“I think you have to assume that RFK Jr.’s intention is to make it harder for vaccines to come to market,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins University. The changes are “looked at suspiciously because this is someone with a proven track record of evading the value of vaccines.”
Yurong “Luanna” Jiang addresses classmates during commencement ceremonies at Harvard University, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)“I say this: ... Neither powers nor princes can change the truth and deny that diversity is our strength,” Scully said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Yurong “Luanna” Jiang, a Chinese graduate who studied international development. She described growing up believing that the “world was becoming a small village” and finding a global community at Harvard. But she worries that world view is increasingly under threat.“We’re starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently, whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us, are not just wrong — we mistakenly see them as evil,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to be this way.”Dr. Abraham Verghese, a bestselling author and Stanford University expert on infectious diseases, opened his keynote address by saying he felt like a medieval messenger “slipping into a besieged community.” He praised Harvard for “courageously defending the essential values of this university and indeed of this nation,” and told students that more people than they realize have noticed the example they’ve set.
“No recent events can diminish what each of you have accomplished here,” Verghese said.On Wednesday, basketball Hall of Famer and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the “Class Day” speaker, praising Harvard for standing up to the Trump administration and comparing Garber’s response to Rosa Parks’ stand against racist segregation.
Hall of Fame center and honorary degree recipient Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is welcomed at Harvard Yard during commencement ceremonies at Harvard University, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Hall of Fame center and honorary degree recipient Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is welcomed at Harvard Yard during commencement ceremonies at Harvard University, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)“Our staff doesn’t sleep that much,” said Elaina Weldon, a nurse practitioner who oversees the transplant research. But with each passing week, “everybody is really now at the point of, what more can we do? How far can we push?”
Mary Miller-Duffy and her wife, Sue Duffy, leave the NYU Langone Health medical center in New York on Aug. 10, 2023. Research with her brother-in-law’s body has changed Sue’s outlook on organ donation. “Maybe I don’t need all my organs when I go to heaven,” she says. “Before I was a hard no. ... Now I’m a hard yes.” (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)Mary Miller-Duffy and her wife, Sue Duffy, leave the NYU Langone Health medical center in New York on Aug. 10, 2023. Research with her brother-in-law’s body has changed Sue’s outlook on organ donation. “Maybe I don’t need all my organs when I go to heaven,” she says. “Before I was a hard no. ... Now I’m a hard yes.” (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)
She knows firsthand the huge interest: NYU quizzed community groups and religious leaders before embarking on research with donated bodies that might have sounded “a little bit more on the sci-fi side of things.”Instead, many people wanted to know how soon studies in the living could start, something the Food and Drug Administration will have to decide. Dozens have written Montgomery, eager to participate.