Pubmed is again down today following some cryptic messages last week.
Medpage has a longer article discussing the fate of the database given the fact that the Trump administration has signaled its hostility to the NIH and research in general.
1.Make it inaccessible. …This one is straightforward: lay off everyone involved in maintaining PubMed and take it offline.
2. Stop updating it. Similar to the first one … stop adding new publications to the database…
3. Change the indexing system for journals. This could be weaponized to punish journals… [for] research on certain health policies and populations, and so on.
4. Strip the indexing system for journals. .. This would be the “flood the zone” method. … This would remove the limited safeguards we have in place so no quality checks would exist at all.
5. Remake it. Delete what you don’t like…
I think this is an emergency call for the EU to fund future Pubmed indexing.
Things to do now
– let https://dnschecker.org/#A/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov do the job
– run standard searches “transgender diversity” and “women equal opportunities” for comparison to March 3, 2025
Update 3.3.2025
With the help of chatGPT, the log files at zonemaster.net and hacker news, the most likely scenario is now a misconfigured firewall upfront of the 3 NIH name server.
Can also confirm that the search for “transgender” at nih.gov is redirected to the search page.
