from Hacker News

Out of His League and Clueless: NIH Staffers Speak Out on Director Bhattacharya

by SubiculumCode on 6/4/25, 2:19 AM with 13 comments

• by duxup on 6/4/25, 3:34 AM

  > “He claims that we're not canceling grants, and yet we have whole slates of grants (per grants management) that we have to cancel…He's claiming not to be responsible for the illegal RIFs, but as far as I can tell, has done nothing to help bring RIFed employees back.”

  It’s hard to imagine how the firings can be legal if the head of the agency didn’t participate.

  At least in one court case another agency head said they “did not know” who ordered firings at their agency.

• by svara on 6/4/25, 7:43 AM

  I have some visibility into what goes on at different science institutions in the US.

  I sense a lot of fear. But the curious thing to see is how people just try to keep calm and carry on as if nothing was happening otherwise, while the government is killing the best parts of American science.

  Who would have thought it was that easy to turn the 'land of the free ' around.

• by dunkeltaenzer on 6/4/25, 10:55 AM

  Good journalism would ask the funny question "how can the newly appointed guy be responsible for the state of an organization, grown over decades?"

  Incompetent bureaucracy is an expression of the competency of those working it. That's rarely the temporarily assigned political figurehead, assigned to that organization

• by fabian2k on 6/4/25, 7:18 AM

  One part of the government apparently wants to simply destroy all institutions involved in scientific research. The other half wants to promote their pet ideas, no matter how unscientific they are.

  They're coming for the vaccines now, it's still cloaked in scientific-sounding language, but in the end they will make vaccines less available and potentially even completely prevent access. This doesn't have to be direct, the current strategy seems to be to demand unreasonable and unscientific levels and types of evidence to recommend them or even making them available.

  Vaccines are the first target, I strongly doubt they're the only one.

• by spacemadness on 6/4/25, 3:56 PM

  “We fired people that did what you said you want to do” is straight out of corporate America's idiotic playbook.

• by MOARDONGZPLZ on 6/4/25, 3:31 AM

  interesting