For the record: Memoli believes in old vaccine tech. That he awarded himself a ton of money to continue studying earlier this year (see a previous post of mine for deets) despite the rest of NIAID not being able to spend $$. He’s never supported mRNA tech because it competes w/ his research.

Thank you to the INCREDIBLE speakers in my Assumption Dysfunction symposium at #SER2025. The talks were fantastic and the meme game was strong. @faustobustos.bsky.social @germsandnumbers.bsky.social Laura Balzer and Kerollos Wanis!!!

Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter accusations. Exactly what we love to see in federal leadership. 👌

Jon Cohen@cohenjon.bsky.social · last yr.

“I’m really uncomfortable with this conversation, because you’re like, actually spreading rumors that you don’t know anything about." Shortly before announcing policy change he said was a "rumor." @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social interview. www.science.org/content/arti...

The entirety of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was wiped out last night in a form letter sent by RFK Jr. NIOSH is an agency in the CDC that investigates workplace hazards and finds solutions. It protects workers, so it’s gone. Even firefighters.

I miss Dr. Fauci at the helm of NIAID, and public health in general.

Saganism@sagan.bsky.social · last yr.

Dr. Anthony Fauci urges Americans not to accept "Normalization of Untruths".

This is 0% surprising to those of us who know Matt Memoli personally. He’s a bad scientist (and a lot of other things too). He’s absolutely unqualified to be anywhere near NIH leadership. www.statnews.com/2025/05/03/n...

Scientists question NIH project’s use of 20th century technology to make a universal flu vaccine

$500 million NIH program to make vaccines against pathogens that can trigger pandemics uses approach pioneered in last century

statnews.com

Cooool. This is... great. Just great.

Saskia Popescu@saskiapopescu.bsky.social · last yr.

This work is critical to us responding to Ebola outbreaks and strengthening medical countermeasures - “RFK Jr.'s HHS Orders Lab Studying Deadly Infectious Diseases to Stop Research”

NIH science is still making it into the world. Really enjoyed the conversations behind this paper - lots of big-picture questions about what makes research ethical and beneficial to the people involved, especially in a time of crisis, when "don't do the research" is sometimes the (difficult) answer

The Carlson Lab @ Yale@carlsonlab.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨 How do you conduct responsible research in an epidemic? New guidance paper from an NIH/NIAID workshop led by @emilyricotta.bsky.social out now in @bmj.com Global Health: "Observational research in epidemic settings: a roadmap to reform." 🔓😷🧪 gh.bmj.com/content/bmjg...

Well that's absolutely horrible news.

Science Magazine@science.org · 2y ago

Lawrence Tabak, longtime principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, has abruptly resigned—surprising even his own lab staff and the broader community. scim.ag/4hR40OE

Gosh I love just starting my NIH Grant Writing era at this moment in history. 😭

Dave Levitan@davelevitan.bsky.social · 2y ago

Internal NIH guidance updated yesterday. Just canceling stuff each day from here on out I guess, pending new guidance. Killing science off both slowly and incredibly rapidly.

I am SO THRILLED to finally present our new paper on reforming observational studies in epidemic settings, published in @bmj.com BMJ Global Health. gh.bmj.com/cgi/content/... #Episky #Epidemiology #clinicalresearch #observational #IDSky

Observational research in epidemic settings: a roadmap to reform

Observational studies are critical tools in clinical research and public health response, but challenges arise in ensuring the data produced by these studies are scientifically robust and socially val...

gh.bmj.com

Loool. They think NIH employees are deliberately hindering their progress but actually eRA Commons is just unavailable as usual.

samuel mehr@mehr.nz · 2y ago

what would actually be hilarious is if the so-called department of government efficiency tries to gut NIH but is thwarted by the eRA Commons being impossible to use

#GrantOpportunity for US NGOs to collect, analyze, & use data to address inequities in the physical, economic, and social conditions of a place. Deadline 3/18. #equity #healthequity #dei #socialjustice tinyurl.com/3x6df76e

Local Data for Equitable Communities

This call for proposals invites eligible nonprofit organizations to apply for a grant to collect, analyze, and use data to inform efforts to improve the physical, economic, and social conditions of a ...

tinyurl.com

#EpiSky - did anyone manage to grab recent #CDC PRAMS data (2018-2022)? One of my PhD students needs it for her dissertation. Please DM me if you know where we can find it. #epidemiology #childhealth #maternalhealth #SPER #SER

The US does not have an offensive bioweapons program. Gain of function research did not lead to SARS-CoV-2. The scientific evidence points to a NATURAL zoonosis, ie a jump from infected animals to people. If there is evidence to the contrary it has not been presented.

Elon doesn't give a shit about bioweapons research and would probably fund it if it were advantageous to him. The US doesn't do or fund any bioweapons research. Elon is lying that they do because he wants the tax dollars to subsidize him instead of the legitimate public health research we paid for.

Gigi Gronvall@ggronvall.bsky.social · 2y ago

The US does not have an offensive bioweapons program. Gain of function research did not lead to SARS-CoV-2. The scientific evidence points to a NATURAL zoonosis, ie a jump from infected animals to people. If there is evidence to the contrary it has not been presented.

This thread contains a very clear breakdown of why a non-elected, non-career official having unfettered access to and control of information and spending is incredibly dangerous.

Beth Popp Berman@epopppp.bsky.social · 2y ago

I want to spell out the basic reason it’s so dangerous for Elon to have control of the U.S. payments system. It may seem like a technical matter, but the dynamics are simple. 1/x

If you’re looking for a place to archive open government data check out DataLumos @icpsr.bsky.social. #databs #academicsky #statsky #episky #rstats

Joel Mittleman@joeljm.bsky.social · 2y ago

The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey has monitored the wellbeing of America’s high school students since 1991. Since 2015, it’s been a vital source of data on LGBQ youth. In 2023, it provided the first ever nationally representative sample of transgender teens. As of this morning, it’s gone.

To our American friends who may now be struggling to find health information on US websites: Please check out the Public Health Agency of Canada's website for helpful resources, updated dashboards & practical health tips. 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 canada.ca/en/public-he...

So all those times I bitched about the US not having centralized data repos? I’ve changed my mind. Decentralize it all. I’ll sign as many DUAs as I need to in the future just… everyone hide all of the pieces while we still can.

Now available: a very cool paper led by my collaborator James Anibal using illness episode audio data + traditional clinical data to create a Voice EHR that can be analyzed with ML to predict disease outcomes! doi.org/10.3389/fdgt... #Episky #publichealth #AI #ML #LLM #research

Frontiers | Voice EHR: introducing multimodal audio data for health

doi.org

A quick read in @science.org about the importance of regulating science, especially clinical trials. I particularly liked the paragraph in the attached image (ALT text supplied) www.science.org/content/blog...

Using NIH All of Us, we developed easy to compute phenotypes for respiratory viruses like #flu & #RSV by integrating billing codes, prescriptions & lab results from >265K people! This will help id cohorts for others doing EHR research. tinyurl.com/42uvbz7r #publichealth #datascience #Episky

Computable Phenotypes for Respiratory Viral Infections in the All of Us Research Program

Electronic health records (EHRs) contain rich temporal data about infectious diseases, but an optimal approach to identify infections remains undefined. Using the All of Us Research Program, we develo...

tinyurl.com

If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

This is your end of year reminder to get your moles checked annually!! Prevention is much better than treatment, and catching things early sucks less than catching things late. Just had a pigmented spindle cell nevus removed by my excellent dermatologist to be extra cautious! Happy new year!

Please enjoy these cute dogs who were very confused why they were left in charge of themselves. “They’ll run away!” my husband says. Do they LOOK like they had any interest in moving? They’re practically area rugs.

Influenza-like illness coming in hot

Worked 8 hours today and all I have to show for it is the first *paragraph* of a specific aims page. Am I happy with it? No. Do I at least feel like I’ve made progress? Also no. #Science #GrantWriting #Episky

a man is sitting on a couch with his eyes closed and says " guys please let me hate myself "

ALT: a man is sitting on a couch with his eyes closed and says " guys please let me hate myself "

media.tenor.com

This is a great 🧵 about why kids still need #vaccines, even (especially) if the incidence of disease is low. When it’s no longer medically necessary to get a vaccine, they’ll stop recommending it (like smallpox for the majority of the 🌎). Till then, stay up to date with your vaccines!

Yale School of Public Health@yalesph.bsky.social · 2y ago

Q: Do children really need vaccinations, even if the disease is not still around? A: Yes. (Keep reading for the nuance.) 🧵1/9 @kkjetelina.bsky.social @meganranney.bsky.social @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social @enirenberg.bsky.social