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Wesley Bond

@wesleybond.bsky.social
59 followers 91 following 105 posts

Science nerd. PhD working in biotech. Politics junkie. 🏳️‍🌈 My opinions are my own, of course. Find me over at Mastodon: mastodon.social/@wesleybond

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Reposted by Wesley Bond
Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
I'm about a quarter of the way into the extraordinary decision in APHA v. Vandals. It designed to serve as documentation of a great and grave injustice, the abandonment and intentional destruction of the NIH, one of the greatest achievements of the US and, indeed, of humanity. Essential reading.
storage.courtlistener.com
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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social · 03/07/2025
Making America Healthy Again by defunding research on cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s is an…interesting, and reckless, strategy www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Table shows number of deaths from heart disease, respiratory distress, diabetes, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s drug overdose, suicide, Covid/flu. For each condition, they list the institute they funds that research and the amount of proposed funding cuts. These range from 36% to 40%
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Fiona "Fi" Webster 🌎🌍🌏 @fiona-webster22.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Peter Hotez is very worried that yellow fever is coming to the US. "We could manufacture next-generation mRNA vaccines [for yellow fever] quickly, as we did for Covid," he says. But of course the new Health & Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is trying to block mRNA vaccine innovation.
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STAT @statnews.com · 20/06/2025
Nicole Verdun, director of the office that reviews cell and gene therapies at the Food and Drug Administration, and her deputy Rachael Anatol have been placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the agency. www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/t...
statnews.com
Top gene therapy regulator forced out at FDA
Nicole Verdun, top gene therapy regulator at the FDA, has been forced out of the agency.
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
AMAZING turnout in suburban Denver (Arvada)!! #nokings
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Now more than ever.
The Progress Pride flag.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 20/05/2025
The trouble with AI art isn’t just lack of originality. It’s something far bigger | Eric Reinhart
theguardian.com
The trouble with AI art isn’t just lack of originality. It’s something far bigger | Eric Reinhart
When artwork is invented by a machine, it loses its most important power: to help people connect. In an already lonely era, that is particularly dangerous
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 15/05/2025
A baby's life was saved thanks to a custom gene-editing treatment that was made just for him and designed to fix his precise mutation. The therapy was built on decades of federally funded research, and could one day treat millions. But advances like this are at risk due to science funding cuts.
Gene editing helped a desperately ill baby thrive. Scientists say it could someday treat millions

This photo provided by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia shows KJ
Muldoon after a follow up dose of an experimental gene editing treatment at the hospital in April 2025. (Chloe Dawson/Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia via AP)
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
As @jimalwine.bsky.social and I wrote, we are losing the next generation of scientists, and about half of this country is happy about it or doesn’t know it. thehill.com/opinion/heal...
thehill.com
The US is losing its next generation of health scientists
The U.S. research and training infrastructure is under attack by the Trump administration, and there have been destructive consequences.
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Y'all, it's just a pause. And a misleading one at that, still a 30% tariff with China. I don't understand why markets are so jubilant. How does this decrease economic uncertainty? Or inflation risk? Or the coming supply shock that this in no way will head off? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Trump claims ‘total reset’ of US-China ties as 90-day pause to trade war agreed
Markets rally after Washington and Beijing agree to drastically cut reciprocal tariffs as US treasury secretary says ‘neither side wants a decoupling’
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Melody Schreiber @melodyschreiber.com · 06/05/2025
Vinay Prasad, who made a name for himself throughout the pandemic for casting doubt on clinical trials, is now the director of FDA's CBER (which reviews new vaccines and therapies).
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 06/05/2025
What a whiny, ineffectual weasel.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
I mean, the warning wasn't wrong. #proofOfCat
Small tortie in box on which is written "warning: if left empty and unattended this box will contain cat
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
The savvy will scoff, but I am completely serious about this. Congressional Dems should introduce a constitutional amendment to limit the pardon power and force votes on it whenever they can. Dem presidential wannabes should endorse the idea. Blue states should signal support.
offmessage.net
Rein In Trump's Pardon Power
Before it's too late... And presidential immunity, while we're at it.... Take it to Congress, to states, even to the streets.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
BREAKING: Reports that Trump would try to cut NIH's budget by 40% have come true. The request released moments ago would: - Cut $18 BILLION to NIH's $47b budget - Eliminate NIMHD, NCCIH, FIC - Collapse ICs into five 'focus areas' There's also a long screed about NIH's deficiencies.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
bsky.app/profile/maxk...
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Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory. arstechnica.com/health/2025/...
arstechnica.com
RFK Jr. rejects cornerstone of health science: Germ theory
In his 2021 book vilifying Anthony Fauci, RFK Jr. lays out support for an alternate theory.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
RFK Jr. ordered the NIH’s Integrated Research Facility in Frederick to stop all research on serious infectious diseases yesterday at 5:00 PM. They study pathogens like Ebola there. You may be familiar with it from The Hot Zone. www.wired.com/story/hhs-ni...
wired.com
RFK Jr.'s HHS Orders Lab Studying Deadly Infectious Diseases to Stop Research
NIAID's Integrated Research Facility is one of the few federal facilities charged with studying Ebola. Tuesday afternoon, all of its work was put on indefinite pause by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s departm...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 30/04/2025
A LOT of people do not want to hear it but in the United States at least, food has never been safer to eat, not to mention tastier
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
A beautiful video of growing nerves tipped by the spectacular, exploratory, sensorimotor structure that is the "growth cone"! 😍
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 30/04/2025
Jupiter Core xkcd.com/3083
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Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
"You know, as an example, red lead was used to make cheddar... A can of coffee could be coffee, but it could be ground bone, or charred shells, or dirt." Deborah Blum on our bad food past -- and how to avoid it being our future: buttondown.com/theswordandt...
buttondown.com
How to Not Get Poisoned in America
The minute I saw that Robert Kennedy Jr., a notorious disease-loving health crank, was going to be responsible for the nation’s health—and the health of its...
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
When Trump is gone, we need to be prepared with reforms that will strengthen US democracy and resist authoritarian attempts like what we're living through now. The ideas need to be ready, so we can act while political will is there. My first suggestion: increase the size of Congress, dramatically.
Figure showing the average number of constituents per representative in OECD nations. The united states has a far higher ratio than any other nation, with about 800,000 people per representative in the US House of Representatives. Most nations have less than 200,000 constituents per representative.
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digby @digby56.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
This stuff has to be blown up much bigger than it has been. You want a kitchen table issue? Cancer is a kitchen table issue.
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 28/04/2025
Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH. Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH. HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH. 99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH. Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.
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Rachael Sirianni, PhD @docsirianni.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Detailed article - read it, repost it, and use this information to help others understand. Call to action at the bottom. We need to AMPLIFY what's going on: keep making noise!
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Stuart Neil @tetherin.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
I’m a virologist who has been studying HIV in one way or another since 1997. In the last 2-3 years there has been a sea change. The new drugs spearheaded by LENC show that we can make the tools to halt HIV with will and commitment. And just as we arrive at this point, MAGA is killing that hope.
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Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
i wrote about muffulettas, and why it's important to cling to joy in this rough time even when it is very hard!!!! buttondown.com/theswordandt...
buttondown.com
Notable Sandwiches #124: The Muffuletta
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where David and I play host at the strange, overladen table that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches,...
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/04/2025
PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Here, @theguardian.com , let me fix that headline for you: "though running for a third term is illegal and unconstitutional." See, that wasn't hard, now was it? Do better.
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Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦 @merz.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
In what proportions is our new NIH Director a flaming ignoramus vs. a brazen liar?
Jonny Paradise 🌱
@plantparadise7
·
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya on mRNA tech: 

"The next step is [to halt] the mRNA platform itself... the manufacturer has no idea what dose they're giving, no idea where it goes in the body, and whether they are producing off-target antigens"
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Rachael Sirianni, PhD @docsirianni.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Lemme tell you about AI + medicine. It's not ready. Nobody in the field thinks it's ready. Is the motiv to wipe out human innovation + creativity? No, the motiv is to fuel money to the pockets of tech oligarchs + others in this admins inner circle
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/04/2025
When mRNA is outlawed, only outlaws will have protective immunity.
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Rachael Sirianni, PhD @docsirianni.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Have a cultural center for intern't'l scholars? No grants for you. Have a support group for women in engineering? No grants for you. Thinking it's smooth sailing and then at some random time in the future some random MAGA gets upset about something said in an op ed or classroom? No grants for you 😡
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
NEW: The entire NIH payment system is currently frozen for all grantees. This is tied to DOGE’s new “Defend the Spend” caper, reported in today’s Post, which has already led to payment cutoffs to doctors and health workers at hospitals treating the poor.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/04/2025
Burchett on medical research at universities: "They want to destroy this country. The research stops when the money stops. That's bull. We ought to put it out in the private sector...and we find out that a majority of their students aren't even American citizens?...it's a disloyalty to our country."
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Even if a portion of the proposed NIH cuts happen, game over for medical research in the US. The pipeline for new drugs will dry up for years. Scientists will leave the profession & won't come back. It's up to Congress, so if you like curing diseases start calling reps NOW. doi.org/10.1126/scie...
doi.org
Trump proposes massive NIH budget cut and reorganization
Will Republican-led Congress support a 44% decrease for world’s largest medical research funder?
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
38 of the 43. "38 of 43 experts cut last month from boards that review science and research in NIH laboratories are female, Black or Hispanic. "The scientists typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal..." www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
washingtonpost.com
Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards
Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 13/04/2025
0. Vought, Vance, Rufo, and those attacking academia see scientists as bureaucrats—in the most pejorative sense of the term—who they can "put into trauma" and drive to quit. They don't understand that science is not just a job. It's a vocation, literally, in the original sense of *a calling*.
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Sabrina Imbler @sabs.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Colossal didn't make a dire wolf. This is not a dire wolf! Stop saying it is!! I feel like I'm going mad!!!
the cover of Time Magazine, with the headline "Extinct" crossed out in red above the text "This is Remus. He’s a dire wolf. The first to exist in over 10,000 years. Endangered species could be changed forever." by Jeffrey Kluger, and the photo of a white dog-like wolf-like animal
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Anything you’d like to say, @govofco.bsky.social?
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Wesley Bond @wesleybond.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Trump this afternoon is basically confirming (in his own barely coherent way) that Senator Murphy's take on the real rationale for the tariff-pocalypse is spot on. Tariff relief as means of control. Per the Guardian:
Trump stated during a press conference on April 3 that "The rest of the world wants to see is there is any way they can make a deal. They've taken advantage of us for many years. I think it's going to be unbelievable."
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Good day to remember that a US President has no inherent power over tariffs whatsoever. It’s not like war powers or pardons. It’s entirely delegated by Congress to deal with emergencies. GOP Congress cld modify that law tonight and bring this to a screeching halt.
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Alex Says Stuff @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Trump is imposing a 10% tariff on the Heard and McDonald Islands. The Heard and McDonald Islands are uninhabited.
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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Revoking Congressionally appropriated funds based on political ideology is not just undemocratic, it's illegal. It's a gross misuse of American tax dollars, and it recklessly endangers everyone. Grateful to my colleagues for standing against this. Enough is enough.
Header of complaint linked here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.282821/gov.uscourts.mad.282821.1.0.pdf
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
“These professional podcasters stand in front of a bunch of career scientists and say ‘What has science ever done?’ I don’t know, science eradicated measles until two months ago...” www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
politico.com
Means defends HHS cuts, calls bureaucracy an ‘utter failure’
He also said the election of Trump was a mandate to make dramatic change in leadership.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
This is another absolute failure of reporting of US media. The consequences of the destruction of US health research will be felt around the world for decades.
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Danielle Johnson @dwhren.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I accidentally discovered that there is a weird magnetic spot on my laptop that will make a paperclip stand up, so I had to add googly eyes and make my own personal Clippy
A large paper clip with googly eyes glued to it. It’s standing up next to the track pad on a laptop due to magic aka magnetic forces
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/03/2025
Marks's resignation highlights why the NIH director is racing to prevent researchers from combating medical misinformation or even "directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes": the deadly antivax propaganda from RFK Jr. himself would be target #1.
Dr. Peter Marks, who played a key role in the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to develop Covid-19 vaccines, stepped down Friday. A Health and Human Services official gave him the choice Friday morning to resign or be fired, a person familiar with the matter said. 
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” he wrote in a resignation letter referring to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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