Mera L🪬

CDC Quietly Turned Off Its Vaccine Search Tool. It’s Not Clear When It’s Coming Back. “I have heard that they are planning to ‘update it’ and shudder to think what that will mean,” Demetre Daskalakis, a former member of CDC leadership, told NOTUS.

More attack on vaccine from RFK Jr.

The United States government has ordered its employees not to speak at any events for World AIDS Day or promote them on social media.

I guess they think that if we ignore HIV/AIDS it will just go away.

It didn’t work for Reagan and it’s not going to work now.

The new @unaids.org report shows we were closer than in decades to ending AIDS by 2030, yet new #HIV infections stayed flat in ’24, and even before funding cuts, efforts weren’t enough to drive them down. We must double down with bolder, more strategic action to drive real decline.

🧪PSA
New notices of #NIH awards now have language allowing grants to be terminated if they no longer “align” with agency “priorities”. This will create uncertainty b/c we can’t count on funding if it can be arbitrarily terminated while a study is in progress.
Via @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social on IG

Five years ago, we all applauded nurses, public health, and health care workers every evening for saving lives.

Today, the federal government does not consider these workers professional.

This says everything about the state of US health care.

Remember Andrew Wakefield?
Here he is with his friend RFK Jr. in 2020.

Wakefield is the guy behind the fraudulent, retracted MMR–autism study. He lost his medical license for subjecting autistic children to unnecessary invasive procedures.

Now, with Kennedy in power, he’s getting a second act.

ACIP comments are due today! Focus of the meeting will be HepB vaccine and "vaccine schedule" which is vague and ominous. If a guide/template is helpful, you can find it here: hepb.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/EXzaiD...

Evergreen, but currently apropos of a certain Atlantic cover featuring someone who directed one of the organizations that launched a concerted, well-funded attack against possibly the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th and early 21st centuries

A Small Texas Think Tank Cultivated Covid Dissidents. Now They’re Running US Health Policy. - KFF Health News Fueled by covid backlash, a libertarian author created the Brownstone Institute in 2021. In recent months, people with ties to the group have catapulted to the highest levels of U.S. government, exerc...

Important piece on how we got here.

Brownstone raised millions to undermine COVID prevention policies.

Now at least 8 people with ties to Brownstone hold senior positions at federal health agencies, where they are restricting vaccines and cutting science funding.

The only thing this issue of The Atlantic is good for is use as a dart board by every desk and workstation of all the scientists/PH professionals/medical professionals whose work this man is crapping all over with his contempt for science and conspiracism. Shame on everyone involved with this story.

This new policy from NIH is concerning.

It looks like a way to weaponize administrative burden, one of Russell Vought's favorite moves to break gov't.

Background: Program staff / NIH institute directors can move grants around outside peer review order. 1/

Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of the Division of AIDS National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (.gov) https://www.niaid.nih.gov › about › carl-w-dieffenbach-... Nov 15, 2018 — Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., serves as Director of the Division of AIDS (DAIDS). Dr. Dieffenbach oversees a global HIV/AIDS research portfolio of more than $1 ...

Hearing news that Carl Dieffenbach, the Director of the Division of AIDS at #NIH (NIAID), has been removed from his position because he was "not aligned with HHS/OMB."

Russell Vought continues to remove great scientists as part of the Project 2025 mission to politicize and destroy NIH.

🧪 1/

We are now selling tickets to 27 uNIHted’s Dec. 12 fundraiser!

actionnetwork.org/ticketed_eve...

X1.2 speed
Jenna Norton
@jenna-m-norton.bsky.social

No surprise the Trump NIH director doesn’t understand how science works—doesn’t get NIH has been *the* world-historic leader in innovation.

After all, he’s never actually done any science.
Even before his rightwing pundit career 2020-25, he spent his time with economists, not scientists.

I feel for the hardworking public health professionals of the CDC

Betrayed by leadership.
Shot at by right-wing terrorist.
Targeted by DOGE.
Watching their career’s work be destroyed.

Those that stay in the hope of rebuilding have my respect. Those that can’t stay like this have my understanding 😢

The extent of the damage done to public health, biomedical science, and healthcare in the US in less than a year will take a generation or more to repair. This is the scale of the destruction. Let that sink in. A new president, Congress won't be enough to reverse things fully. It's that bad.

important to get widespread public opposition on the record with public comment

to only do experiments with good reason. It's not a perfect solution by any means but people underestimate the care that goes into making sure animal research subjects are well treated and don't suffer.

I've done animal work (mouse studies). I know personally I'm not up for working with NHPs. It's still work that needs to be done. All animal work at reputable places is done under strict vet supervision and IACUC oversight, including an explicit directive to only use the minimum # of animals and 1/

Cell based testing is too reductive a model and computer models are only as good as the information we put into them. For work involving the immune system where we're still surprised regularly by what we're learning, we don't have the data yet to make models good enough to go from in vitro to trials

RFK Jr. has made false and dangerous claims about AIDS. That could become a global problem. Will the United States abandon lifesaving efforts to research and fight the virus?

Yep- he's a proponent of Peter Duesberg's crackpot ideas which have been repeatedly refuted by quality data.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

For Everyone NOV. 19, 2025 KEY POINTS • The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities. • HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.

VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM, YOU FLAMING SHITBIRDS.

WE HAVE, IN FACT, RULED IT OUT.

someone's mad at this

Autism and Vaccines QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS PAGE 2 OF 9 | ALL PAGES J For Everyone NOV. 19, 2025 KEY POINTS • The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

HHS Research on Plausible Biologic Mechanisms between Vaccines and Autism HHS will evaluate plausible biologic mechanisms between early childhood vaccinations and autism. Mechanisms for further investigation include the impacts of aluminum adjuvants, risks for certain children with mitochondrial disorders, harms of neuroinflammation, and more. * The header "Vaccines do not cause autism" has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.

CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”

give me the quadrivalent mRNA flu vaccine right now. put it in me

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announces the following meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). ...

A call to action everyone can take now is to add a public comment. Public comment periods ends Nov 24, 2025. Short and anonymous comments are welcomed! Let’s increase the comments quickly.

A flurry of snowflakes with text reading 'Virus Snowflakes: a collection of paper art viruses by Ed Hutchinson - Download now!' along with the logo of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research

If you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs.
Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them!
cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...

The US should triple the NIH budget.