Cheryl, what's the impact of this new policy?

So up until this policy took effect a bit over a year ago, many of the most prominent academic journals declined public access to articles on PubMed, sometimes as long as a year after publication.

because under existing journal practices, if the authors or their institutions wanted non-subscribers to be able to access that article as soon as it was published, they had to pay journal fees.

Now, these are called article processing charges, or APCs.

The journals argue that they lose money in subscriptions when their research papers are immediately open to the public.

Now, the new NIH policy requires that if a researcher's work is supported by the NIH, then all such manuscripts must be available immediately on PubMed upon publication, not just available to subscribers.

So the journals apparently hope to reap a lot of money that otherwise wouldn't have to be paid.

Does the NIH realize this?

Cheryl, what is going on here?

Well, gain-of-function research, or what used to be called dual y- use research of concern, it describes scientific projects that could, perhaps through mutations or other alterations, result in the creation of substances that could be weaponized or cause epidemics.

The phrase has been politicized quite a bit by members of Congress recently.

They believe that US-funded research led to millions of people dying from COVID-19 because of a lab leak in Wuhan, China.

Now, a recent Senate hearing a few days after this policy w- was released excoriated former NIAID director Anthony Fauci with accusations that he allowed it or concealed it, causing millions to die.

It was pretty brutal.

Now, the COVID-19 origin question is far from resolved, but he really, uh, was in the hot seat.

Yeah, scientists nervous in these times? Who knew? But tell us why they're nervous now.

... because of that.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things that, to build on that for just a second 'cause you're...

You know, when I interact with you, um, you resonate the candor, um, which is another, like, Netflix value, candor.

Um, you're, you're always curious, you know, curiosity, but you're also very respectful.

And, you know, modeling those behaviors is, sets the tone for your whole organization, and it sets the tone in how we, how successful we are as well.

And to your point, it's, it's not always easy because we experientially, we all have that lens that we see the world through that Probably wasn't born out of these sort of crystallized recognitions that we get to later on in, in our lives.

Well, I'm just, I'm like, is it, is it the, you know, is it the lack of pilot experience? Like, what's going on in aviation right now? And, but, like, when, when, when Captain Benham told me that, I'm like, "Whoa, that's interesting."

So, Cheryl, what exactly were researchers reacting to?

Well, Rachel, the White House Office of Management and Budget published a lengthy report rule in the Federal Register, and it would, in a nutshell, allow the Trump administration's appointees to decide what researchers and what research would be awarded federal grants.

Now, this could be huge because the administration is broadly saying that if the purpose of the project is not in line with the administration's policies and priorities, it will not be funded.

political appointees will review these grant applications instead of, say, study section chiefs or NIH directors.

And if finalized, the new law of the land would allow grants already in process, like in their second or third year, to be terminated abruptly.

It could go on.

Please do.

I imagine researchers will try to fight back, right?