazing work by Jeff Yang at MGH Surgery on improving screening for lung cancer via the INSPIRE study www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news...
nbcnews.com
Study suggests more lives could be saved with expanded lung cancer tests
A study suggests that expanded screening for lung cancer could save more lives, especially among Black Americans. A 70-year-old woman who participated in the study says she was saved by earlier screen...
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