Bob Park’s What’s New: August 1, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be).
What’s New, by Bob Park
Friday, August 1, 2025
1. PRASAD IS OUT AT THE FDA
Vinay Prasad, the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, resigned under pressure this week. Prasad — who once compared the US Covid response to the beginnings of Hitler’s Third Reich — was no champion of science. But apparently he wasn’t looney enough for President Trump’s taste. Conservative political activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer recently called Prasad a “progressive leftist saboteur.” It appears Loomer is now in charge of key personnel decisions for top health leadership positions in the federal government.
2. WHO SUPPORTS SPILLOVER AS COVID’S SOURCE
The World Health Organization’s Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens recently published its report on the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. They concluded that “the weight of available evidence… suggests zoonotic spillover… either directly from bats or through an intermediate host.” This conclusion is consistent with the views of David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, a book that predicted Covid. Meanwhile, the government’s website www.covid.gov promotes the lab leak hypothesis as the “true origins of Covid-19.” This discrepancy shows how the United States has headed down an anti-science, conspiracy-theory path while the rest of the world examines the evidence to determine what is true.
3. THE USPSTF: GOODBYE, WE HARDLY KNEW YA
The American Medical Association has expressed “deep concern” about reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. intends to remove all members of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). On their website, the Task Force calls itself a “panel of national experts in disease prevention and evidence-based medicine.” Oops! “Experts,” “disease prevention,” and especially “evidence-based medicine” are all taboo in the Make American Healthy Again movement. The AMA urged RFK Jr to “retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can continue without interruption.” My prediction: the USPSTF will be disbanded by September.
4. SOME GOOD NEWS FOR ONCE
As the Senate debates federal funding for science as part of next year’s budget, a group of 13 Republican Senators led by Katie Britt of Alabama sent a letter to the White House budget chief Russell Vought urging the administration to release National Institutes of Health funding that has been held up for months. The senators claim that the slow disbursement of funds “risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports.” Let us hope this is an early signal that the Senate will act to save American science. Am I just a starry-eyed optimist? Perhaps. But this is a rare piece of good news in a depressingly anti-science era.
5. MORE GOOD NEWS FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE… IN EVIDENCE
A new report in JAMA Network Open indicates mRNA Covid vaccines are safe. Denmark researchers Niklas Andersson, Emilia Thiesson, and Anders Hvijd wrote the article “Safety of JN.1-Updated mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines.” Rather than talk about it, I’ll just quote from the abstract: “Updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines targeting the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron JN.1 lineage were recently authorized in the US and Europe and made available as the 2024–2025 season booster dose in many countries. Data to support their safety are scarce. This nationwide cohort study investigated the association between vaccination with JN.1-containing vaccines and the risk of 29 serious adverse events….In this nationwide cohort study, no increased risk of 29 adverse events was observed after vaccination with the updated COVID-19 mRNA vaccine containing the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron JN.1 lineage in approximately 1 million adults.” Thank you, Denmark, for keeping science alive! Want to learn more? The article is open access so anyone can read it; even you.