Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH

I am no longer posting here. Please join me on B sky . Same @ jennifernuzzo

📅 March 6 | 12 PM ET Join us for a webinar on the state of #Biodefense in the US. Moderated by @JenniferNuzzo w/ @BethCameron_DC, Harshini Mukundan, & Kelly Chafin. brown.zoom.us/webinar/regist…

NYC saw a significant reduction in water usage throughout the five boroughs during the Super Bowl’s #BadBunny halftime show yesterday, but in the 15 minutes right after the show ended, there was a spike in usage equivalent to 761,719 toilets flushing across town.#SBLX

More US kids died from influenza last season than in any other year *INCLUDING* the 2009 flu pandemic Now we're in the midst of another terrible flu season HHS responds by changing guidelines to suggest that kids may not need flu vaccines? Dangerous and irresponsible!

HHS's intention to drastically change US childhood vaccine recommendations is dangerous and irresponsible. You don't make changes to vaccine policy, especially major ones, behind closed doors, based on political ideology. You need transparent and rigorous review of credible data.

UPDATED: A Danish health official questioned why the U.S. would follow Denmark. “Personally, I do not think this makes sense scientifically,” said Anders Hviid, of Statens Serum Institute. “Public health is not one size fits all. It’s population specific and dynamic.”

@S_Digvj This speaks to my heart as someone who once spent time developing methods for concentrating viruses from environmental specimens!

CDC's wastewater surveillance detects pathogens 2 weeks after spillovers. Yet everyone in biosecurity is building faster, cheaper, more sensitive tests. They're solving the wrong problem. The bottleneck isn't detection. It's sampling & concentration (& incentive alignment). (1/n)

With the federal government wildly dysfunctional on health issues, What can we be thankful for? In my latest @GlobeOpinion, I lay out three things I'm grateful for: 1. Biomedical science continues to deliver on obesity, opioids, and gene therapy 2. Communicators like @dr_kkjetelina and @JenniferNuzzo are stepping up where CDC is failing 3. Community -based organizations are filling in when the government starts falling down Is any of this ideal? No But thinking about what should make us grateful is a way to better understand where our strenghts lie

Thoughtful perspective from @AdamFrank4: "I believe the first step out of the maze for young men begins by reasserting to them the virtue of hard work — an often grueling but indispensable part of finding the right answers in science." 🎁 link below.

Paracetamol is the first choice of painkiller if you're pregnant and is still considered the safest choice of pain relief during pregnancy. There is no evidence it causes autism in children. Kate Brintworth, our Chief Midwifery Officer, explains more 🎥

👀 Lots of questions here. VAERS is a system that generates hypotheses. It is designed to be a very low threshold system for everyone, patients and providers, to submit adverse events for additional review and to generate more study. 1) What is the methodology used? 2) Has this methodology and data been vetted through the standard ACIP process to assess data quality and bias? That’s what Gold Standard means! Is it reproducible? 3) Have these data been discussed in the COVID workgroup? 4) What is different about this analysis than others if a “new” signal is reported? Haven”t these data already been analyzed by CDC and FDA? 5) Will this be posted on the ACIP agenda website so the public can review or are we all going to see it in a tweet or op ed… that’s been the MO for FDA and HHS. Maybe another video? 6) Will CDC scientists see the data before they are presented or will this be using the HHS Thimersol and MMRV strategy from last meeting? Present in real time w no scientific process. This is their HHS “Gold standard.” Health by tweet. 7) Why did FDA approve the ‘25-‘26 vaccine if they have safety concerns? Seems like that’s a pretty important question! 8) How is this being integrated into the GRADE and Evidence to Recommendation framework to ensure an orderly and systematic review of the totality of these data are presented? 9) What about the other safety systems that the FDA uses? CMS-BEST and VSD; systems designed to answer questions not to generate them. 10) MAIN QUESTION: Do any of these questions matter since it’s very likely the decision on the recommendation has already been made in the office of the Secretary and most of the members have wanted to limit access to COVID vaccines for years. Fin.

To be clear none of the people @SecKennedy mentioned work in the National Center for Immunizaton and Respiratory Diseases at CDC. He has not been briefed by experts. Where is he getting his information on your health? Thanks @SenatorLujan for that important question. #publichealth

Some food for thought. Claim #1: "America is home to 4.2% of the world's population but suffered 19% of COVID deaths. COMMENT: America has surveillance systems that detected these deaths, other parts of the world do not, so although lots of factors play in here, reporting bias is likely one of the principal drivers of this. Claim #2: COVID vaccines do not have high uptake so we should not have policies that allow access. COMMENT: Access shouldn't be dictated by popularity of an intervention. That's not how public health and medicine works. Claim #3: "Fewer than 1 in 10 employees are epidemiologists at CDC" COMMENT: This is AI searching for job series in the data system. I technically wouldn't be called an api in that search, and I am. Also epi is a part of a bigger matrix of implementers, clinicians and support staff. A CDC of 100% Epidemiologists is a UNIVERSITY not a operational health agency. Claim #4: CDC emphasized health equity. COMMENT: Yup. Public health is there to make sure people with the least ability to access services get them. That's health equity. Claim #5: The measles outbreak in Texas ended quickly. "Therapeutics were surged." The response not grounded in equity outcomes. COMMENT: There are no accepted therapeutics for measles. Vitamin A is supportive therapy with data in mainly malnourished children. The children affected by measles in TX were not malnourished. ALSO--the outbreak is over in Texas, but not over in the rest of the world. Policies that decrease coverage mean TX can happen again and more frequently. The outbreak in TX lasted months. Most outbreaks in well vaccinated areas don't last months. EQUITY considerations are a key to all outbreak responses--spoken like someone who has NEVER been involved in an outbreak response. Claim #6: CDC's Biothreat Radar will protect us COMMENT: This is an item in the President's 2026 budget . It doesn't exist yet. It hasn't been funded. Components do and pre-dated Sec Kennedy. That's like saying the alarm system we haven't installed yet will protect us. In the meantime countries have stopped sending the US important specimens to protect us because of the lack of demonstrated leadership to advance a strategy for a post -WHO withdrawal state. 75% reduction in flu specimens, no polio specimens since February, and 60+% reduction in COVID sequences. Less a Radar, more flying BLIND with faulty instruments. Claim #7: We need to build infrastructure COMMENT; States are laying off people because of cuts. Can't build infrastructure that you are tearing down. 2000 staff let go. Chronic disease and injury programs decimated.... Claim #8: We need to invest in workforce COMMENT: Agree with these words, but that not the action we are seeing. Workforce is being cut. Experts are being vilified. No financial or emotional investment in this is demonstrable in HHS actions. Claim # 9 We need to empower states COMMENT: States have had to lay people off and are growingly not getting what they need from CDC given the evolution of guidance into ideology. Ask some states what they think. States that can least afford not to be supported are going to be the ones most impacted. Claim #10: There have been steps to reduce COI in ACIP COMMENT: You betahca! That started before Sec Kennedy took over. Several scientists outside CDC have analyzed this data and have shown a decrease over decades. jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…

"Failing to build on mRNA research now makes the United States more vulnerable to infectious diseases like influenza or COVID, to future pandemics, to biological attacks, and to other health threats," writes @JenniferNuzzo. ⬇️ thebulletin.org/2025/09/rfk-jr…

9⃣CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. They served under BOTH Democratic & Republican Presidents. 🚨🚨🚨This is not business as usual. 🚨🚨🚨 nytimes.com/2025/09/01/opi… @DrRichBesser @DrTomFrieden @RWalensky @DrMandyCohen

"There is no American health without a strong, vibrant and evidence-based U.S. CDC." @JenniferNuzzo on who families can turn to for reliable medical info after the firing of the CDC head and resignation of several officials

New from Dr. Jess Steier, @unbiasedscipod, unpacks in an op-ed w/ @nytimes the myths spread by anti-vaccine groups and points to the the importance of evidence-based research on autism. Read here 👇 nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Walking away from mRNA is not just bad science, it's a national security risk. Pandemics and bioterror threats are rising. This is the tool that can protect America before disaster strikes. Ignoring it leaves us exposed. Essay in @nytopinion: nytimes.com/2025/08/18/opi…

Having RFK Jr. as HHS secretary is one of the ~2-3 worst things about Trump 2.0 so far, great job by Susan Collins et. al. noahpinion.blog/p/did-rfk-just…

@SecKennedy says he "reviewed the science" before terminating 22 mRNA vaccine projects worth $500M. The "data" cited? 181 pages of cherry-picked lab studies ignoring all the high-quality evidence. The US government is citing this as its scientific basis, which is outrageous:🧵