Leslie Bienen, a researcher of Zoönotic disease, was enthusiastic when Donald Trump chose her friend Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health.
The two had worked together during the Pandemie, both in the conviction that Covid restrictions had gone too far and that the press and the scientific establishment were unfairly censored their views. A photo from 2022 shows them standing in a group, smiling while keeping t-shirts up with the label “Randepidemiologist. “
Six weeks after the Trump government, Bienen does not laugh. Her excitement, she explained, was tempered by worries.
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