Terminated CDC and USAID workers head to Capitol Hill. (And other updates.)
“Cassidy’s office was ignorant,” our source said. Also, USAID funding again restored. Will the ruling be followed finally? Plus, updates on censorship and the struggle to save US biomedical research.
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Terminated and furloughed HHS employees take to Capitol Hill. The activism is only beginning.
Federal employees fired or furloughed by DOGE took to the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington D.C., yesterday to voice their dissatisfaction with “all of this.” Participants in the on-site activism included former CDC and USAID employees.
Top of mind for these dedicated but aggrieved workers? Reining in Elon Musk, whose indiscriminate, disorganized, and chaotic attempts to shrink the government by just randomly firing whoever seems most vulnerable have not only left the US government ill-equipped to respond to emerging threats to the public, but have also likely already caused the deaths of thousands of people overseas who benefit from USAID.
The demonstrations were said to have been organized by the “Fork Off Coalition,” (FOC) a newly-created activist group composed of former federal employees who are victims of the Musk-Trump DOGE offings. It’s unclear where FOC’s organizational money is coming from, but it’s likely that given the sheer number of terminated employees, a relatively small number of people might be footing any small bills for now. FOC apparently paid for lunch for those who showed up (“Pizza. Nothing fancy”) and has offered to reimburse participants for public transportation if they need it. These investments are modest compared to the earned media that FOC garnered yesterday, including coverage in some major news outlets—which is how grassroots organizations tend to punch above their weight.
An Inside Medicine reader and former HHS employee was among the crowd, and shared a photograph of attempts to engage Senate staffers (see above), including those for Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who recently voted in favor of confirming RFK Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. How did that conversation go? I wanted to know. “Cassidy’s office was ignorant,” our eyes-and-ears source on the ground told me.
At the end of each interaction with a Senator’s staff, the activists were told something along the lines of “We’ll share your concerns with the Senator.” When asked to summarize those concerns to make sure that the messages had landed, responses were less friendly. “We don’t need to do that,” one staffer said.
Efforts like these may be happening every day on Capitol Hill, but perhaps with a rotating band of crusaders. “I can’t do this every day. I need to get a job,” our former HHS source told me. “But I may do this every Tuesday for a while.”
I couldn’t help but notice a difference in how these dedicated professionals conducted themselves, in all the accounts I saw. Unlike, say, January 6, 2021, the FOC activists used their words. Or, as the kids say: “Very mindful, very demure.”
Judge orders USAID funding must be restored, bringing a showdown over the future of the federal government closer.
Earlier in the month, a federal judge ruled that USAID funding must continue while the larger legal and political battles over the agency’s existing programs proceed. (For a high-impact summary of some of the damage the Trump administration has done, check out this LinkedIn post and this New York Times Opinion).
Very little happened. So, a coalition representing USAID partners (and USAID employees) filed a follow-up complaint. The judge ruled yesterday that the Trump administration had indeed failed to do so. The hearing apparently included some choice words from the judge who, according to CBS News, said "Twelve days into the TRO, you can't give me any facts about funds being unfrozen under the TRO?"
The judge directed the Trump administration to comply with the previous ruling and stated that it must do so by tonight, Wednesday, February 26. If the Trump administration complies, it will unlock billions of dollars in funding that routinely saves lives around the world.
Will the Trump administration comply? That is the real question. “We will see if they honor this order. I see no indication that they will,” Dr. Atul Gawande told me Tuesday. The other problem is that to achieve this, USAID would need active workers. “They would likely need to bring back the staff they just furloughed to do it,” Gawande added. (For those who missed our Monday conversation on all things USAID, you can check that out here.)
Whether the Trump administration will comply with judicial rulings has been weighing on me greatly lately—though in part, my apprehension stems from not being a legal scholar and therefore not knowing what to expect. However, I read two articles on the topic that gave me some confidence that our system will in fact work, and that the separation of powers framework on which our nation has thrived for centuries will prevail. Still, it’s harrowing to think that much of what we cherish will boil down to whether these analyses are, in the end, correct.
Updates in the fight against censorship and the struggle to save US biomedical research.
Just two briefings to update you on the fight against the Trump administration’s censorship and its expansive attack on our biomedical research infrastructure.
“Researchers Refuse to Alter Patient Safety Papers to Comply With Trump Orders”. MedPage Today.
However, “National Academies is altering pending reports to appease Trump administration, some members say.” STAT News.
“Judge Issues National Injunction to Block Trump Administration’s Devastating Attempt to Halt Funding For Essential Services.” A press release from the National Council of Nonprofits summarized the ruling that requires the Trump administration to continue to make good on federal grants. The order also says that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) cannot just dress up workarounds designed to achieve the same outcome. The judge also wrote that the defendants (the Trump administration) cannot just win by stalling:
“In a case where the government is alleged to have unlawfully withheld trillions of dollars of previously committed funds to countless recipients, it would defy logic—and contravene the very basis of this opinion—to hold Plaintiffs hostage for the resulting harm. That is especially so when Defendants—OMB and its director—will personally face no monetary injury from the injunction.” —Loren L. Alikhan, United States District Judge
Signs of life for new NIH grants? Kind of.
One of my former colleagues, Dr. Jason Bowman, posted on Instagram that he has been accepted as an NIH K12 Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is a faculty member. (I had a small hand in training Dr. Bowman here at Harvard, so I’m all the more proud.) Does this mean that new NIH grants are being approved? Not exactly. “I think I bypassed a lot of the NIH freezes (like “section review”) because the K12 is an institutional grant and I’m considered a ‘trainee’ under it,” Dr. Bowman told me. “I got picked by the Baylor K12 leadership and then the NIH just signed off administratively.”
Still, I take it as a good sign that Baylor believes that the NIH is still even in the business of funding extra-mural research. This implies a rosier outlook than those of a handful of major universities that decided to pause new graduate school admissions for their various biomedical research programs. Meanwhile, while I’ve heard of new NIH grants being rejected—a sign that some reviews at least took place this month—I’ve yet to hear of any new standard NIH grants announced, perhaps partly because of a pause in Federal Register postings. However, if Judge Alikhan’s ruling (above) is adhered to, the Trump administration is technically not permitted to use such a tactic to achieve the goal of choking off federal grant funding that it has already committed to scientists.
That’s all for now. If you have information about any of the unfolding stories we are following, please email me or find me on Signal at InsideMedicine.88.
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The possibility of this administration ignoring court orders is perhaps the most dangerous move! Every American needs to understand the import of this. The Executive branch controls every aspect of law enforcement & the Judiciary has no significant way to enforce its orders.
This is the single most important thing to watch at the moment because it will affect everything else!
Thank you for shining a light on all these distressing events.