Dr. Howard's House of Horrors #1
By Dr. Jonathan Howard Published: 7/4/25
Welcome reader:
My name is Jonathan Howard and I am a doctor who worked in NYC hospitals throughout the pandemic. I also had a longstanding interest in the anti-vaccine movement, and in 2018, along with Dorit Reiss, I wrote a book chapter titled The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Litany of Fallacy and Errors. I have always been especially perturbed by anti-vaccine disinformation spread by my fellow doctors, and I have been writing about them on Science Based Medicine since 2021. In 2023, I published a book on the normalization of anti-vaccine nonsense in medicine titled We Want Them Infected. Presently, I am putting the finishing touches on the sequel, Everyone Else is Lying to You, which explains how disinformation doctors weaponized doubt to seize power and elevate America’s #1 anti-vaxxer, Robert Kennedy Jr.
These doctors got famous for entirely imagined accomplishments regarding COVID. In their telling, they would have protected the vulnerable and kept schools open. Now that they have power and real-world responsibility for the first time, however, they are flailing miserably. Words are being policed, scientists are being censored, and research is being defunded. Measles and pertussis are spreading, and vaccines are threatened around the world thanks to their actions. They are reviled by their employees and distrusted by respectable scientists and doctors.
Unlike my sesquipedalian books and Science Based Medicine articles, I envision this as a forum where I can write brief thoughts on the daily horrors in science, medicine, and public health. There's too much to keep up with it all. However, I will do my best. Whatever happens moving forward, at least some of us will have left a record of how we got here.
Issue #1: Under Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Only Red States Get Starved Of NIH Funding
On June 16, Max Kozlov had good news to share in his article Judge Rules Against NIH Grant Cuts — And Calls Them Discriminatory. He reported:
A US judge has ordered hundreds of terminated research projects at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be reinstated, calling the processes that led to their cancellation “bereft of reasoning — virtually, in their entirety”....
In a blistering 15-minute rebuke after issuing his ruling, judge William Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston excoriated the Trump administration for targeting research on the health of LGBTQ+ individuals and people from minority ethnic groups.
“This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. I would be blind not to call it out,” said Young, who was appointed by former US president Ronald Reagan, a Republican. “I’ve been on the bench for 40 years — I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
In his formal decision, Young said:
In their haste to appease the Executive, simply moved too fast and broke things, including the law.
Over at STAT News, Anil Oza published an article that discussed an interesting consequence of this decision. His article, titled Terminated NIH Grants Are Being Reinstated Almost Entirely In Blue States said:
U.S. District Judge William G. Young’s decision applied only to a subset of grants submitted by the AGs and another group of plaintiffs, meaning his reprieve will largely not be extended to researchers who happen to be in Republican states. Scientists in Democratic congressional districts stand to have $2.1 billion in grants reinstated, compared to $62 million in Republican districts, according to a STAT analysis…
As the NIH begins to reinstate these grants, it is creating a surprising map of winners and losers at odds with the Trump administration’s politics. Some institutions, mostly in blue states, are back to a semblance of normalcy, others, mostly in red states, are left to try and pick up the pieces of having funding unexpectedly terminated, and others still are negotiating with the agency to remove mentions of diversity, equity, and inclusion from their grants.
Prior to assuming office, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, often performatively lamented that science had become “political”. Under his “leadership,” however, scientists in blue states will get funded while those in red states will starve, a fitting indicator of his incompetence and inability to follow the law or keep politics out of science.