Weekend Longforms: Research in peril, the destruction of the CDC, and the devastation of fentanyl. Animal photos, too
December 6, 2025
Here are a few “longform” reads for health policy wonks for this weekend. Hope you are able to stay warm on this polar vortex weekend if you are affected!
A. Cuts have devastated the premier biocomputational laboratory, imperiling research nationally
StatNews published a long article by Angus Chen on the impact of the National Institutes of Health cuts on the lab of John Quackenbush, a brilliant biocomputational researcher at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. I was drawn in by this description of his laboratory:
Today, the offices are rows of empty computer pods. Monitor brackets at each station hang in the air as bare as bleached corals.
Here’s a link to another StatNews story in this series about the federal cancellation of programs to keep adolescents from taking up smoking or vaping.
B. How the CDC lost its authority
Druv Khruller, a physician writer, published “The Undermining of the CDC” in last week’s New Yorker. This has even more relevance in light of this week’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice.Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned from her role as the Chief Medical Officer of the CDC, wrote an essay on this in this week’s Time magazine.
C. The ruin at the end of the drug conduit
It’s easy to overlook the people whose lives are devastated by drug use. The Boston Globe published Hanna Krueger’s in depth article on how fentanyl ruins lives in New Hampshire.
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Today’s animal photos:
Capuchin monkeys in Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica (2023).
Speaking of Capuchin monkeys…. I have a special interest in behavioral economics. Here is an amusing short film on how capuchin monkeys respond to the perception of unfairness.
Hope you have a great weekend.
