Bob Park’s What’s New: June 6, 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 6, 2025
1. WHAT THE SKINNY BUDGET MEANS FOR SCIENCE
New details about President Trump’s proposed cuts to science funding came out this week. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation are all to be cut roughly in half compared to last year. Sudip Parikh, the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote that “If enacted, the FY26 budget request would end America’s global scientific leadership. The cuts to science would imperil our nation’s future health, security and prosperity.” This can only be described as a Republican War on Science.
2. DOES THE UNITED STATES HAVE A HURRICANE SEASON?
Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator David Richardson said during a briefing that he was not aware that the United States had a hurricane season. Wait… What? The head of FEMA — whose job it is to help us recover from natural disasters like violent storms — doesn’t know hurricane season is in the summer and fall? If only one person should know this… Of course, later the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, claimed it was all a joke. I fear the joke’s on us.
3. CAN KIDS AND PREGNANT WOMEN GET COVID VACCINES?
Last week What’s New claimed that kids and pregnant women could no longer get covid vaccines. Well, it now seems that the CDC has not changed its recommendation (yet), and kids and moms-to-be are still eligible. What happened? After the Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced the change to the immunization schedule, apparently the CDC overruled him. Or talked him out of it. Or something. This all has disturbing implications for how we now set vaccine policy.
4. WHY CAN’T WE MAKE A VACCINE FOR AIDS?
In more “good news” this week, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (one of the National Institutes of Health) notified researchers that it will not renew funding to two groups doing research to develop a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), despite recent advances that made scientists optimistic of eventual success. This follows last week’s announcement that the Department of Health and Human Services is ending a multimillion dollar contract with Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine for bird flu. I guess we just don’t do vaccine development any more.