Trump administration has proven no friend to organized labor, from attacking federal unions to paralyzing the National Labor Relations Board

Trump accelerates union-busting

Jake Rosenfeld, Washington University in St. Louis

During the 2024 election campaign, the Republican Party’s historically fraught relationship with organized labor appeared to be changing. Several influential Republicans reached out to unions, seeking to cement the loyalties of the growing ranks of working-class Americans who have been backing Donald Trump’s presidential runs and voting for other members of his party.

During Trump’s first bid for the White house, the percentage of votes in households where at least one person belongs to a union fell to its lowest level in decades. In 2021, Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator at the time, wrote a USA Today op-ed supporting a unionization drive at an Amazon facility. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, walked a United Auto Workers picket line in 2023 in solidarity with striking workers.

As the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, Trump spotlighted International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien with a prominent speaking slot at the Republican National Convention – rewarding the union for staying neutral in that campaign after endorsing Joe Biden four years earlier.

Yet O'Brien shocked many in the convention crowd by lambasting longtime GOP coalition partners such as the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable for hurting American workers.

Once in office, Trump continued to signal some degree of solidarity with the blue-collar voters who backed him. He chose former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Teamsters ally, to be his second-term labor secretary.

I’m a sociologist who has been researching the U.S. labor movement for over two decades. Given conservatives’ long-standing antipathy toward unions, I was curious whether the GOP’s greater engagement with labor portended any kind of change in its policies.

You pass the test

Enjoy Labor Day before Trump abolishes it

U.S. labor secretary gives thanks to Cranston firefighters but takes no questions from press

Why the secret Labor Day visit?

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

The US Dept. of Labor marked Labor Day by hanging a
giant Big Brother banner from its DC headquarters

The first official visit to Rhode Island by a member of Donald Trump’s cabinet turned out to be a largely private affair. 

U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer met with Cranston firefighters at their Pontiac Avenue headquarters Thursday afternoon as part of her “America at Work” listening tour. 

The secretary’s staff and security detail drove directly into the fire department’s bay-windowed garage shortly before 1 p.m., closed the doors, then opened them once she was inside. Reporters were kept at a distance, and the secretary was kept out of sight. Firefighters then ran through demonstrations in baggy, fluorescent-colored hazmat suits as the secretary toured the station inside.

A few hours before the event, Hunter Lovell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor, said via email that Thursday’s visit builds on Chavez-DeRemer’s celebration earlier this year of National Apprenticeship Day, when she hosted the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) for a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on new apprenticeship standards for first responders. 

Mass General Brigham study finds that intensive treatment for elevated blood pressure in patients at high cardiovascular risk is cost-effective

How low should blood pressure go? New study has the answer

Mass General Brigham

Research led by investigators at Mass General Brigham suggests that the health benefits of more aggressive blood pressure control outweigh concerns about overtreating people with high blood pressure readings. Results of the simulation study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The study used data from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) trial, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and other published literature to simulate lifetime health outcomes -- including heart attack, stroke, and heart failure -- for patients whose systolic blood pressure targets were set at <120 mm Hg, <130 mm Hg, and <140 mm Hg. Recognizing that blood pressure medication comes with side effects, the researchers also simulated and compared the risk of serious events resulting from the treatment.

The simulation model also accounted for common errors in patients' blood pressure readings based on what has been observed in routine clinical practice.

Even when including this error rate, the simulation model found the <120 mm Hg target prevented more cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure than the <130 mm Hg target. However, the lower target led to additional adverse events related to treatment, such as falls, kidney injury, hypotension, and bradycardia. The lower target also increased overall healthcare spending due to increased antihypertensive use and more frequent visits with clinicians.

Trump’s Department of Labor Continues Its Onslaught against Workers

Flurry of rule roll-backs hurt workers

By Century Foundation staff Julie Su, Senior Fellow; Rachel West, Senior Fellow and Andrew Stettner, Director of Economy and Jobs

The Trump administration is doubling down on the president and his Department of Labor’s (DOL) deep hostility toward workers. 

Over the past six months, Donald Trump, his inaptly named Department of Government Efficiency (whose efforts to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion was a colossal failure and which reversed itself on many occasions, actions that cost more than they saved), his union-busting cronies, and his Department of Labor leadership have actively—and in many cases illegally—cut funds for programs that support workers, worker organizing, worker safety, and job training. 

Trump’s DOL has reversed commitments to states to build an effective unemployment insurance system; undercut its own ability to fight wage theft, international worker exploitation, and discrimination; and actively dismantled the department from the inside by slashing 20 percent of its staff.

Just before the July 4 holiday—as the nation was focused on Republicans’ efforts to pass the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and food assistance—Trump’s DOL issued a new barrage of attacks on workers, promising to turn a blind eye to stolen wages, safety violations, and corporate overreach. 

In total, the DOL announced sixty-four regulatory actions, the vast majority of which would reverse critical standards that ensure workers get a just day’s pay and come home healthy and safe (see Table 1 and Appendix). 

These actions would put the lives of workers across the economy at risk, deprive millions more of minimum wage and overtime protections, and sanction discrimination against workers of color, women, and workers with disabilities. 

At a time of rising prices, increased economic anxiety, and heightened dangers from climate change, the DOL should be doubling down on its mandate to protect and empower workers. Instead, the Trump administration is making workers more vulnerable to abuse and less safe on the job.

This factsheet highlights just some of the key deregulatory actions that will harm workers, identifying those that are particularly important to push back on through notice and comment procedures where available.

Confront or Cave? Federal Pressure Splits the Building Trades

Often conservative construction unions will have to decide what they will do

Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Keith Brower Brown for Labor Notes

Will prevailing wage be paid on ICE
concentration camp construction?

One of the last nationwide bastions of union jobs is getting jackhammered by the Trump administration. Members are languishing in ICE prisons without trial. Programs that protect members from racism and sexism are getting the axe.

In response, building trades officers are split: some are pleading, some are protesting, and others are surrendering without a fight.

Out of nine million construction workers in the U.S., one million had a union last year. Since the 1970s, when about forty percent of U.S. hardhats wore union stickers, anti-union developers have kicked unions out from most residential and private building sites.

The building trades took refuge in publicly funded construction projects and specialized industrial jobs. An old federal law that favors union hires for interstates and military outposts helps small locals of pile drivers and insulators straggle on even in rural Alabama or Wyoming, where unions are otherwise scarce.

Reason enough, he reckons

Say thank you to Donald Trump

“[W]age theft costs American workers more than $50 billion annually…more than the value of all robberies, burglaries, and motor vehicle thefts combined."

Marking Labor Day, Representative Magaziner reintroduces his wage theft legislation

Steve Ahlquist

“We are here because Americans and Rhode Islanders who work hard and do the right thing are entitled to their full pay,” U.S. Representative Seth Magaziner said on Wednesday. “Labor Day is right around the corner, so today we are announcing the reintroduction of the Don’t STEAL Act, a bill to crack down on wage theft and ensure that workers in Rhode Island and across the country are not cheated out of the pay they have rightfully earned by employers who pay less than their promised wage, steal tips, or fail to follow overtime laws.”

Representative Magaziner’s Don’t Stand for Taking Employed Americans’ Livings (Don’t STEAL) Act would make wage theft a felony nationwide. Here’s a link to last year’s bill, which only garnered 25 co-signers. Representative Magaziner hopes for more support this year, including Republican support.

Here’s the video: Magaziner Wage Theft Bill U.S. Representative Seth Magaziner (RI-2) introduces wage theft legislation

Columbia scientists may have found a universal antiviral

But it involves mRNA tech, which Bobby Kennedy has defunded

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

For a few dozen people in the world, the downside of living with a rare immune condition comes with a surprising superpower -- the ability to fight off all viruses.

Columbia immunologist Dusan Bogunovic discovered the individuals' antiviral powers about 15 years ago, soon after he identified the genetic mutation that causes the condition.

At first, the condition only seemed to increase vulnerability to some bacterial infections. But as more patients were identified, its unexpected antiviral benefits became apparent. Bogunovic, a professor of pediatric immunology at Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, soon learned that everyone with the mutation, which causes a deficiency in an immune regulator called ISG15, has mild, but persistent systemic inflammation.

Trump administration cuts to terrorism prevention departments jeopardizes Americans

Instead, we get troops on the streets of Democratic cities

Kris Inman, Georgetown University

Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom

Staff at the State Department’s Office of Countering Violent Extremism and Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, which led U.S. anti-violent extremism efforts, were laid off, the units shuttered, on July 11, 2025.

This dismantling of the country’s terrorism and extremism prevention programs began in February 2025. That’s when staff of USAID’s Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Stabilization were put on leave.

In March, the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security, which worked during the Biden administration to prevent terrorism with a staff of about 80 employees, laid off about 30% of its staff. Additional cuts to the center’s staff were made in June.

And on July 11, the countering violent extremism team at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan organization established by Congress, was laid off. The fate of the institute is pending legal cases and congressional funding.

Donald Trump in February had called for non-statutory components and functions of certain government entities, including the U.S. Institute of Peace, to “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

These cuts have drastically limited the U.S. government’s terrorism prevention work. What remains of the U.S. capability to respond to terrorism rests in its military and law enforcement, which do not work on prevention. They react to terrorist events after they happen.

As a political scientist who has worked on prevention programs for USAID, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and as an evaluator of the U.S. strategy that implemented the Global Fragility Act, I believe recent Trump administration cuts to terrorism prevention programs risk setting America’s counterterrorism work back into a reactive, military approach that has proven ineffective in reducing terrorism.

Back to school sale

Shut up and get out

After the horrific church shooting in Minnesota, Bobby Kennedy Jr. blames - without evidence -  the shooter's apparent use of anti-depressants (SSRIs) for the massacre of children. Enough of this fool.

This is a great way to celebrate Labor Day

RFK Jr. Vowed to Find the Environmental Causes of Autism.

Then he shut down research trying to do just that.

By Sharon Lerner for ProPublica

Reporting Highlights

• Slashed Autism Funding: RFK Jr. promised to identify the causes of autism but has eliminated parts of his agency actively investigating them and has cut millions in funding for autism research.
• Silent on Rollbacks: Once an ardent environmentalist who took on big polluters, RFK Jr. has been silent on Trump’s dismantling of efforts to combat climate change and pollution.
• Conflicting Priorities: RFK Jr. helps lead an administration that is reversing regulations on pollution and chemicals, including some linked to autism.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase in the condition and vowed to gather “the most credible scientists from all over the world” to solve the mystery.

Nothing like that has ever been done before, he told an interviewer.

McCanlies was stunned. The work had been done.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” she said to her husband, Fred.

RI Health Dept. declares state at "High Risk" for West Nile Virus

West Nile Virus Detected in Johnston, East Providence, and Cranston

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) have confirmed additional detections of West Nile Virus (WNV) in the state. 

The virus was found in mosquito samples collected by DEM in Johnston, East Providence, and Cranston on August 18 and tested by the Rhode Island State Health Laboratories. 

The other samples collected statewide showed no signs of Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus, Jamestown Canyon Virus (JCV), or additional WNV. Check RIDOH’s arboviral surveillance data webpage for updated weekly test results. 

Rhode Island’s risk level for WNV is now high statewide. 

Trump’s Rollback of Rules for Mental Health Coverage Could Lead More Americans to Go Without Care

Trump often blames mental illness for social problems but is now monkey-wrenching coverage for treatment

By Maya Miller and Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica

Speaking of mental illness, this is one of four new portraits
Trump has had the White House display. Priorities.

During his first term, President Donald Trump frequently turned to the issue of mental health, framing it as a national crisis that demanded action. He linked it to opioid addiction, mass shootings and a surge in veteran suicides — and he later used it to argue against COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures.

At times, he backed up his rhetoric with action. His administration issued tens of millions of dollars in grants to expand community mental health services and continued funding contracts to help federal regulators enforce the parity law, which requires insurers to treat mental and physical health care equally.

But just months after Trump returned to the presidency this year, his administration paused new rules issued in President Joe Biden’s final months that were designed to strengthen mental health protections and hold insurance companies accountable when they unlawfully denied coverage. That pause came after an industry group that advocates for large employers on issues related to employee benefits filed a lawsuit seeking to block the new rules.

What’s more, Congress has curtailed funding for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EBSA, a small agency in the Department of Labor that enforces mental health parity in most employer-sponsored health insurance plans. The squeeze is largely due to the expiration of temporary supplemental funding Congress approved just weeks after Biden was elected president but before he took office.

While the impact of these changes is hard to measure, federal employees, policy experts and front-line workers warn that suspending the rules and cutting enforcement funding could have serious consequences. They say it could mean longer waits for help when patients challenge insurance decisions, fewer investigations of insurers and employer health plans over possible violations of federal mental health protections, and more people going without care they’re legally entitled to.

Their long-term predictions include more untreated mental illness and growing anger at insurers.

Trump wants to eliminate mail-in voting even though that's how HE votes

Flurry of false claims and advice from his master Vlad trigger King Donald's rant on voting

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

Guaranteed: Trump's got a vanity plate

In his latest full-frontal assault on democratic access and voting rights, Donald Trump August 18 said he will lead an effort to ban both mail-in ballots and voting machines for next year's mid-term elections—a vow met with immediate rebuke from progressive critics.

"I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election," Trump wrote in a social media post infested with lies and falsehoods.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Trump falsely claimed that no other country in the world uses mail-in voting—a blatant lie, according to International IDEA, which monitors democratic trends worldwide, at least 34 nations allow for in-country postal voting of some kind. The group notes that over 100 countries allow out-of-country postal voting for citizens living or stationed overseas during an election.

Trump has repeated his false claim—over and over again—that he won the 2020 election, which he actually lost, in part due to fraud related to mail-in ballots, though the lie has been debunked ad nauseam. 

He also fails to note that mail-in ballots were very much in use nationwide in 2024, with an estimated 30% of voters casting a mail-in ballot as opposed to in-person during the election in which Trump returned to the White House and Republicans took back the US Senate and retained the US House of Representatives.

Around and around

We know Bobby Jr. is nuts, but is he also a pedo?

Private companies gather weather info and sell it to Weather Service since Trump budget cuts hobble NWS ability to collect it themselves

Call it weather grifting, and we could see it coming

By Meg Wilcox

When staffing shortages caused the National Weather Service (NWS) to suspend weather balloon launches at its Kotzebue, Alaska, station earlier this year, a startup deploying next-generation weather balloons, WindBorne Systems, stepped up to fill the void. 

The company began selling its western Alaskan atmospheric data to the NWS in February, plugging what could have been a critical data gap in weather forecasting. 

Weather balloons collect real-time atmospheric temperature, humidity, wind speed and pressure data that meteorologists use to predict the weather and understand longer-term changes to the climate. The Alaska office was one of about a dozen to suspend or scale back balloon launches in response to deep staffing cuts instituted by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Critics claim that the cuts have weakened the NWS’ forecasting capacity as hurricane season bears down and extreme weather events, like the floods that ripped through Texas, claim lives and destroy property.

Bobby Junior's lunatic leadership leads to 'Wednesday Night Massacre at CDC'

Chaos Erupts as RFK Jr. Accused of Destroying Agency From Within 

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

It's being called the Wednesday Night Massacre.

Total "chaos" erupted at the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday after the forced removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, handpicked by Donald Trump just months ago, was followed by the disgruntled resignations of other top officials at the agency who openly warned that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running the place into the ground while putting the nation's public health system at risk of collapse and threaten millions of lives.

That Monarez was no longer the director was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, led by RFK Jr., via social media on Wednesday afternoon. Hours later, lawyers for Monarez said her removal was a firing, not a resignation, and they accused the director of "weaponizing public health for political gain" after she clashed with Kennedy over new immunization guidelines related to the Covid-19 vaccine.

A letter from Monarez's lawyer said she was targeted because she challenged the new policy that would put "millions of American lives at risk" and represents deeper concerns about the agency's agenda under Kennedy's leadership.

Her ouster, her legal team said, "is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within."

In an announcement earlier Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) narrowed the kinds of conditions people need to have in order to receive approval for available Covid-19 vaccines.

As the Washington Post reports, the new FDA guidance sparked concern among public health experts who say the policy shift "injects uncertainty for Americans not considered high-risk who want to get another coronavirus vaccine. They said it's not clear who will ultimately be able to get the shot, whether insurance will cover it and whether they can get vaccinated at their local pharmacy."

In response to Monarez's firing—and other underlying issues at the agency under RFK Jr.'s leadership, at least four other top CDC officials resigned in protest Wednesday night.

Demetre C. Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the office of public health data; and CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry all submitted their resignations.

Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and a former Democratic state senator in California, was among those who declared the events should be seen as the "Wednesday Night Massacre at the CDC"—a reference to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon in 1973.

In his explosive resignation letter made public, Dr. Daskalakis said he did not make the decision lightly.

"However," he stated, "after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough."

The letter continues:

I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.

The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people. The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership. 

This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors. 

Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.

It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC. The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense. 

Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.

Critics of RFK Jr. and Trump, including public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers charged with oversight, slammed the chaos and the deeper threat to the American people that the administration's misguided attacks on the CDC have triggered.

"President Trump and Sec. Kennedy are trying to purge anyone who stands up against their anti-science agenda at the CDC," said Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Ga.). "They're risking disease outbreak and another pandemic just to advance their own extremist goals."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for an immediate hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), of which he is the ranking member. "It's outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director—after only a few weeks on the job—for her commitment to public health and vaccines," said Sanders. "Vaccines save lives. Period."

One former CDC staffer, who went unnamed, told Rolling Stone that what's happening now at the agency is "the work of a death cult."

According to Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, the ouster of Monarez, just weeks after her confirmation in the US Senate, "is yet another glaring sign of Secretary Kennedy’s failed leadership and reckless mismanagement. His tenure has been marked by chaos, disorganization, and a blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health."

The episode, Benjamin continued, "underscores his administrative incompetence and his disdain for the expertise that the public and our public health agencies rely on. RFK Jr. must be removed from his position."

He wasn't the only one calling for Kennedy's immediate removal. "Fire him," declared Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a social media post.

"We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired," Murray said in a separate statement. "I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office."

Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the health research director for Public Citizen, said, "Ousting the first Senate-confirmed CDC director weeks into the start of her tenure makes absolutely no sense and underscores the destructive chaos at RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services."

"The CDC is being decapitated," warned Steinbrook. "This is an absolute disaster for public health."

Data that taxpayers have paid for and rely on is disappearing

Wiping out information sources that might challenge Trump disinformation

Margaret Levenstein, University of Michigan and John Kubale, University of Michigan

Trump, as usual, has NO evidence to back up these attacks

People rely on data from federal agencies every day – often without realizing it.

Rural residents use groundwater level data from the U.S. geological survey’s National Water Information System to decide where to dig wells. High school coaches turn to weather apps supported by data from the National Weather Service to decide when to move practice inside to avoid life-threatening heat. Emergency managers use data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to ensure that residents without vehicles have seats on evacuation buses during local emergencies.

On Jan. 31, 2025, websites and datasets from across the federal government began to disappear. As that happened, archivists and researchers from around the world sprang into action, grabbing what they could before it was gone.

Trust in the federal statistical system took another hit when Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer was fired on the heels of a dismal Aug. 1, 2025, employment report.

And reduced data collection at the bureau was already causing concern before her dismissal. The bureau has ceased collection of critical inputs to the Consumer Price Index, likely reducing that inflation indicator’s accuracy, especially at the level of specific locations and products.

As researchers of economics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, we have spent years working with data, often from the federal government. When data and information began to disappear, we were spurred into action to preserve these important public goods.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, where we work – commonly known as ICPSR – has been making data from governments and researchers available for more than 60 years. We are stewards of this data, preserving it and ensuring that it is accessible in a safe and responsible manner.

Unfortunately, government data is now at risk of becoming less available or disappearing. But there are steps that researchers – and the public – can take to reduce that risk.

Trump and Bobby Kennedy Jr. are destroying global science

A return to the Dark Ages

Elizabeth Finkel, La Trobe University

Eight months into Donald Trump’s second presidency of the United States, truth and science are again under attack – with global consequences. USAID, which tackled HIV, TB, malaria and child malnutrition is gone. Funding has been withdrawn from GAVI, a public–private global alliance that helps buy vaccines for the world’s poorest children. Malnourished children are already dying.

Besides these brutal consequences, the scientific machine that delivered America’s scientific and technological dominance is being ruthlessly dismantled. 

Any research project that mentions diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), climate change or addresses the causes of vaccine hesitancy is a prime target. But even US space science, once the pride of the nation, is facing “an extinction-level event,” according to the US Planetary Society.

Across the spectrum of science, some 4,000 research grants have been cancelled. Unbelievably, bird-flu experts were fired in the middle of an outbreak. That was topped last May by cancelling a US$600M grant to the company Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine against bird flu.

And on August 5, US$500 million was cancelled for 22 more projects developing mRNA vaccines. Bear in mind that under Operation Warp Speed, the first Trump administration funded the development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against COVID. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech both delivered mRNA vaccines in the record time of less than a year, winning mRNA vaccine technology a Nobel Prize in 2023.

It’s not just American science that’s being dismantled.

Pedopheil

Trump's been good for them

Enrollment now open though September 6 for Salt Pond Smart

New program to protect Rhode Island’s coastal waters

Kristen Curry

Enrollment is now open for Salt Pond Smart: a new program to protect Rhode Island’s coastal waters.

Enrollment is now open through Sept. 6 to join Salt Pond Smart, a new community engagement initiative offered through the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension. Designed for homeowners along Rhode Island’s southern coast, Salt Pond Smart empowers residents to take meaningful action to protect and improve water quality in the state’s treasured coastal salt ponds.

Aging septic systems and fertilizer use, especially in densely developed areas, contribute excess nutrients, bacteria, and other pollutants to the salt ponds. These problems have led to shellfish closures, algal blooms, and damage to the ponds’ ecosystems. Salt Pond Smart helps residents make property management decisions that reduce nutrient pollution, which is essential to safeguarding public health and preserving the ecological integrity of these fragile environments.

Surprising finding could pave way for universal cancer vaccine

Except Bobby Kennedy Jr. has cancelled federal funding for mRNA research

By Michelle Jaffee, University of Florida

An experimental mRNA vaccine boosted the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy in a mouse-model study, bringing researchers one step closer to their goal of developing a universal vaccine to “wake up” the immune system against cancer.

Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the University of Florida study showed that like a one-two punch, pairing the test vaccine with common anticancer drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors triggered a strong antitumor response.

A surprising element, researchers said, was that they achieved the promising results not by attacking a specific target protein expressed in the tumor, but by simply revving up the immune system — spurring it to respond as if fighting a virus. They did this by stimulating the expression of a protein called PD-L1 inside of tumors, making them more receptive to treatment. The research was supported by multiple federal agencies and foundations, including the National Institutes of Health.

Senior author Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., a UF Health pediatric oncologist and the Stop Children's Cancer/Bonnie R. Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research, said the results reveal a potential future treatment path — an alternative to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — with broad implications for battling many types of treatment-resistant tumors.

“This paper describes a very unexpected and exciting observation: that even a vaccine not specific to any particular tumor or virus — so long as it is an mRNA vaccine — could lead to tumor-specific effects,” said Sayour, principal investigator at the RNA Engineering Laboratory within UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy.

“This finding is a proof of concept that these vaccines potentially could be commercialized as universal cancer vaccines to sensitize the immune system against a patient’s individual tumor,” said Sayour, a McKnight Brain Institute investigator and co-leader of a program in immuno-oncology and microbiome research.

Get information about UF Health brain tumor clinical trials here.

The costs of sabotaging science

Turbulent research landscape imperils US brain gain − and ultimately American prosperity

Marc Zimmer, Connecticut College

Despite representing only 4% of the world’s population, the United States accounts for over half of science Nobel Prizes awarded since 2000, hosts seven of The Times Higher Education Top 10 science universities, and incubates firms such as Alphabet (Google), Meta and Pfizer that turn federally funded discoveries into billion-dollar markets.

The domestic STEM talent pool alone cannot sustain this research output. The U.S. is reliant on a steady and strong influx of foreign scientists – a brain gain. In 2021, foreign-born people constituted 43% of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in the U.S. They make up a significant share of America’s elite researchers: Since 2000, 37 of the 104 U.S. Nobel laureates in the hard sciences, more than a third, were born outside the country.

China, the U.S.’s largest competitor in science, technology, engineering and math endeavors, has a population that is 4.1 times larger than that of the U.S. and so has a larger pool of homegrown talent. Each year, three times as many Chinese citizens (77,000) are awarded STEM Ph.D.s as American citizens (23,000).

To remain preeminent, the U.S. will need to keep attracting exceptional foreign graduate students, budding entrepreneurs and established scientific leaders.

"This is bullshit."

Labor & political leaders oppose Trump's Revolution Wind stop-work order

Steve Ahlquist

“We are here for what I call a reckless move by the current administration that will have a detrimental impact not only on Rhode Island, but on our renewable energy quest up and down the East Coast,” said Michael Sabitoni, General Secretary-Treasurer of LiUNA and President of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council. [It will halt] “the momentum that started here almost 20 years ago with the vision and the courage to address Rhode Island’s energy needs and all the hard work that went into building an offshore wind industry from scratch, with both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 20 years...”

Sabitoni was speaking at a press conference held in Quonset, home to Ørsted’s Regional Offshore Wind Logistics and Operations Hub and several Rhode Island-built crew transfer vessels supporting the project.

“We’ve got a massive energy project offshore that is 80% complete, employing hundreds of tradesmen and women, that we are counting on to deliver almost 700 megawatts of much-needed power to our grid,” continued Sabitoni. “This is bullshit.”

The press conference, which included political and labor leaders, as well as construction workers, was held to condemn Donald Trump’s reckless stop-work order halting construction on Revolution Wind - a multibillion dollar offshore wind development that is 80% complete (with 506 megawatts installed of the 704 megawatt system) and critical to the region’s economy and energy future. The Trump administration’s effort to abruptly halt the project threatens thousands of local jobs, jeopardizes hundreds of millions of dollars in economic investment, and would increase electricity prices and impact grid reliability across New England.

“Hardworking men and women have dedicated time, effort, and training in a very difficult environment to build this complex offshore wind project,” continued Sabitoni. “The biggest little state in the union has a saying, ‘We are small, but extremely sophisticated.’ Rhode Island is the birthplace of the offshore wind industry, and it’s going to be Rhode Island that sends a message that this is our energy future. We need to continue to provide reliable, cost-effective energy for the citizens of Rhode Island and the New England region.”

Also speaking were Governor Daniel McKee, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressmen Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, Patrick Crowley, President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and Co-chair of Climate Jobs RI, and Rachel Miller, Chief External Relations Officer at Building Futures. Dozens of union workers and climate advocates were also in attendance.

Here’s the video: "This is bullsh*t." Labor and political leaders oppose Trump's Revolution Wind stop-work order - YouTube

Thank you, King Donald

How we trick ourselves into believing things that aren't true

 

Sorting Out Covid Vaccine Confusion: New and Conflicting Federal Policies Raise Questions

COVID has killed 1.1 million Americans already so get vaccinated to not become a statistic

Michelle Andrews 

If you want a covid-19 shot this fall, will your employer’s health insurance plan pay for it? There’s no clear answer.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has upended the way covid vaccines are approved and for whom they’re recommended, creating uncertainty where coverage was routine.

Agencies within HHS responsible for spelling out who should get vaccinated aren’t necessarily in sync, issuing seemingly contradictory recommendations based on age or risk factors for serious disease.

But the ambiguity may not affect your coverage, at least this year.

“I think in 2025 it’s highly likely that the employer plans will cover” the covid vaccines, said Jeff Levin-Scherz, a primary care doctor who is the population health leader for the management consultancy WTW and an assistant professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They’ve already budgeted for it, “and it would be a large administrative effort to try to exclude coverage for those not at increased risk,” he said.

With so much in flux, it’s important to check with your employer or insurer about coverage policies before you roll up your sleeve.

Here’s what we know so far, and what remains unclear.