27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 4/19/26

Written By Anna

Hi NIH Vigilers and 27 UNIHTED Community,

Take a break from celebrating the end of tax season and check out what’s new this week!

Calls To Action

Russell Vought to testify before Congress. Join us in exposing lies! 

  • 4/21: House Energy and Commerce (a.m.) and Senate Appropriations (p.m.)

  • 4/22: Senate Finance (a.m.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (p.m.)

Impeach Vought Campaign has more than 1,600 signatures! Add your name (or anonymous voice) to the call urging Congress to impeach and convict White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. 

Reach out to your members of Congress about the issues that matter to you.

Help the NIH Community: Review a resume, host a job workshop, plan a happy hour, volunteer and/or advocate with 27 UNIHTED. Check out the links on our website to take action and volunteer. 

Speaking of our website, we are looking for photos and videos from the following NIH Vigils: 

  • May 24, 2025

  • January 24, 2026

  • March 14, 2026

  • March 21, 2026

  • April 11, 2026

We would like to have documentation of these vigils and, with your permission, may use them in our online gallery or future newsletters. Please send any submissions to NIHmemorials@proton.me by email or DisgruntledQuokka.01 on Signal.

Upcoming Events

27 UNIHTED Events

Community Events

  • Rise Up Frederick’s latest meetup for current and former government workers will be held Monday, April 27 at 6:00 p.m. in the C. Burr Artz Library programming room. Both contractors and FTEs are welcome to this safe space. 

  • On Monday, May 4 at noon ET, the Partnership for Public Service will host a free webinar about how to tell your federal workforce story in congressional meetings. Learn more and RSVP here. 

Vigil “Auntie” News 

- The Good -

The SBIR / STTR program has been reauthorized - with 27 UNIHTED help! After a more than six-month lapse, the President signed the bill into law on April 13, extending the program until September 2031. An article in C&EN spotlighted Amber Lockridge, an NIH postdoc who co-led the 27 UNIHTED’s SBIR campaign. The win is real and important, yet the damage lingers. NIH missed two out of three SBIR application cycles this year. 

The ICE acting director resigned amid DHS turmoil. He will step down at the end of May. The acting director presided over a rushed hiring spree of more than 12,000 new agents, surging violence, arbitrary detentions, and many deaths. While the shooting of peaceful U.S. citizens took the headlines, deaths in custody have already surpassed the yearly record, with one death every 6 days. 

- The Bad -

Vought testified in the House and Senate. He defended the president’s budget request, which proposes huge increases to military and ICE spending while gutting services Americans need, including NIH research. Democrats pressed Vought on a Government Accountability Office report that found he unlawfully withheld funds from congressionally mandated programs. He denied the decreases in new research caused by his multiyear funding scheme and specific program cuts that have been documented. He also repeated false claims that NIH was responsible for the pandemic and had conducted dangerous gain-of-function research. 

You heard it in RFK Jr.’s conversation with Joe Rogan first, now it’s done. The FDA pulled 12 peptides off the “significant safety risks” classification. On April 15, these 12 peptides were reclassified, despite no new evidence or safety data. The Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee meeting in July will decide next steps. Nominations for this committee will be highly scrutinized. 

- The Ugly -

In his congressional testimony, RFK Jr. blamed fired HHS workers for “the biggest decline in health in the history of the world.” In a long litany of lies, this verbal scapegoating hurt the most. RFK Jr. attacked the ~20,000 fired HHS staff, accusing them (us) by saying “It was their job to protect us, and they did not do it.” He proceeded to boast he’d replace the fired workers with “a better group of people.” This is an illegal act, as Reductions In Force do not allow for replacement, further supporting that these were pretextual firings masquerading as workforce reduction.   

Florida public universities deputized campus police as ICE agents. At least 15 Florida public colleges and universities signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, granting campus police federal immigration enforcement authority. This policy effectively turns some higher-ed institutions into extensions of deportation infrastructure.

Wellness Weekly

Our somewhat serious community recommendations for self care are:

  • Reset your posture from shrimp mode

  • Eat something green

  • Add a task you’ve already done to your to-do list just so you can cross it off

  • Check out our new merch shop

In solidarity,

27 UNIHTED and NIH Vigils

Anna
Next

27 UNIHTED / NIH Vigils Newsletter 4/12/26