Update. "Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws"
https://mississippitoday.org/2025/04/08/mississippi-libraries-ordered-to-delete-academic-research-in-response-to-state-laws/

"A state commission scrubbed academic research from a database used by #Mississippi #libraries and public #schools — a move made to comply with recent state laws changing what content can be offered in libraries. The Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections that might violate state law…One of the now deleted research collections focused on “race relations” and the other on “gender studies.”

Update. "Marks Says He Was Forced Out of #FDA for Trying to Protect #Vaccine Safety #Data"
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/fdageneral/114998

"Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation's top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant #HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted."

Update. "#SciOp is part of Safeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC). The bits must flow: let us resurrect the ancient art of #Bittorrent to ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear."
https://sciop.net/

Update. "The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/technology/trump-history-websites.html

"Thousands of…govt web pages [have] been taken down or modified, including content about vaccines, hate crimes, low-income children, opioid addiction and veterans, before a court order temporarily blocked part of the sweeping erasure. A Justice Department database tracking criminal charges and convictions linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was removed. Segments of data sets are gone, some of the experts who produced them were dismissed, and many mentions of words like “Black,” “women” and “discrimination” have evaporated…“This is not a cost-cutting mechanism,” said Kenny Evans, who studies science and technology policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and runs the White House Scientists Archive at the school. 'This slide toward secrecy and lack of transparency is an erosion of democratic norms.'"

Update. "Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever"
https://www.404media.co/nih-archives-repositories-marked-for-review-for-potential-modification
(#paywalled)

"Almost two dozen repositories of research and public #health #data supported by the #NIH are marked for “review” under the #Trump administration’s direction, and researchers and archivists say the data is at risk of being lost forever if the repositories go down. “The problem with archiving this data is that we can’t,” Lisa Chinn, Head of Research Data Services at the University of Chicago…Unlike other government datasets or web pages, downloading or otherwise archiving NIH data often requires a Data Use Agreement between a researcher institution and the agency, and those agreements are carefully administered through a disclosure risk review process."

Update. "US Weather Agency to Preserve Research Websites in Reversal"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/us-weather-agency-to-preserve-research-websites-in-reversal

"The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency [#NOAA] will preserve access to websites tied to its research division, after previously moving to cancel a cloud web services contract that supports many of its pages. Bloomberg News had reported earlier that the service contract for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research — known as NOAA Research — had been set to terminate this week, jeopardizing access to most of the office’s public-facing websites. But in an emailed statement Friday, NOAA said that the sites will be preserved."

Update. "Leaked Memo Reveals Insane Ban on Words Agriculture Department Can Say"
https://newrepublic.com/post/193395/agriculture-department-ban-words-safe-drinking-water

"A leaked memo from the U.S. Department of #Agriculture’s Research Service division revealed Sunday that the agency has banned some key language from its vocabulary, including the words “climate” and “vulnerable,” as well as the phrase “safe drinking water.” Other baffling entries on the memo’s banned language list are “greenhouse gas emissions,” “methane emissions,” “sustainable construction,” “solar energy,” and “geothermal,” as well as “nuclear energy,” “diesel,” “affordable housing,” “prefabricated housing,” “runoff,” “microplastics,” “water pollution,” “soil pollution,” “groundwater pollution,” “sediment remediation,” “water collection,” “water treatment,” “rural water,” and “clean water,” among dozens of others."

Update. "Scientists sue #NIH, saying politics cut their research funding"
https://apnews.com/article/nih-funding-trump-dei-research-094ed2abe5ba529cdb74f7e0b429c4f3

"A group of scientists and health groups sued the NIH on Wednesday, arguing that an “ideological purge” of research funding is illegal and threatens medical cures…The suit was filed by the American Public Health Association [#APHA], unions representing scientists and some researchers who were stripped of grants."

A similar suit has been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (#ACLU), the Center for Science in the Public Interest (#CSPI), and the Protect Democracy Project (#PDP).
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/aclu-sues-national-institutes-health-ideological-purge-research-projec-rcna199360

Update. #DOGE will review #NIH grant opportunities "to ensure the research that will be funded aligns with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration."
https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-officials-will-screen-nih-funding-opportunities
(#paywalled)

PS: Note that this is about content, politics, or ideology, not waste, fraud, or abuse.

"One NIH employee familiar with the matter worries that Trump officials reviewing the NOFOs [Notices of Funding Opportunities] “may not have the scientific background to understand why funding for research on certain topics is important.” Moreover, they added, “Having these decisions made by DOGE after months have been spent writing the NOFOs drafts and getting buy-in from [NIH’s institutes and centers] and offices is a huge waste of staff time and resources.”

Update. The Dept of Health and Human Services (#HHS) can no longer fulfill requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act (#FOIA), at least not without "exponentially" longer delays and backlogs. #RFKjr — who promised "radical transparency" — fired the staffers who handled those requests. A spokesperson said the layoffs will "streamline" the department and the work "will continue".
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/03/g-s1-57888/hhs-fda-rfk-foia-public-records

Update. "Patient Safety Network Abruptly Cut by Trump Administration"
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/faustfiles/114913

"The #Trump administration suddenly cut all funding for the Patient Safety Network (#PSNet) on Friday…PSNet is an influential and respected project within #HHS that has been dedicated to decreasing medical errors through research and knowledge dissemination. The endeavor has been credited with saving lives by helping change the culture by which clinicians learn from mistakes, thereby improving care."

Here's PSNet today.
https://psnet.ahrq.gov/

And here it is in the Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250402140613/https://psnet.ahrq.gov/

Update. "Mass layoffs are underway at the nation’s public health agencies"
https://apnews.com/article/health-human-services-layoffs-restructuring-rfk-jr-ec4d7731695e4204970c7eab953b2289

"Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services [#HHS] Department received notices Tuesday that their jobs were being eliminated…The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues."

Update. "More than 1,900 scientists write letter in ‘SOS’ over Trump’s attacks on science"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/31/scientists-letter-trump-administration

"More than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine [#NASEM] signed an open letter warning Americans about the “danger” of the #Trump administration’s attacks on science. The letter comes amid the administration’s relentless assault on US scientific institutions which has included threats to private universities, federal grant cancelations and ideological funding reviews, mass government layoffs, resignations and censorship."

Here is the letter itself.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13gmMJOMsoNKC4U-A8rhJrzu_xhgS51PEfNMPG9Q_cmE/edit?tab=t.0

Update. "Entire staff at federal agency that funds #libraries and #museums put on leave"
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5334415/doge-institute-of-museum-and-library-services

"According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents #IMLS [Institute of Museum and Library Services] workers, the agency's staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for 90 days after a "brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership." Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled."

Update. SCiMaP: View Impact of Federal Health Research Cuts
https://scienceimpacts.org/

"The National Institutes of Health (#NIH) funds crucial health research to address cancer, diabetes, dementia, and more. NIH funding also boosts the economy, returning >250% of the value invested. On Feb. 7th, 2025, the White House ordered across-the-board cuts to NIH funded research. This website shows how funding cuts reduce economic activity and employment nationwide."

Update. The National Museum and Library Services Board (#NMLSB) just sent an open letter to #Trump's acting director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (#IMLS), Keith Sonderling.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/binary-data/ARTICLE_ATTACHMENT/file/000/006/6639-1.pdf

"It is our considered determination that the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018, as codified in Title 20 of the U.S. Code, outlines specific statutory mandates that cannot be paused, reduced, or eliminated without violating Congressional intent and federal statute…All such statutory obligations may not be discontinued or delayed under an Executive Order or other executive action."