Bob Park’s What’s New: June 13, 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, June 13, 2025
1. CORRECTING SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
The White House has issued an executive order about Restoring Gold Standard Science. In it, President Trump talks about political appointees “correcting scientific information.” Yikes! Can I interest you in some “alternative facts”? Economist Paul Krugman refers to this and other anti-science actions as “the MAGA inquisition.” I call it the “Republican War on Science.” How I wish Democrats had passed the Scientific Integrity Act when they last had control of the government.
2. SHOULD SOCIETY BE WORRIED ABOUT SPILLOVER EVENTS?
A National Institutes of Health program called the Centers for Research on Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) was intending to award $82 million to study potential spillover events, in which a virus moves from an animal host to a human. This, of course, is what most scientists think happened to initiate the covid-19 pandemic. Last Friday, CREID Principal Investigators received termination letters. They were told their research “has been deemed unsafe for Americans.” Unsafe? What are unsafe are the spillover events! Hasn’t anybody read David Quammen’s book Spillover, in which he basically predicted covid? But no, now spillover research is considered “not a good use of taxpayer funding.” I find it difficult to think of a better use.
3. ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES GUTTED
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr removed all 17 members of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices this week. This committee plays a key role in setting vaccine policy in the United States. The former members were some of the best vaccine experts in the country. So, the man who is one of the “disinformation dozen” just fired the scientists and medical doctors who actually know something about vaccines. Immunologist Andrea Love writes “RFK Jr destroyed vaccine trust for decades and now claims he is going to restore it? [He] has made millions targeting vaccines. Firing CDC’s ACIP to install anti-vaccine allies will not fix anything: it will allow him to finish the job.”
4. SAY GOODBYE TO CLIMATE.GOV
It looks as if the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website climate.gov is about to go kaput. While it hasn’t been taken offline yet, all the staff that maintain it have been fired. The best case scenario is that it will somehow survive intact through heroic efforts by NOAA. The most likely scenario is that it will just sit there, never updated, and slowly become obsolete. The worst case scenario is that the Trump administration uses it to “correct scientific information” about climate change, sort of like what they did with the covid.gov. Ugh.
5. HAVE YOU SIGNED THE BETHESDA DECLARATION?
Scientists working at the National Institutes of Health sent an open letter this week to NIH director Jay Bhattacharya asking him to protect the agency from those who would put politics ahead of science. The letter claims that the current NIH leadership “prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources.” It’s called the “Bethesda Declaration.” Twenty four Nobel Laureates signed it. Hundreds of scientists and staffers signed it. I signed it. Have you signed it?