Dispatches from the War on Science

One of the things I find most upsetting about the current US regime is their concerted attack on science and education. That alone, is going to have generational consequences, and the dismantling of organizations like the EPA, CDC and NOAA will affect not just the United States, but the whole world.

The NASA budget proposed for 2026 is the smallest since 1961

Here are a few dispatches from the war.

• Nobody Expected the MAGA Inquisition from Paul Krugman. "American scientific leadership and the prestige of our research universities are key pillars of U.S. power and prosperity. Corporate America certainly understands that our scientific and educational institutions contribute to its bottom line. So you might have expected even MAGA enthusiasts to be a bit cautious about killing this particular golden-egg-laying goose. You would have been wrong. Everything points to an effort to effectively destroy U.S. science — not gradually as part of a long-term plan, but over the next year or two."
• RFK Jr. guts the U.S. vaccine policy committee from Your Local Epidimilologist. "In an unprecedented and deeply alarming move, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every single member of the nation’s vaccine policy committee—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—and announced plans to handpick their replacements. In other words, someone with an established track record of ignoring reality made the unilateral, ideological decision to gut one of the most trusted and effective pillars of America’s vaccine infrastructure. A system that helped eliminate smallpox, drastically reduce childhood diseases, safeguard schools, expand insurance coverage, and save millions of lives. A system that empowered 90% of Americans to protect their children and families confidently."
• Standing Up for Science by Phil Plait. "As I’ve written, the Trump budget request for NASA absolutely slaughters the science done by the space agency. He has also slashed budgets to all the science agencies, severely curtailing or even totally destroying their ability to do their important research. This includes climate research (because of course) but also a lot of critical health research. This is also leading to a huge brain drain as scientists look to other places to do their work, a loss that may take decades, if ever, to recover from. And then, late Monday afternoon, word came that RFK Jr., the crackpot quack anti-vaxxer whom Trump put in charge of the department of health and Human Services, fired every single member of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practice (ACIP), the group of experts that advises the CDC on vaccines. This is a grotesque action, clearly meant to cut off any real science advise the CDC can get when it comes to vaccines… a medical procedure that is one of the most successful and safe efforts for human health in history."
  
• NOAA’s Climate Website May Soon Shut Down. "Climate.gov, NOAA’s portal to the work of their Climate Program Office, will likely soon shut down as most of the staff charged with maintaining it were fired on 31 May, according to The Guardian. The site is funded through a large NOAA contract that also includes other programs. A NOAA manager told now-former employees of a directive “from above” demanding that the contract remove funding for the 10-person climate.gov team. “It was a very deliberate, targeted attack,” Rebecca Lindsey, the former program manager for climate.gov, told The Guardian. Lindsey was fired in February as part of the government’s purge of probationary employees. She said that the fate of the website had been under debate for months, with political appointees arguing for its removal and career staffers defending it."
• Loss and Degradation of NOAA Sea Ice and Glacier data. "On May 6, 2025 NOAA/NCEI announced the retroactive termination of funding for keystone sea ice products. These are the products that I use for much of the sea ice analysis and information I present in this newsletter and in many other venues. This data helps inform decisions by people and businesses in Alaska and beyond."
• NASA's disastrous 2026 budget proposal in seven charts. "That's enough for now. There's lots more but I don't have the stomach for it. "The White House's fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget proposal for NASA represents a historic threat to the space agency. That's not hyperbole: we have the data to prove it. It's the smallest budget proposed for NASA since 1961."

That's it for now. I don't have the stomach for more.