Shweta Bansal

CDC disinformation about the link between autism and vaccines

The CDC updated its vaccine page to claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is "not evidence-based" and studies were "ignored." This is an outrage. Decades of research have found no link. This isn't science, it's RFK Jr. using the CDC as propaganda. Children will die because of this.

Thank you, @lizneeley.bsky.social! Very grateful for your work in these maddening times.

Lauer is super concerned about the demoralizing impact of low success rates…now that it is white folks being affected Mike Lauer, prior head of the Office of Extramural Research at the NIH, has been quoted in a recent Nature news bit by Max Kozlov on the Fiscal Year 2025 grant funding picture. Kozlov writes, in pa…

Lauer is super concerned about the demoralizing impact of low success rates...now that it is white folks being affected drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/09/30/l...

There is time to urge a change to the current #GRFP solicitation ( #NSF 25-547 ): reverse the eligibility restrictions and ensure applicants (including 2nd year PhD students) have a fair chance in the competition.

Feel free to sign and share this open petition:
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

NSF GRFP is out 2.5 months late w/key changes

1. 2nd year graduate students not eligible.

2. "alignment with Administration priorities"

3. Unlike prior years, they DO NOT specify the expected number of awards... that is a BIG problem.

a brief 🧵 w/receipts

www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Tracy Beth Hoeg at FDA is highly likely to use the VAERS data to make spurious inferences on COVID vaccines. She comes with strong biases against childhood vaccination and no experience in infectious disease epidemiology. Beware what Hoeg, Makary and RFK are selling…

Yes! You made it happen!

Far too kind. ❤️ 🙏.

America Is Sliding Into the Abyss Our science and health infrastructure lies in tatters. Once-dead viruses are roaring back to life. Many people will die. In other words, we’ve reached the point of no return.

Dr. Gonsalves has written a piece that is equal parts brilliant and tragic. Read it and use it as motivation to keep fighting the destruction of US science infrastructure. @gregggonsalves.bsky.social

Private sector, philanthropy can’t replace Trump administration science cuts Weak plans that propose alternatives to NIH funding are giving false hope to researchers.

The great @jimalwine.bsky.social and I on the absolute necessity of restoring the NIH's funding. www.statnews.com/2025/06/26/n...

🙏🏽 Congrats, Giulia and the whole team!

Breathing synchrony shapes respiratory disease risk in bottlenose dolphins Communications Biology - Social network modeling of wild dolphins reveals how age- and sex-structured contact patterns shape infection risk, offering insight into disease vulnerability and...

New paper! Synchronized breathing data and network models show that age and sex shape infection risk in bottlenose dolphins—critical insight for protecting marine wildlife from future outbreaks. Collab w/ @bansallab.bsky.social
rdcu.be/epHE8

Disruption of outdoor activities caused by wildfire smoke shapes circulation of respiratory pathogens Author summary The effects of climate change on human health are becoming more evident, but we often overlook one crucial factor: how extreme weather events influence our behaviors and, in turn, the s...

🔥 When smoke from climate-linked wildfires drives people indoors, respiratory infections rise. But if 10% of people wear masks, this effect could be offset.

New research in PLOS Climate by Arregui-García and colleagues 👇

journals.plos.org/climate/arti...

Joining colleagues in backing NIH staff who wrote the Bethesda Declaration. Time to defend the research infrastructure that has made US biomedicine a global leader from harmful political interference.

YouTube video by CNN Fareed’s Take: Trump is gutting what made American science great

important historical perspective on the value of federal funding of basic research at universities: "These are the building blocks of America's extraordinary strength, created over the last 100 years, and they are now being dismantled in 100 days" 🧪

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qk4...

Screenshot of NIMH BRAINS funding opportunity. The expiration date is now before the next application due date.

NIH moved up the expiration date for some funding opportunities, effectively *canceling* the next application date without removing it from the standard table. I can't even imagine how many people are still prepping these grants.

👀 List of impacted opportunities:
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Graduate School Mentorship Intiative (GSMI). Our mission is to help STEM students from underserved communities get accepted into graduate programs. Apply by 5/31/25 to be one of our 100 scholars. Program benefits: * Personal STEM mentor * Application Advice * Supportive community * Fee waivers * Mock interviews * Webinars and resources. For more info: cientificolatino.com/gsmi Cientifico Latino and Simons Foundation logos.

Applying to STEM grad programs? 🎓

Apply now for #CLGSMI! 🤩
➡️ cientificolatino.com/gsmi

The GSMI program supports applicants through 1-on-1 mentorship, fee waivers, professional development, and community building!

Applications accepted on a ROLLING basis until 5/31!

Action Report #6 Understanding the Law and Policies for Grant Terminations for the National Science Foundation March 25, 2025 This informational guide is primarily intended for National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded principal investigators if NSF requests a change in your work. The level of detail assumes the reader has basic familiarity with the NSF’s two main review criteria (intellectual merit and broader impacts), in addition to the NSF’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). However, this guide may also be relevant to research administrators, legal experts, or awards from other funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), given that the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) applies to all agencies, not just the NSF.

So what should NSF grantees, worried by terminated grants, do? That's something I've been thinking a lot about, given my own NSF grants.

First, I'd encourage to read this AAUP guide focused squarely on NSF grant termination policies: www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...

Internet archive logo

Raise your hand if you’ve ever used the Wayback Machine! ✋ The Internet Archive project (funded in part by NEH, #IMLS and #NSF) is an invaluable treasure trove of millions archived sites, texts, software, movies and more. All FREE.

And a vast majority of federal funding has been cut.

archive.org

A Federal Lab That Tracked Rising S.T.I.s Has Been Shuttered (Gift Article) The United States can no longer keep tabs on drug-resistant gonorrhea, among other infections, scientists said.

Drug-resistant gonorrhea, a form of the widespread sexually transmitted infection, is considered an urgent health threat worldwide. The US has just lost its ability to detect it.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/h...

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UPDATE: Here's where we're at w/ NIH grant terminations:

❌ 429 NIH grants terminated*
❌ 137 related to HIV/AIDS prevention
❌ 27 on cancer
❌ 16 on Alzheimer's

The full Airtable, thanks to wizardry of @noamross.net👇

*This is just what we know. There are certainly more we don't know about yet.

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations The move — along with the CDC’s explanation — is a sign that the nation’s top public health agency may be falling in line under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines.

If the public already knows, then surely there is no harm in posting the results. But they want to suppress them because RFK Jr., who is an anti-vaxxer and who has never conducted scientific research, thinks vaccines are bad. www.propublica.org/article/meas...

RFK Jr.’s lackey claims that the CDC doesn’t need to post the expert report on the measles outbreak.

She says this because it shows that people are more susceptible to measles if they live in under-vaccinated places.

She claims that the report “doesn’t say anything the public doesn’t know”.

I was just working with NCES data yesterday (to quantify how many 5-6 year olds are homeschooled and miss school vaccine requirements). NCES data aren't just important for education but critical for tracking and improving child nutrition and health too.

Congrats!

FDA cancels meeting to select flu strains for next season's shots The canceled meeting comes just days after a CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting was abruptly postponed.

86 children and 19000 adults have died from flu this season in the U.S. and that's with a vaccine. If we have no vaccines come September these numbers will increase.
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Characterizing US Spatial Connectivity and Implications for Geographical Disease Dynamics and Metapopulation Modeling: Longitudinal Observational Study Background: Human mobility is expected to be a critical factor in the geographic diffusion of infectious diseases, and this assumption led to the implementation of social distancing policies during th...

🚨 Excited to see our work published in @jmirpub.bsky.social🚨
Our study characterizes the geographical connectivity across spatiotemporal scales, highlighting the significant heterogeneities that influence disease dynamics. W/ L Alvarez-Zuzek @vcolizza.bsky.social @bansallab.bsky.social

An excellent effort to get the voices of scientists heard throughout the country
👇👇👇

See How Many Lives Vaccines Have Saved around the World Vaccines are the first step toward health equity in many parts of the world

Since RFK Jr just got confirmed today, I am taking this chance to share this wonderful @sciam.bsky.social piece on

The Staggering Success of Vaccines

www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...

Poster advertising a writing group for MIDAS Network trainees. It reads: "Procrastinating on your dissertation, grant proposal, or manuscript? Meet other PhD students, and postdocs for a writing hour. February 10 at 2pm ET" and contains a link and QR code to register.

There’s a lot going on right now & it can be hard to get work done! We’re offering a virtual space for @midas-network.bsky.social trainees to make some writing progress on Monday, Feb 10, at 2pm ET. Join us for an hour to write alongside supportive peers! Register: notredame.zoom.us/meeting/regi...