This was interesting in the news today...

Published

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157480905/spain-menstrual-leave-teen-abortion-trans-laws

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The abortion law builds on legislation passed in 2010 that represented a major shift for a traditionally Catholic country, transforming Spain into one of the most progressive countries in Europe on reproductive rights. Spain's constitutional court last week rejected a challenge by the right-wing Popular Party against allowing abortions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The debate will be heated in Spain, I imagine, as the conservative opposition pushes back. My daughter had horrible menstrual pain during her adolescence and young adulthood.  I'm certain that she would have benefitted from that time. 

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Tweety said:

My big issue is that it doesn't seem like Musk is taking the time to investigate and he's just making slashing cuts.  He's also "misleading" (I.e. lying)

I'm 100% sure that you throw money and fund organizations there is going to be some mismanagement. To me it would be prudent to send teams there to hold them accountable, see what they are doing and go from there with the idea that you're going to cut.  This happened where I worked in the 90's.  A group came in, and eventually laid a bunch of people off they felt whose jobs and roles weren't needed or could be absorbed elsewhere.  

Also, this needs to be done legally and obligations need to be honored.  Also the cabinet heads of that have been appointed need to be consulted.  

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-rubio-clash-cabinet-meeting-new-york-times-says-2025-03-

07/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/23/politics/government-spending-elon-musk-doge/index.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/19/here-are-the-biggest-doge-hoaxes-and-inaccuracies-as-8-million-canceled-ice-contract-listed-at-8-billion/

It seems like Musk's cuts are largely decided based upon relatively simply key word searches.  Not thoughtful at all, as evidenced by some of the really stupid decisions he's made.  

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Beerman said:

Well, since I'm not in fear of ethnic cleansing taking place, or that we're going to become a country that accepts child labor, and that I have a understanding of what the Dept of Education actually does and doesn't do, I am pretty comfortable blowing off Rachel Maddow's Lundeen comparisons.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1381923/#:~:text=Child labor is a major,under illegal%2C often exploitative conditions.

https://www.epi.org/blog/iowa-governor-signs-one-of-the-most-dangerous-rollbacks-of-child-labor-laws-in-the-country-14-states-have-now-introduced-bills-putting-children-at-risk/

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Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed an expansive bill enacting numerous changes to the state's child labor laws, including:

allowing employers to hire teens as young as 14 for previously prohibited hazardous jobs in industrial laundries or as young as 15 in light assembly work;

allowing state agencies to waive restrictions on hazardous work for 16–17-year-olds in a long list of dangerous occupations, including demolition, roofing, excavation, and power-driven machine operation;

extending hours to allow teens as young as 14 to work six-hour nightly shifts during the school year;

allowing restaurants to have teens as young as 16 serve alcohol; and

limiting state agencies' ability to impose penalties for future employer violations.

Multiple provisions in the new state law conflict with federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibitions on "oppressive child labor" involving hazardous conditions or excessive hours that interfere with teens' schooling or health and well-being.

We will just adjust our understanding of the words "child" and "labor" to help us feel more comfortable.  The kleptocrats and oligarchs will help us with that.  

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/morgan-stanley-sees-lower-us-growth-higher-inflation-amid-tariff-uncertainty-3914469

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Analysts at Morgan Stanley have lowered their U.S. growth projections and raised their estimates for inflation, citing greater-than-expected "intensity" in trade policy developments.

In a note to clients on Friday, the brokerage said it now sees the U.S. economy expanding by 1.5% and 1.2% in 2025 and 2026, down from 1.9% and 1.3%, respectively.

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"While it looks like tariffs on Mexico and Canada will be short-lived, reciprocal tariffs are now part of our baseline," the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. They also flagged that a raft of recent public sector layoffs announced by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and a "rapid" slowing in border crossings are also clouding the broader economic outlook.

"Our forecast changes pull forward the anticipated effects of restrictive trade and immigration policies," the analysts said. "If our narrative entering the year was 'slower growth, stickier inflation' then we now think 'slower growth, firmer inflation.’"

Let's see what Trump does with this.  

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

https://www.Yahoo.com/news/doge-job-cuts-shake-trump-224004375.html

The chainsaw cuts are shaking up lots of Trump voting communities across the country.  

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1897691222392676587

Rick Scott is an expert on taking money from Medicare and Medicaid.  He tells us what republican priority includes.  

Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
toomuchbaloney said:

It seems like Musk's cuts are largely decided based upon relatively simply key word searches.  Not thoughtful at all, as evidenced by some of the really stupid decisions he's made.  

Musk is neither an engineer nor a social scientist ar accountant.   He sails alone on his "magnitism" and big Freudian chain saw.  We all did a psych rotation and know what crazy looks like.  So, no, his version of AI isn't competent.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Beerman said:

Being a results oriented person, I'm mostly in wait and see mode. 

What is your opinion of the results so far?  I would include in the results scores of people fired and then rehired, phoney baloney savings posted to the DOGE website, and bizarre, unconstitutional behavior from an unelected billionaire.  What do you think of the results so far? 

toomuchbaloney said:

What is your opinion of the results so far?  I would include in the results scores of people fired and then rehired, phoney baloney savings posted to the DOGE website, and bizarre, unconstitutional behavior from an unelected billionaire.  What do you think of the results so far? 

The firing/ rehiring is ridiculous,  concept of DOGE is brilliant but implementation rocky at times and will get bette, and at least I know who the unelected beaurocrat is as to opposed to most of the others who have made decisions that impact my life.

toomuchbaloney said:

The NCI is the largest source of funding for cancer research in the world. Musk put all of that funding on hold.  Musk capped the indirect costs of that research at 15% and that adversely affected research teams.  Did that clear up your confusion?  I don't need it wasn't you to feel alarmed, just better informed.  

I'm laughing that you think that the work done at the University of Michigan doesn't "stack up well".  Would you like to read what they published last year? 

NCI funding " on hold", not cut.  And much of that has already been lifted.

Just curious...Was your daughter's work effected by the Biden administration cutting the NCI budget?

15% cap on administrative costs doesn't seem outrageous.  But I'm not going to claim to be an expert.  Other than your usual everything Trump does is bad, do you have any specific reason to believe that says 15% cap on administration costs will effect finding a cure for cancer?

You didn't say U of Michigan before, did you?  That's the missing context I was talking about.  And you're still missing it.  Are they having to cancel big projects or just laying off a part-time administrator?

 

 

Specializes in Med-Surg.
Beerman said:

I will say its pretty easy to slash in the beginning.  Im sure you go to work everyday and see things your employer wastes money on.  Although, there are times it seems haphazardly being done by DOGE. 

I work there and if I was in charge of my department I might could slash things but should I be slashing things for a department I know nothing about?

I'm not a good one because I complain all the time about not having staff, chairs for the patients and just complained we had no heating pads. etc.  LOL

I'm not against it and know it's painful.  (no cuts on taxes)

Specializes in Hospice.
Beerman said:

Well, since I'm not in fear of ethnic cleansing taking place, or that we're going to become a country that accepts child labor, and that I have a understanding of what the Dept of Education actually does and doesn't do, I am pretty comfortable blowing off Rachel Maddow's Lundeen comparisons.

Ah, yes. "My A1c has been elevated for years, but I feel good today and insulin's expensive, so let's stop testing while we wait and see.”

Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Beerman said:

The firing/ rehiring is ridiculous,  concept of DOGE is brilliant but implementation rocky at times and will get bette, and at least I know who the unelected beaurocrat is as to opposed to most of the others who have made decisions that impact my life.

It sounds like you might be willing to let the unconstitutional, disruptive, and expensive slash and cut approach of Musk to slide because of some faceless and nameless but terribly scary bureaurocrat. Did I understand correctly? 

 

Beerman said:

NCI funding " on hold", not cut.  And much of that has already been lifted.

Just curious...Was your daughter's work effected by the Biden administration cutting the NCI budget?

15% cap on administrative costs doesn't seem outrageous.  But I'm not going to claim to be an expert.  Other than your usual everything Trump does is bad, do you have any specific reason to believe that says 15% cap on administration costs will effect finding a cure for cancer?

You didn't say U of Michigan before, did you?  That's the missing context I was talking about.  And you're still missing it.  Are they having to cancel big projects or just laying off a part-time administrator?

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-partially-lift-freeze-grant-reviews-obstacles-remain

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President Donald Trump's administration has partially lifted a bureaucratic roadblock that had halted meetings of peer-review committees that review grants proposals at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The policy change will allow NIH to post public notices in the bulletin known as the Federal Register. The agency is required to post such notices at least 15 days in advance for meetings of NIH panels known as study sections. Since Trump took office on 20 January, NIH has been barred from posting these notices as part of a "communications pause.”

Many study sections scheduled for the past few weeks were still able to meet because they had notices posted before 20 January. But by last week, the number of panels that had met the notice requirement was petering out. Scores of these panels organized by the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) have been canceled with just a day's notice, frustrating reviewers who had prepared for them as well as the NIH officials who convene these meetings.

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Peer-review panels run by NIH's 24 grantmaking institutes and centers, which review 24% of proposals, apparently are still barred from posting notices, however. And NIH is still not allowed to post the notices for institute councils, which conduct the second stage of peer review, according to the notice.

According to NPR, the frozen reviews have delayed 16,000 grant proposals competing for $1.5 billion. (NIH awards more than $39 billion total in extramural funding.)

Uncertainty and delays make a difference. 

No.  My daughter's research team was expanded during the Biden administration. 

Slowing research down by arbitrarily cutting administrative support to cancer researchers certainly isn't going to hasten or improve the likelihood of finding a cure for cancer, is it?  Knowing that these cuts are proposed, demanded, or made in an effort to make it seem like a net neutral exercise to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us, makes them even harder to swallow.  For some of us anyway.  That's part of what made it so crazy that Trump made a show of the kid with cancer at the SOTU. The hypocrisy of that political theater was stunning.  For some of us.  

The bit about the University of Michigan is an irrelevant fact.  

Maybe you could entertain other possibilities. It's possible that if that grant funding is not reviewed and approved in a timely fashion that the entire bit of research could be looking for alternative funding.  Until that funding is secured, the research is likely paused.  That means my daughter, the lead research scientist on that team, would likely secure other work to pay her mortgage.  

 

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