"Because policy shapes health, research on policy is health research." Great article from some giants in the fields of public health, social epidemiology, and health policy research: www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore...

A great overview of how the Trump admin cultivated fear inside NIH to force compliance, even with harmful, unethical & unlawful orders. Also covers origins of the Bethesda Declaration community. From my friend & co-organizer Dr. Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou. www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

NIH Employees Lived in A Culture of Fear, So They Started Keeping Receipts

Sylvia Chou, former NIH program director, says “nobody’s OK” after massive disruptions to funding policies and infrastructure.

psychologicalscience.org

Please read this letter with important considerations for training the next generation of clinical trialists. Its powerful that so many organizations came together. Thanks to everyone involved. Consider commenting on the NIH RFI by the 9/30 deadline: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

27 UNIHTED@27unihted.bsky.social · 4d ago

We joined The American Society for Clinical Investigation and more than 30 other organizations to support early career clinician scientists because we believe patients deserve to see steady development of new treatments far into the future.

We joined The American Society for Clinical Investigation and more than 30 other organizations to support early career clinician scientists because we believe patients deserve to see steady development of new treatments far into the future.

Today the American Society for Clinical Investigation published an open letter to NIH leadership on proposed changes to K awards, co-signed by 30 professional societies and foundations. Thank you to the ASCI working group and every society and foundation that signed beta.the-asci.org/news/advocac...

Open letter to the NIH regarding proposed changes to K awards - The American Society for Clinical Investigation

Read more about Open letter to the NIH regarding proposed changes to K awards at The American Society for Clinical Investigation

beta.the-asci.org

Let NIH know that we need pathways to train future clinical trialists. We must not remove the current pathway before a new model is available. Thank you to @cervantes-lily1.bsky.social , @jeremymberg.bsky.social and University of Colorado based advocates for leading this effort.

My quote of the day Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Gold standard" is a turd-polishing dog whistle foisted on real physician -scientists by those destroying the NIH, who are replacing it with policy-driven "science" (aka Lysenkoism 2.0) I hope those affected (such as here) can make it through to the other side.

Lilia Cervantes@cervantes-lily1.bsky.social · last wk.

Out today in @jama.com: "On Becoming a Gold Standard Scientist: The Importance of Pilot Clinical Trials. I was honored to co-author this with Drs. Fesintein, @dramyhuebschmann.bsky.social & @russgl.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam.... @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social

This is a very important read

Lilia Cervantes@cervantes-lily1.bsky.social · last wk.

Out today in @jama.com: "On Becoming a Gold Standard Scientist: The Importance of Pilot Clinical Trials. I was honored to co-author this with Drs. Fesintein, @dramyhuebschmann.bsky.social & @russgl.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam.... @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social

“…the new policy creates a catch-22: investigators must demonstrate independence to successfully compete for larger trial funding, while the K award can no longer support the career development needed to demonstrate it.” Excellent piece, please read.

Lilia Cervantes@cervantes-lily1.bsky.social · last wk.

Out today in @jama.com: "On Becoming a Gold Standard Scientist: The Importance of Pilot Clinical Trials. I was honored to co-author this with Drs. Fesintein, @dramyhuebschmann.bsky.social & @russgl.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam.... @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social

Out today in @jama.com: "On Becoming a Gold Standard Scientist: The Importance of Pilot Clinical Trials. I was honored to co-author this with Drs. Fesintein, @dramyhuebschmann.bsky.social & @russgl.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam.... @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social @jeremymberg.bsky.social

On Becoming a Gold Standard Scientist

This Viewpoint discusses the recent National Institutes of Health announcement that its Career Development (K) awards cannot be used to conduct clinical trials, feasibility studies, or ancillary studi...

jamanetwork.com

Why are people still telling scientists that we need to compromise with MAHA? How about if we tell MAHA that they can come to the table when they respect the scientific method instead.

My quote of the day The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos. Stephen Jay Gould

My quote of the day Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see Freddy Mercury

My quote of the day Respect shouldn't have to be fought for. But if we have to fight for it, then we will. Dolly Parton

Wash Examiner: Trump wants to cut NIH. What future medicines will your family lose? By David Adler @washingtonexaminer.bsky.social bit.ly/467WQSv

It was a great conversation!

Maths PC@mathienz.bsky.social · 4w ago

I missed the live webinar hosted by the @ucs.org but now had the chance to see the great people who #StandUpForScience ‼️ Elizabeth Villano, @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social, @gregggonsalves.bsky.social, and @sekahn.bsky.social 👍🏼👏🏼 YT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocb3...

CMS isn’t even collecting race and ethnicity data on the 2728 form for end stage kidney disease. That’s been a primary source of research data in ESKD. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Nonreporting of Race and Ethnicity in Medical Research Harms Us All

At JAMA Internal Medicine, we have become increasingly aware that some US researchers are unable to report on race or ethnicity as demographic variables to describe their sample or to conduct stratifi...

jamanetwork.com

My quote of the day If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. Ray Bradbury

Honored to be part of this panel. Please listen in if you can!

Gretchen Goldman, PhD@gretchentg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Join @ucs.org for our next Science Rising national call: I'll be joined by @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social, @gregggonsalves.bsky.social, @sekahn.bsky.social and Elizabeth Villano to learn more about their stories, and how we can all be more courageous in this moment. secure.ucs.org/a/2026-9-2-s...

Of the 6580 K awards (more or less equal numbers of K01, K08, and K23 awards), 877 were associated with a clinical trial by this method. The results for this subset of investigators is shown here: 6/13

Over 60% of the awardees transitioned to other NIH support including over 40% within 10 years of the start of the K award. NIH Exporter has a file that links grants to clinical trials in ClinicalTrials.gov ((reporter.nih.gov/exporter/cli...) 5/13

I looked at K01, K08, and K23 awards from 2010-2020 (to allow time for follow up). The first result is shown here: 4/13

Since I learned that NIH was discussing changes to K awards, I started to look at the results of the awards with an emphasis on those that were associated with clinical trials. One big question was how often and how fast to K awardees transition to R01 or other substantial awards. 3/13

This is in response to this recent NIH Notice. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... 2/13

New story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social at Science on K award changes. www.science.org/content/arti... 1/13

Getting rid of clinical trial K awards will reduce the number of clinician scientists, a critical part of our research workforce. This will especially impact the group of folks doing implementation science (where we figure out how to get evidence into practice). www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH is ending a key grant for budding clinical researchers

Agency will no longer allow K career awards to fund clinical trials

science.org

3) they almost always require NOFOs which are basically extinct or at least drastically reduced in the current environment as @elizabethginexi.bsky.social has shown us with her analyses. substack.com/@formernih/n...

The NIH Forecast Graveyard, Revisited

An Update on NIH's Stalled Funding Pipeline, as the Fiscal Year Runs Out

substack.com

Another mechanism is supposedly in the works, but I have not been able to get many details. Getting rid of K clinical trials might have come up in the before times, but in the before times we likely would have had the replacement ready to go first.

The idea to drop K trials (& to curtail NOFOs) both came up pre-2025. They are championed by a civil servant, Jon Lorsch, who has the unfortunate habit of thinking he’s the smartest person in the room, even on subjects where he is not an expert. He has of course been promoted under Bhattacharya.