Join me for the ASTHO INSPIRE: Readiness Webinar - Communicating About Data and Surveillance During Infectious Disease Emergencies, where I will share @thosenerdygirls.bsky.social public health comms tips. For more info, check out Public Health Review morning edition: share.google/czPmXOisOITj....

Just in: NIH staff have been instructed to REINSTATE these ~900 grants to comply with the court order, per sources. This comes after staff were also directed to cease any further terminations. You can see the lists grants to be reinstated in my post below.

A federal judge ruled that some of the grant terminations by the National Institutes of Health on DEI grounds are “void and illegal.” www.statnews.com/2025/06/16/n...

In a swift response to this morning's hearing, District Court Judge William G. Young has just ruled that the directives that led to 100s of grant terminations at the NIH are arbitrary and capricious. The directives + subsequent terminations are illegal, he said. "They are of no force and effect."

BREAKING: A federal judge in Massachusetts (the Reagan-appointed William Young) has declared the Trump administration's cuts to NIH grants — ostensibly over Trump's EOs on gender ideology and DEI — are "illegal" and "void." He's ordering many grants restored.

Are you a researcher with an AHRQ grant that has been disrupted? This includes terminated grants and grants that have been submitted but not reviewed/scored/funded as would normally be expected. If so, AcademyHealth is collecting these stories and wants to hear from you. DM me and I’ll connect you.

What do we know about the safety and effectiveness of mRNA vaccines? Lots. @jonathanwosen.bsky.social explains. www.statnews.com/2025/05/21/m...

#CDC reports that as of 4/24, there have been 884 confirmed measles cases so far this year, up from 800 last week. That total, accumulated in less than 4 months, is 69% of the total seen in 2019, the worst year since measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

Cases of #WhoopingCough are up. So far in 2025, there have been over 4 times as many cases of whooping cough compared to this time last year. Now is a good time to make sure you are up-to-date on this vaccine. Read the full post by @msimanek.bsky.social here: thosenerdygirls.org/whooping-cou...

🚨Report your NSF grant terminations! 🚨 We are starting to collect information on NSF grant terminations to create a shared resource as we have for NIH. The more information we collect, the more we can organize, advocate, and fight back! Please share widely! airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

Nerdy Girls presenting at #IDLabCon. @aphl.org @msimanek.bsky.social

It's only the end of March but already 2025 has logged more #measles cases than all but 2 other years since the US achieved measles elimination status in 2000. #CDC reported there'd been 483 confirmed cases in 19 states as of 3/27. Likely out of date, with TX reporting Friday its count has hit 400

Learn five key points about the data rescue efforts by ICPSR at myumi.ch/61dRE #ICPSR #Data #Research

1/ We are thrilled to announce that Nerdy Girls Dr. Amanda Simanek @msimanek.bsky.social, Dr. Roopa Seshadri, and Gayle Mendoza, MPH, BSN, RN will be presenting at the national annual meeting of the Association of Public Health Laboratories on March 25! #publichealth

If you don’t get your child vaccinated against measles, it can put them at a high risk of this serious infection, which can lead to severe complications or even death. Make sure your child’s measles vaccination is up to date.

Looking forward to presenting at #IDLabCon with some other @thosenerdygirls.bsky.social in 2 weeks! We will cover: Why scicomm is necessary How we became scicommers Ways you can too Thanks @aphl.org!

Breaking: RFK Jr. moves to quietly eliminate public comment from HHS's decision making: www.statnews.com/2025/02/28/r...

Measles is serious and extremely contagious. So contagious that if one person has it, up to 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected. The good news: It's preventable. The MMR shot is safe, effective, and your best protection against measles.

BREAKING: The NIH summer internship program (SIP) has been officially cancelled, across all institutes. It’s a sad loss for the brightest science students in America, for American science, and for future cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. 🧪 1/

I believe we have breaking news in Inside Medicine. I spoke to a member of the FDA vaccine committee who confirmed that the meeting to decide the 2025-2026 flu shot composition was abruptly canceled today. My on-the-record Q&A with the FDA advisor: insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-fda-...

Just yesterday while on PBS News Hour I said that I will have confidence that federal vaccine policy is uncompromised as long as the external advisory committees continue to meet. Now meetings for both VRBPAC and ACIP have been cancelled. I don't like this.

Almost all grant-review meetings under Trump 2.0 remain suspended at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), preventing the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research from spending much of its US$47 billion annual budget. https://go.nature.com/4gM6oW4

If people are interested in learning about the ACIP and its decades of contributions to US vaccine policy successes, here’s a short 2014 piece I wrote in NEJM with Adel Mahmoud (timed with its 50th anniversary) www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

I’m resubmitting a scientific grant where there’s no one permitted to review it, to an institute that probably won’t exist.

Melissa and I wrote about our research being purged... www.minnpost.com/community-vo...

“Flu has been brutal this season. The CDC estimates at least 24 million illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths from the flu since the start of October… But CDC analyses that would inform people about these situations are delayed, and the CDC has cut off communication with doctors”

I present to you all the notice that now is displayed on the CDC HIV prevention page. Again - In these times, find a healthcare provider you trust, who follows evidence based practice grounded in science. Follow trusted sources of information.

Doing the unthinkable: The deep cuts to the #CDC's workforce today are expected to decimate the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a program that has trained public health rapid responders for decades. Envy of the world. Poof! www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/t...

If you are one of the #CDC #HHS #FDA #NIH employees who have learned today that your employment is being abruptly ended, we want to hear from you. @altcdc.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/f...

We are hearing today that NIH is restarting issuing grant awards — that is, for awards already approved by council, or renewals that normally happen as matter of course, money will start going out. Caution, though, before we interpret this as a win... 1/ 🧪

⚠️ Measles and long-term effects: What you need to know ⚠️ 🧵: There are multiple measles outbreaks across the country right now, so we’d like to give an overview and talk about the long-term effects, which can include severe complications or death.

A coalition of news organizations said in a court filing that video exhibits from a Jan. 6 riot case had "disappeared" from a government platform that provided access to evidence used in court.

Top NIH-Funded Institutions: Northwestern University University of Chicago University of Illinois Rush University Medical Center Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Loyola University of Chicago NorthShore University HealthSystem Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Rosalind Franklin University

In Illinois - NIH FUNDING: $1.23B JOBS SUPPORTED: 14,225 ECONOMIC ACTIVITY SUPPORTED: $3.46B

NIH study sections have resumed, BUT applications that were scheduled to be reviewed have been pulled last minute if they were on certain topics related to EOs. No word on what happens next for those applications.

While bird flu is circulating, do not attempt to pick up or handle a sick or dying bird. If you see 5+ dead birds in one location, please report it to a IDNR wildlife biologist.  Do not bring wild birds into a veterinary clinic or wildlife center. For more info: chicago.gov/h5n1 #BirdFlu #H5N1

Censor CDC scientists and ask them to withdraw papers from medical journals? This is not how it works, Mr President. Our response @bmj.com on the Trump Executive Order and his "forbidden words" www.bmj.com/content/388/...

For those of us trying to preserve data!

I am disheartened that several CDC webpages are currently down. I hope this is just a temporary pause. Infectious diseases don't take breaks. The American taxpayers who paid for these data deserve the ability to access the lifesaving information derived from these data.

I'm keeping a running list of disappearing federal data in the 🧵 below. If there are others I missed let me know. crampell[at]washpost[dot]com or Signal username crampell.13

The purge begins: www.statnews.com/2025/01/31/c...

Why are #ArchivedLinks popping up in TNG posts, and what are they? Curious to find out more? Read the full post by Nerdy Girl Sandy Laping @sandyhere.bsky.social here: thosenerdygirls.substack.com/p/why-are-ar...

For the second week in a row, the CDC's crucial Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — THE first-line bulletin for outbreaks and chronic disease developments — has not been published. This screenshot shows that its last edition was the Thursday before the inauguration. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index.h...

Hard to see it all in one thread but thank you @carlzimmer.com for helping us all keep track.

These tips from AAAS are great and echo what we've been doing with @thosenerdygirls.bsky.social for the past five years! One other thing we learned along the way is that banding together with other scientists to do this work can make public engagement less scary (and helps you do it better).

This pause is different than in previous presidential transitions. Experienced public health practitioners are reaching out in disbelief at the scale of how much is on hold. Not just comms, but partner meetings, jobs, travel, etc. No transparency of when it'll resume.

CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has provided real-time data and analysis about disease outbreaks and emerging health threats without a break every week since 1960. Until today.

"Combating misinformation takes a SYSTEMATIC approach... finding and containing the source; proactively identifying the most vulnerable to its effects; and immunising the population against false claims...IT CANNOT BE LEFT TO VOLUNTARY, INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS." www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"True progress happens through partnerships with local groups who are deeply connected to the issues at hand"...yes, exactly! Hence the community-driven (not institution-driven) approach our Center is taking to address health equity in Lake County, IL. www.rosalindfranklin.edu/helix/commun...