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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Science

NIH grant funding decisions: Reality vs. antivax conspiracies

Earlier this month, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a plan to decrease the problem of reputational bias in grant funding. I couldn’t help but contrast how hard the NIH tries to use the most rigorous scientific criteria to decide whose grants to fund with the conspiracy theory that Anthony Fauci personally doles out NIH dollars like a mob boss to scientists who support him.

Categories
Medicine

A brief blog hiatus as a grant deadline strikes again!

Regular readers will have noted that Orac has not posted anything new in nearly a week. There’s an explanation, and it’s a grant deadline. Orac will return.

Categories
Announcements Medicine

While a grant deadline distracts Orac, create your own Insolence! Open thread time!

For the last few days, real life concerns over keeping his lab funded have shockingly interfered with Orac’s blogging. Being the benevolent blogmaster that he is, Orac has decided to open the floodgates with an open thread. Create your own Insolence. And, hey, let’s be careful out there. And don’t push each other’s buttons (too much).

Categories
Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

“Transparency” should not equal a license to harass scientists

Kevin Folta was subject to an abusive FOIA request for his emails by US Right To Know, an anti-GMO group seeking to harass him for his advocacy for GMOs. Paul Thacker, a journalist, used those emails without pointing out the true nature of the source of the FOIA request, and has argued for an expansive view of FOIA that is basically a license for groups like USTRK to harass scientists.