A few updates on the deeply unethical study to probe "non-specific" effects of the birth dose HepB vaccine in Guinea-Bissau by Danish investigators. 1️⃣ The study was canceled as per AfricaCDC - HHS disputes this. 2️⃣ Full protocol was leaked and it's bad. Quick 🧵 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Painting roofs white and adding screens to doors and windows is a low-cost way to increase comfort and curb malaria risk. https://scim.ag/49QBSKi

Insect Infection, Immunity & Microbionts @royentsoc.bsky.social meeting at Milner Centre in Bath 16-17th April www.royensoc.co.uk/event/infect... with @annttate.bsky.social as keynote speaker. Should be fun!

PLOS Ecosystems is our new open access journal bringing together rigorous research across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems - linking biodiversity, ecosystem function, and nature’s contributions to people. ➡️ Help shape the future of ecosystems research: plos.io/4puYlRE

My “blatant cronyism” assessment has not changed. This study evidently did not undergo anything resembling a review at CDC. It’s ethically reprehensible to expose babies to a lethal disease to address a scientifically useless question that will be politically weaponized against vaccination.

Could have used this back when I was a PhD student. I had to extract graph data from papers that were >50 years old. Asked PI how, he said "I'll show you" & left the room. Thought he was getting software He came back with a ruler, a magnifying glass & a sheaf of graph paper & told me to have fun

Again that’s why I’m a member. Stand up to idiocy, and bullies. And in the US in 2026, that’s a risk.

Don’t use Twitter. Don’t use Facebook. It can’t be said often enough.

Damn I will miss this! Andres has been one of the most important people in my career.

Bepi may become the first treatment that can help “functionally cure” more than a tiny percentage of patients chronically infected with hepatitis B. https://scim.ag/4sBobq4

We’re keeping our drinking water safe. 💧 From today, EU countries must monitor PFAS levels in drinking water. PFAS are long-lasting chemicals that can be harmful, if levels are too high. If that happens authorities must act and inform people until the water is safe again.

Germany: Lyme disease up big in Saxony, Berlin and Bavaria open.substack.com/pub/outbreak...

A fascinating (and beautifully illustrated) article on the history of virus research @w-u-r.bsky.social, and in particular of Thung Tjeng Hiang, the world's first professor of virology exhibitions.wur.nl/fascinating-...

I’ve known and worked with let’s just say difficult characters in science. Some who I however respected as scientists but not as people. But there are lines. And I wonder what the RS will do when they reassess the damage that Musk helped create 5 or 10 years from now.

Hunter-gatherers in southern Africa laced their stone arrow tips with poison roughly 60,000 years ago, a new #ScienceAdvances study finds. The discovery pushes back the timeline for poison weapon use from the mid-Holocene to the Late Pleistocene. https://scim.ag/4aQDXqI

This newly discovered Iron Age instrument may have been played in the Celtic resistance against the Roman Empire

The Aedes aegypti mosquito didn’t adapt by accident. It adapted to us. It thrives in cities, breeding in small pockets of still water. That’s why we focus on understanding their behaviour, not just fighting outbreaks. Smarter prevention starts with how the problem actually works. #FunFactFriday

Just give him some fake, made up prize. He’ll never notice.

Twitter is a platform for trash. It contributes nothing to society but negativity and nonsense. Any organisation or government with sense should come off it. No one would miss it if banned. Stand up to bullies.

Wanting to do some paleovirology of your own? We recently published HI-FEVER, enabling users to run their own fast searches for endogenous viral elements. Huge thanks to @humanceae.bsky.social, @emma-harding.bsky.social, José Gabriel and Cormac. @biology.ox.ac.uk academic.oup.com/bioinformati...

"Rejecting evidence-informed infectious disease strategies and undermining vaccine-based interventions will not make us healthy again," argues Seth Berkley in a new #ScienceExpertVoices article. https://scim.ag/3YJRA3P

#RNAi is an ancestral #antiviral system that degrades viral RNA, but what about in #cnidarians? @yehumoran.bsky.social &co show that #Nematostella has an siRNA-mediated antiviral response that lacks 2ary amplification & functions as a short-term antiviral mechanism @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/3N192OD

One Week left to apply for this exciting PhD via the QUARTILES DLA w/ @micecoevo.bsky.social , @timskvortsov.bsky.social & Julianne Megaw) on understanding drivers of virus ecology in the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles, Lough Neagh! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

It will take some time (a few years), but this change will lead to hundreds of thousands of preventable diseases in the most vulnerable parts of the population, including deaths. I assume we'll follow this up with the introduction of universal healthcare and paid family/sick/parental leave?

Virus taxonomy increasingly rests on phylogenetic hypotheses, but the trees, alignments, and assumptions behind them are often ephemeral. This post explores what it might look like to make that phylogenetic basis transparent and reproducible, using retroviruses as a case study. shorturl.at/s9aft

As a football fan I can only wonder who’ll be next in line for the much coveted FIFA peace prize. They may as well reinstate Russia now in international competition. A disgrace to the sport we love.

Thanks for including me here, @benmorton.bsky.social learned a lot from discussing these approaches with you since joining LSTM!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... It's finally out! Meriam Guellil expertly led this project from the first HHV6 detection to the final paper. We found both human herpesviruses 6A and 6B in ancient remains going back 2500 years.

In this perspective, Ryan Langlois @langloislab.bsky.social suggests that understanding fever’s role in shaping antiviral gene #evolution may illuminate blind spots in our comprehension of host–pathogen interactions and antiviral mechanisms. rupress.org/jem/article/... #InfectiousDisease #Virology

The long-held belief that only female mosquitoes bite may not be true after all. Very excited to have had the opportunity to contribute to this study showing that male mosquitoes can also bite and feed on blood. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

No internet? No problem. Just like border-free travel across the EU, staying connected has never been easier, thanks to EU roaming and the WiFi4EU app. Stay connected to what matters, wherever you are this festive season. ✨🎄

Gregor Mendel spent seven to eight years crossing and scoring tens of thousands of pea plants. In contemporary terms, this is known as “a postdoc”

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has struggled to convince observers he has the agency’s best interests in mind—and is truly in charge. https://scim.ag/3MMXDSh

This study does not have equipoise. It is proven that the newborn hep B vaccine dose reduces the risk of primary liver cancer & other liver diseases (eg this RCT had 30 yrs of follow-up: journals.plos.org/plosmedicine...). It is unethical to deliberately withhold the birth dose to “see what happens”

BBC News - Drones detect deadly virus in Arctic whales' breath www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... (it is, in case you're wondering, cetacean morbillivirus)

This is not the first time RFK Jr or his fellow anti-vax travelers conducted a study they knew would harm or kill children in low-income countries. It is a dehumanizing, colonialist model of manufacturing evidence: sacrificing foreign kids for political pseudoscience. www.notus.org/health-scien...

🚨 PhD Opportunity 🚨 Investigating the immunobiology of TB/CMV interactions with Rajko Reljic and myself ; www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Informal enquiries to Rajko Deadline 2nd Feb 2026 Pls RT!!!

Dear colleagues - the international meeting on arboviruses and their vectors planned in Hamburg, Germany for 2026, is going to be moved to Liverpool instead. Logistical reasons beyond our control necessitated this move. Still the same dates- see you on Merseyside!

Although having grants that are rated as fundable but there’s no money to actually make the projects happen suggests there is still some way to go. Europe must do better.

Best two pieces I’ve read today are by @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social (The other one precedes this in my feed.)

We trivialise influenza at our peril; an unusual H3N2. We don't know how bad this wave will be, but #NHS is (predictably) overwhelmed every year by "winter pressures". RSV also on the up. We could do so much to prevent, yet some prefer to minimise 🙄 mol.im/a/15375235

I agree with that- can we put impact statements for most applications in the bin…?

Argentina: 23 hantavirus cases have been confirmed nationwide open.substack.com/pub/outbreak...

2027 will see the return of the European Meeting in Viral Zoonoses in St Raphael, Côte d’Azur, France! September 18-21. Put in our diaries. Speakers to be announced.

BBC News - Mutated H3N2 flu virus is circulating - so should you buy a vaccine this year? - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Despite the slightly lurid title this is a very good general summary (and spoiler alert, the answer is yes)

I really do hope that news outlets who report on the recent #ACIP recommendations understand that these decisions have nothing to do with HepB per se, and everything to do with sowing bigger doubts about vaccines - all vaccines - in general. Don’t lose sight of what the bigger agenda is.

Rift Valley fever outbreak in Senegal: 70% of human cases involve professions exposed to infected animals open.substack.com/pub/outbreak...

At some point in the future, those affected in the US will hopefully be able to hold a number of people to account.