Derek Lowe

We're thrilled to announce the Ctrl-Z Award, a US$2,500 prize for researchers “who discover substantial errors in their published work and take meaningful steps to correct the scientific record."
Covered by @nature.com today; read more here: centerforscientificintegrity.org/2026/03/10/a...

“Vinay Prasad Loves President Trump”. That, Plus 12 Other Thoughts on the End of Dr. Vinay Prasad’s Sabbatical From UCSF The bottom line is this: when given the opportunity to prove his real-world prowess, Dr. Vinay Prasad failed.

Vinay Prasad was a COVID disinformation doctor and MAHA royalty. He still "loves" President Trump.

No one is obligated to care what he has to say or take him seriously ever again.

That, +12 other thoughts on his dismal, failed tenure at the FDA.

My latest.

Buttons has spoken! Or should that be “weighed in”?

RFK Jr’s pick to review Covid vaccines authored misleading research, experts say HHS says the MIT professor is ‘more than qualified’ to serve on the agency’s vaccine advisory panel and calls ‘attacks’ on him ‘politically motivated’

I wrote about the MIT professor who is leading a review of Covid-19 vaccine safety for Robert F Kennedy Jr's HHS. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

If you are watching Trump's presser right now, you are seeing beyond reasonable doubt a person not mentally suited for any position of responsibility. Even running a small store.

GOP members of the House and Senate: You are seeing this too.

As controversial decisions mount, FDA shuns public advisory meetings The FDA is cutting back on public advisory committee meetings, even as the public and other stakeholders seek more transparency.

Despite recent controversial decisions, the FDA has stopped holding advisory committee meetings — which bring together regulators, companies, patients, and a panel of independent advisors to publicly discuss complex regulatory matters. I dug into why:
www.statnews.com/2026/03/09/f...

As someone who recently turned 64, oh yes indeed. Only thing I can say, though, is that I got completely out of US equities not long after came in this time.

I’m honestly really sad for all the close-to-retirement people whose lives will be extremely screwed up by the coming correction/crash. They didn’t really have much choice about this and were doing the best/only thing they could to save for retirement.

Musk isn't putting a server farm in space and he isn't launching a million rockets. Don't say "it will be v bad for the environment if Musk launches a million rockets", say "this man is a fraud, his pyramid scheme will collapse at about the time his crony [redacted], and all of this shit is pretend"

Next post clarifies that it was Cr(VI). Which is not so good. Cr(III) compounds are often pretty inert and can be quite insoluble, but the higher oxidation state is generally reactive and toxic. . .

This idiot is really going to crash the world economy. By choice. By his own lurching incompetence.

This is tremendously hard and it happens more often than so many people realize. It could do some real good, letting others know that they’re not as alone as they thought. . .

Never been there either. That picture of the food looks like someone ate it for me already.

I oppose my country's war on Iran. I oppose my country's support for Israel's war on so many within and around it. In fact, I am opposed to most of what my country does these days.

This is how I do patriotism.

Kowloon in Saugus? Man, does that place ever have a reputation as an ancient tiki dive bar-slash-ancient Massachusetts-style “Chinese” joint. Rumored for years to be heading for demolition.

Chemsmy looking for recs: I wanna get some chem themed art for the conference room at work. Want cute, asthetic, not weird AI bs, not worried about it being cheap. What artists do you have to recommend?

Publisher demands $500 from impersonated author to retract paper Last year, we wrote about a Walsh Medical Media journal that refused to withdraw an author’s paper unless he paid a fee — even though he didn’t write or submit the article. For one reader, some det…

Lol. This is academic publishing taken to its logical end.

A handful of Republican senators and representatives could end this now.

They simply won’t do it.

Okay Bluesky, supposedly this is where the scientists are now so can someone give me a straight answer on this:

Can I use a PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) tray for etching a copper circuit board with ferric chloride without the tray melting?

Because *fuck* if Google is helping on this one ...

Oh no, those cats of yours are the very opposite of “cut rate”.

Tomorrow 😈

Just decided my new description of Donald Trump's cognitive capabilities is that he has the head of a Halloween jack o'lantern that is still sitting on the front porch at Christmas

Good riddance (again) to Vinay Prasad at the FDA. The only problem is that under this administration we can only expect him to be replaced by someone as bad or worse.

Exclusive | FDA’s Controversial Vaccines Chief Will Leave the Agency Dr. Vinay Prasad will depart in April, after a year leading the division that approves vaccines and biotech drugs.

Vinay Prasad is out again at FDA in April.

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

How Stand Up For Science is trying to 'pull every lever' to win over the public Stand Up For Science has become a formal organization and adopted a new strategy that's more confrontational with grassroots tactics

it feels like decades since the first Stand auto for Science protests

ahead of this year’s protests tomorrow, I caught up with @cdelawalla.bsky.social to talk about what @standupforscience.bsky.social sees as its strategy as a fully formed organization

www.statnews.com/2026/03/06/s...

I was a Medieval and Renaissance Studies major... my takeaway from that was that for almost the entirety of Western history, the "government" and the "church" were both just gangsters all the way down. This is my first experience with it firsthand and I'll say, I don't care for it a bit.

Yeah, this is idiotic. It’s all too easy to spray venom - there are plenty of things about the whole social media era that don’t speak well for human nature. . .

Current NIH leadership want you to think they are using rigorous, consistent & scientific processes to screen studies to align them with agency priorities.

But the process that they have put down on paper is a sham.

It’s important to know NIH is not following its own guidance. Here’s why:

🧵1/

A post on X from the betting platform Polymarket that says “BREAKING: Anthropic CEO says Claude may or may not have gained consciousness, as the model has begun showing symptoms of anxiety.”

Literally as I’m arguing with someone about whether AI companies are misleading people into believing their technology possesses God-like super-intelligence I see this monstrosity

We are being governed by gangsters.