Amanda M. Simanek (she/her)

941: Integration of AI, Effective Public Health Comms Dr. Jay Varma, physician and epidemiologist with the Community Healthcare Network, describes the importance of embracing new AI technologies in public health; Dr. A…

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.

Hundreds of NIH grant terminations are 'void and illegal,' federal judge rules A federal judge ruled that some of the grant terminations by the National Institutes of Health on DEI grounds are “void and illegal.”

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.

How do we know mRNA vaccines are safe and effective? An explainer This week, mRNA vaccines are set to face intense scrutiny from critics in Congress. Here's an explainer of how we know they are safe and effective.

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

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Webinar on Responding to NSF Grant Terminations. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. Join the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) on Friday, May 9th, at 2:00 PM ET for an informative webinar on responding to NSF grant terminations. We will discuss the r...

us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#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...

NSF Grant Termination Information Collection Form Please use this form to submit information identifying specific NSF grants that have been cancelled for any reason after January 20, 2025. We are tracking these grants to increase transparency, organize affected PIs, and facilitate responses, including via litigation. Please share the form as widely as possible with your networks. We are actively building a pipeline to organize these terminations and will soon have a tracker akin to our NIH grant tracker at https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA WE WILL NOT DISCLOSE THE IDENTITY OF ANYONE WHO USES THIS FORM TO PROVIDE INFORMATION. We will keep your identity confidential. These resources are maintained by Noam Ross of rOpenSci and Scott Delaney of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with input and support from additional volunteers. For any questions, please contact Scott Delaney on Signal (sdelaney.84). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

🚨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

Image showing the homepage of DataLumos, above text that reads "datalumos.org" and a message stating, "Since 2017, the DataLumos archive at ICPSR has grown from 103 to over 450 datasets, safeguarding vital government data for future access." The DataLumos and ICPSR logos are also displayed at the bottom of the image.

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.

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!

RFK Jr. moves to eliminate public comment in HHS decisions HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved to rescind the longtime practice of giving the public a chance to comment on the health agency’s plans.

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/

Scoop: FDA vaccine meeting abruptly canceled. Meeting was to determine 2025-2026 influenza vaccine composition. Hi everyone,

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.

Revealed: NIH research grants still frozen despite lawsuits challenging Trump order The Trump administration is exploiting a loophole to keep a funding freeze in place, leaving researchers in limbo.

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

A Half-Century of Prevention — The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices | NEJM In 1964, after a vaccination program against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis began, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was created to advise the U.S. government on vaccinati...

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.

Our published work in a government journal curiously disappeared Several studies for a CDC journal were purged without explanation before a judge’s order restored them. That's unacceptable.

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

Urgent CDC data and analyses on influenza and bird flu go missing as outbreaks escalate | CNN Sonya Stokes, an emergency room physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, braces herself for a daily deluge of patients sick with coughs, soreness, fevers, vomiting, and other flu-like symptoms.

“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.

CDC cuts expected to devastate Epidemic Intelligence Service, a ‘crown jewel’ of public health Members of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service were warned Friday that many of them were about to be fired

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...

Are you affected by firings at federal health agencies? Have you been affected by firings at federal health agencies? @statnews would like to hear from you.

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...