Leslie Bienen, a zoonotic disease researcher, was excited when Donald Trump picked her friend Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health.

The two had worked together during the pandemic, both believing that Covid restrictions had gone too far and that the press and scientific establishment unfairly censored their views. A photo from 2022 shows them standing in a group, smiling as they hold up T-Shirts labeled “Fringe Epidemiologist.”

Six weeks into the Trump Administration, Bienen isn’t smiling. Her excitement, she explained, has been tempered by worry.

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