Health

Accessibility Is Taking a Hit Across the Sciences

Published

1 year ago

February 22, 2025

Accessibility Is Taking a Hit Across the Sciences

Tyler Nelson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, studies the neurobiology of pain, a choice partly motivated by his own frustrations with a neuromuscular disability. Last October, he applied for a grant at the National Institutes of Health that, if awarded, would support his dream of someday running his own lab.

But, earlier in February, he learned that his application, which took six months to pull together, was about to be thrown out.

The reason: Dr. Nelson had applied for a version of the award that supports researchers who are historically underrepresented in science, including people with disabilities. That funding avenue now violates President Trump’s executive order banning federal agencies from activities related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or D.E.I.A.

Dr. Nelson was tipped off by an N.I.H. affiliate, but he has received no official notice about the situation. “I’ve tried to call probably 150 times,” he said. Unofficially, he learned that the agency was planning to pull his submission altogether rather than move it to the general award pool for consideration. This has happened with at least one other type of award offered by the agency, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Thanks to the tip, Dr. Nelson was able to withdraw his application and resubmit it to the general award pool before its deadline — but he is unsure if others were so lucky.

“What this does is discriminate against people who are underrepresented,” said an N.I.H. reviewer who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. The reviewer added that the evaluation criteria for the general and diversity award pools were the same, with no priority given to either pool. “I can’t stress enough,” the reviewer said, that an undeserving grant “is not going to get funded, whether it’s ‘diversity’ or not.”

According to Eve Hill, a civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C., this may violate certain legal protections for people with disabilities, although there is no precedent in court.

“They’ve provided this category to overcome past discrimination,” she said. “By not then considering them in the general award, they are exacerbating that discrimination.”

The predicament is one of many ways that accessibility across the sciences is taking a hit from the D.E.I.A. shutdown. Federal agencies, once proponents for increasing opportunities for scientists with disabilities, are now ceasing programs geared toward that goal. Left uncertain is how funding for disability research — from designing accessible health services to building better prosthetics — will be affected by the order.

People with disabilities make up more than a quarter of the nation’s population and are considered to be the world’s largest minority. But experts say that, until recently, disability has largely been neglected in discussions about marginalized groups.

“Accessibility was always seen as an afterthought,” said Kim Knackstedt, a disability policy consultant in Washington, D.C. “Whether intentional or not, disability has been excluded from a lot of D.E.I. efforts.”

That extends to the sciences. The National Science Foundation reported that, in 2021, people with disabilities made up only 3 percent of the STEM work force. Only in 2023 did the N.I.H. designate people with disabilities as a community that experienced health disparities.

As the first director of disability policy in the Biden administration, Dr. Knackstedt led a push for accessibility to be at the forefront of diversity, equity and inclusion policy. One outcome of this effort was an executive order issued by President Biden that explicitly named accessibility as an area to strengthen in the federal work force.

“That was a win for many of us,” said Bonnielin Swenor, an epidemiologist who founded the Disability Health Research Center at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Swenor, who experienced barriers pursuing a research career because of a visual impairment, added that it was disheartening “to have that progress not just stopped, but rolled back.”

Federal science agencies scrambled to comply with the reversal, leaving scientists and disability advocates apprehensive about the future of accessibility research. Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation began flagging grants that contained buzzwords commonly associated with D.E.I.A., including “disability” and “barrier.”

An N.S.F. program director, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation, said that there were “quite a few awards flagged for the word ‘disability,’” including projects to make driving and computing more accessible. The program director added that staff members were unsure if these research activities were banned by the executive order.

A spokesman for the N.S.F. did not answer questions sent by The New York Times regarding the eligibility of such awards.

Robert Gregg, an engineer at the University of Michigan who designs wearable robots for people with mobility impairments, said he had received notification from the N.S.F. to halt D.E.I.A. activities. But he interpreted that to mean supplemental programs aimed at increasing participation of underrepresented groups in science.

“Fundamental research in technology, like robotics and A.I. — my understanding is that that is still perfectly valid and can continue,” he said. But Dr. Gregg also runs clinical trials funded by the N.I.H., and he recently learned that the renewal process for this funding had effectively been frozen again.

Scientists with disabilities are also worried about what the clampdown on accessibility will mean for both their own careers and those of the next generation.

“Disabled people were barely being included,” said Alyssa Paparella, a graduate student at the Baylor College of Medicine who founded an online movement called #DisabledInSTEM. “Now there’s a huge fear of what’s going to be the future of all of us.”

A notice on the N.I.H. website encouraging participation of people with disabilities in the research enterprise has been removed, as has an N.S.F. webpage that listed funding opportunities for scientists with disabilities. Last month, the N.S.F. also indefinitely postponed an engineering workshop to better include people with autism and other neurocognitive differences in the work force.

In the geosciences, many degree programs require students to complete weekslong outdoor field camps that can be difficult to navigate with certain disabilities. This led Anita Marshall, a lecturer at the University of Florida, to found GeoSPACE, an N.S.F.-funded camp that incorporates modern technology and can be completed virtually.

She did not know if GeoSPACE would be able to continue. “This has really knocked me off my feet,” said Dr. Marshall, who described the project as her pride and joy. “I’m not sure what’s next.”

Doubts have sprung up for Dr. Nelson, too. Although he managed to salvage his application for N.I.H. funding, the change has pushed back any clarity about his future in research by at least five months.

“It’s a really dismal time in science for trainees,” he said. “I look at the last 15 years, like, ‘Why did I work this underpaid, high-stress job?’ Do I want to do this forever?”

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Health

Wegovy Pill Side Effects To Watch for and How It Compares to Injections

Published

4 hours ago

March 24, 2026

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Wegovy Pill Side Effects To Watch for and How It Compares to Injections

Wegovy Pill Side Effects To Watch for and How To Minimize Them

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Parkinson’s risk increases with exposure to common chemical, study suggests

Published

5 hours ago

March 24, 2026

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Parkinson’s risk increases with exposure to common chemical, study suggests

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A pesticide commonly used in America’s food supply has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, new research suggests.

A UCLA study published in the journal Springer Nature Link suggests that exposure to chlorpyrifos could increase the risk of the neurological disease.

The chemical is often used on agricultural products like soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli, cauliflower and other row crops, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

EARLY PARKINSON’S COULD BE DETECTED DECADES BEFORE SYMPTOMS WITH SIMPLE BLOOD TEST

The study compared 829 people with Parkinson’s to 824 people without the disease over a 45-year period, focusing on their proximity to chlorpyrifos.

The researchers also conducted mouse experiments, where mice inhaled the pesticide as humans would for 11 weeks. Experiments were also carried out on zebrafish to study cell-level brain damage.

Chlorpyrifos is often used on agricultural products like soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli, cauliflower and other row crops, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (iStock)

In humans, the study revealed that long-term exposure to chlorpyrifos led to more than a 2.5 times higher risk of Parkinson’s.

In mice, exposure to the pesticide caused movement problems similar to Parkinson’s symptoms, loss of dopamine-producing neurons, increased brain inflammation and build-up of harmful proteins.

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Zebrafish suffered brain cell death and damage linked to failure in the cell’s “cleanup system,” according to the study press release.

Dr. Jeff Bronstein, director of the Movement Disorders Program at UCLA and professor of neurology and molecular toxicology, noted that previous human studies also suggested an association between chlorpyrifos exposure and Parkinson’s.

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“[We were] surprised that the mechanism of toxicity was apparent in both mice and zebrafish,” he said. “We rarely find such consistent results in different animal models.”

A researcher commented that the consistency in results between human and animal subjects is “rare.” (iStock)

The researcher emphasized that the association between pesticide exposure and Parkinson’s was “very strong,” and the longer someone was exposed, the higher the risk became.

“People should avoid exposure to CPF and similar pesticides (organophosphates) by not using them in their home, eating organics, and washing fruits and vegetables before eating them,” Bronstein advised.

Study limitations

The study did have some limitations, the researchers acknowledged, primarily that it was observational, meaning it shows an association but cannot prove causation.

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It also estimated exposure based on participants’ locations, and did not measure diet, indoor exposure or personal lifestyle behaviors. Additionally, the results of the animal models can’t be translated directly to humans.

There was also the possibility that chlorpyrifos was used along with other chemicals, which means it could be difficult to measure its specific impact, the study noted.

Chlorpyrifos is used to control different kinds of pests, like termites, mosquitoes and roundworms, among crops. (iStock)

Industry reaction

Chlorpyrifos is used to control different kinds of pests, like termites, mosquitoes and roundworms, among crops, according to the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) at Oregon State University.

People can be exposed to the pesticide by breathing it in or by consuming contaminated food or water.

In 2021, the EPA banned the use of chlorpyrifos on food crops, but a federal appeals court overturned that decision in 2023, allowing its use to resume on some crops while regulators revisit the rule.

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In January 2026, the EPA issued an update outlining plans to move forward with a rule that would ban most uses of chlorpyrifos.

“Chlorpyrifos is subject to registration review, a process required under FIFRA (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) in which registered pesticides are comprehensively evaluated every 15 years against current safety standards and the latest scientific evidence,” the EPA said in a statement sent to Fox News Digital.

“EPA is currently developing a revised human health risk assessment for chlorpyrifos as part of that review, and will consider this study alongside any other relevant submissions,” the agency said in a statement sent to Fox News Digital. (Getty)

“EPA is currently developing a revised human health risk assessment for chlorpyrifos as part of that review, and will consider this study alongside any other relevant submissions. Where the science calls for stronger protections or tolerance revocations, EPA will act without hesitation and without delay.”

Fox News Digital reached out to several manufacturers of the chemical for comment.

“People should avoid exposure to CPF and similar pesticides.”

Corteva, an Indiana agrichemical company formed in 2019 through the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont, announced in 2020 that it would end production of chlorpyrifos within the year, citing declining sales.

In April 2022, the German chemical company BASF requested the cancellation of its pesticide registrations for products containing chlorpyrifos.

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“BASF does not manufacture chlorpyrifos and does not have any pesticide registrations issued by the U.S. EPA for chlorpyrifos-containing products,” the company told Fox News Digital.

No products from Corteva or BASF were included in the study linking chlorpyrifos to Parkinson’s disease.

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle reporter for Fox News Digital.

Health

‘Call a Boomer’ payphones help cure loneliness, spark friendships across generations

Published

17 hours ago

March 23, 2026

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‘Call a Boomer’ payphones help cure loneliness, spark friendships across generations

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Along a bustling sidewalk in Boston, a bright yellow payphone invites folks to “call a Boomer.”

Almost 3,000 miles away in Reno, Nevada, a nearly identical phone prompts residents of Sierra Manor – an apartment complex for seniors – to “Call a Zoomer.” The goal is simple: to get strangers to talk to each other.

The project, often referred to as simply “Call a Boomer,” is the latest initiative from Matter Neuroscience, a New York-based company dedicated to mapping the “biomarkers of happiness.”

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By connecting “two of the loneliest demographics” (older adults and younger adults), the project aims to prove that on a molecular level, “humans need one another in order to be happy,” according to Calla Kessler, a social strategist at Matter Neuroscience.

Along a bustling sidewalk in Boston, a bright yellow payphone invites folks to “Call a Boomer.” (Matter Neuroscience)

“Younger adults and older adults tend to experience the highest levels of loneliness of any age group,” the company wrote on its website. “So the goal of this project is to inspire generational connection through meaningful conversations, despite differences in age, lifestyle or politics.”

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The hope, according to Kessler, is that the calls will shift the brain’s focus from stress to bonding.

“Our neuroscience angle is cannabinoids over cortisol,” Kessler told Fox News Digital. “Cannabinoids are the feel-good neurotransmitter in our brain that creates that warm feeling with a friendship — and when you activate cannabinoids, you’re counteracting the negative effects of cortisol, which is our primary stress hormone.”

“Younger adults and older adults tend to experience the highest levels of loneliness of any age group,” the company noted. (Matter Neuroscience)

This isn’t Matter’s first round of payphones. Its initial experiment connected one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. (San Francisco) with one of the most conservative (Abilene, Texas).

“We basically just wanted people to find common ground and encourage people to think beyond labels,” Kessler said.

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She noted that the negative results were “almost negligible,” with most participants enjoying their time speaking to different people.

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Now, the focus has shifted from political labels to generational divides.

The negative results have beem “almost negligible,” with most participants enjoying their time speaking to different people. (Matter Neuroscience)

As the “Call a Boomer” experiment continues, the team is busy collecting audio files of these intergenerational chats to prove that simple connections with other humans can help improve mental health.

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“Our research is essentially trying to find a non-pharmaceutical cure to depression,” Kessler added.

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Looking ahead, she said, “we’ll definitely be doing fun things that we hope get people’s attention and inspire them to learn a little more about themselves.”

Khloe Quill is a lifestyle production assistant with Fox News Digital. She and the lifestyle team cover a range of story topics including food and drink, travel, and health.