Not a Doctor

  • NIH director’s own research filled with errors

    Jay Bhattacharya used a flawed study in 2020 to argue for reopening even as Covid gained force. Today, Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), testified before a Congressional committee. The main takeaway: Bhattacharya does not seem interested in defending steep budget cuts to U.S. research. He said budgets are a…

    Melody Schreiber

  • Top US officials throw Covid vaccines into turmoil

    The Trump administration is bypassing scientific evidence and procedure to change vaccine rules. Last week, three top U.S. health officials made an unusual announcement about Covid vaccines. They said they would remove the recommendation for Covid vaccination from the childhood immunization schedule, and would also cease recommending it for pregnant people. The first reason it…

    Melody Schreiber

  • Health websites struggle with outages, plus more weekend emails

    The websites for the NIH and other health agencies are experiencing technical difficulties this weekend. And there’s a new “five things” email — now due every Monday. The website for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency responsible for overseeing federal research in the U.S. and one of the premier research organizations in the…

    Melody Schreiber

  • Conflicting advice on “last week” email

    On Saturday afternoon, federal employees received an email asking what they did last week. Then the confusion set in. Some employees refused to open the email, which was from an unusual address through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), for fear that it was a phishing attempt. Some inboxes sent the email directly to spam.…

    Melody Schreiber