FL needs to get a prize for "Most Floridian." Their DPH site isn't keeping measles case counts current, & it doesn't mention vaccination as a "way to prevent" measles; only as "post-exposure protection." In FL, they'd rather open the barn & then go chase the horse. www.wusf.org/health-news-...

CMS Directilor Oz says there's "a simple solution to the raging measles outbreak in South Carolina." But he won't say "mandate," so here we are. Over at CIDRAP, Michael Osterholm "likened Dr. Oz’s comments to taking a garden hose to a forest fire." Yupparoo. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/w...

The two-post combo below is good messaging about why Mandates Matter, as I said once on your podcast, @coopspeak.bsky.social @mjnabuurs.bsky.social. Gotta have 'em.

Pretty funny, given that Cassidy's the guy responsible for the elevation of their false god in the first place. Oh, the irony. You might as well have saved us from all <gesticulating wildly> this, Bill. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

Below is a mini-essay (but shorter) about what it was like to grow up in an era of nuclear proliferation. & here's an amazing, absurd, very inappropriate gov. film short shown to elem. kids - made before my time, but we still "assumed the position" in my day. I looked... www.loc.gov/item/2022604...

🧵When I little, my school still ran "duck and cover" drills where they'd set off a "war siren" & we'd all dive under our tiny desks and put our hands over our bent heads, practicing how to "survive" a nuclear attack. Pretty silly, huh? Then, when I was in... 1/10 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

Loss of our measles elimination status hasn't been officially announced yet, but for all intents & purposes, it's endemic again. "DC Health was notified of multiple confirmed cases of measles whose carriers visited multiple locations in the District while contagious." www.npr.org/2026/02/08/n...

Sen. Adam Schiff says that "Trump intends to take action to overturn the result of the 2026 midterm elections should Republicans lose seats in Congress." Not surprising, I guess, but definitely a problem to deal with *before* November. abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics...

Our elections have brutal consequences when we vote wrong, and we have a civic & moral duty to know what these are. On the profound havoc ending USAID has wrecked, & what it says about us: 🔹️ Last year, humanitarian aid "reached 25 million fewer people than in... 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/o...

This morning's weather report: -3°F. Yikes.

ICE is a public health threat. The man had 8 skull fractures & 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages. ICE said he "purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall." A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back & both sides of his skull - inconsistent w/ that narrative. www.npr.org/2026/02/07/g...

Important thread for those with an interest in public health (that should be all of us).

When risks, costs & benefits are clear & big; the time pd. is circumscribed; & a group (like the US X-country ski team) makes a rule they require each other to uphold, folks can mitigate risk. Meanwhile, the Finnish women’s hockey team has noro after karaoke. fasterskier.com/2026/02/in-i...

Psych of public health 🧵: Ok, this is a depressing one, so have some restorative chocolate at the ready: I was just reading an interesting 🧵 on measles, antivax attitudes & our abysmal public health response. As always happens in such convos, people starting talking about old cemeteries, with 1/12

Each winter, the US governors convene in DC for "a working meeting at the White House and a black-tie dinner hosted by the president." This year, Trump excluded the Democratic governors from the meeting (& 2 weren't invited to the dinner). Look: he's made... 🧵1/3 share.google/lQ7DFsMRdLH8...

Gift 🎁 link, b/c this is a really great, straightforward op-ed by Scott Gottlieb, who was FDA Commissioner during Trump's first term. Gottlieb developed Hodgkin lymphoma from Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Key excerpts & commentary ⬇️, in case you can't read the whole thing. 🧵1/13 wapo.st/4a3ofYv

Pandemic leaders are running for office. It seems a risky play, given that covid policy decisions "remain notably polarizing, with polls finding one of the only areas of widespread agreement is that the pandemic 'did more to drive the country apart... 🧵1/3 www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The social sciences, too. Bigly.

The Trump regime is causing the death of millions of children: In Afganastan, USAID "once helped clear landscapes scarred by war and mines, diversify crops and keep millions from hunger." But now with its loss, four million children are at risk of dying from... 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/w...

File under "what will they think of next": There are claims that Olympic ski jumpers are "injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid in order to fly further." The World Anti-Doping Agency president says, "I promise you I’m going to look at it." Oh.... 1/2 www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

🎶 Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to go to red state schools.... www.clinicaladvisor.com/news/measles...

...and RFK *isn't even doing what he said he would with artificial colors* (which wasn't where his focus should be, anyway). Now, companies will "have flexibility to claim products contain ‘no artificial colors’ when the products do not contain petroleum-based... 1/2 www.fda.gov/news-events/...

This regime doesn't give a flying f** about public health: The CDC is rescinding $602 million in health funding to Dem states Colorado, Illinois, California & Minnesota. Among the health programs facing cuts: 🔹️$5.2M for a Chicago Children’s Hospital to... 1/2 thehill.com/policy/energ...

There's a horrible public health crisis in US detention centers that we have a moral responsibility to be aware of. Details: 🔹️In the past year, ~400 officers in the US Public Health Service (USPHS), inc. nurses, doctors & pharmacists, have done monthlong tours to... 🧵 www.npr.org/2026/02/05/n...

Update - good news, for now: A judge has ordered the feds to unfreeze billions in owed money on NY's $16B rail tunnel construction, the biggest transportation infrastructure project in the US, as the case proceeds. Get this, though: the NYT says, "If the Trump administration complies, the project

I saw this when it dropped and wasn't going to share it, because what can I even say (racist? evil? we already know that), but ICYMI, I guess you ought to know that this is where we are on our descent into hell. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Trump now says he won't release NY's $12B in frozen tunnel funds unless NY renames Penn Station & Dulles airport after him. This is extortion. How is it not impeachable? @repjoecourtney.bsky.social Congress appropriates funds, & then Trump illegally holds them 1/3 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/u...

There's evidence that a high-fat, almost no-carb diet can help ameliorate schizophrenia symptoms (I've read some of the research), but this isn't the popular keto diet. They're very rigid & restrictive protocols, usually tested in hospital settings, which folks have huge trouble maintaining at home.

Gift 🎁 link - buyer beware!! "TrumpRx is aimed at helping patients use their own money to buy medicines. But researchers who study drug pricing warned that many patients could pay too much if they use the site." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/h...

Some good news for women's safety: A jury ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who was raped by one of its Arizona drivers in 2023. Maybe now Uber will take this issue seriously, as precedent has been set. Kudos to the brave woman for holding them to account. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...

Disgusting: More than 60 large wind and solar farms under development on federal land...are being stymied. [And Trump] is also holding up hundreds of wind and solar projects on private land...Many projects are facing potentially fatal delays." #WeAreNotThem www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/c...

ICE is a public health hazard, Bobby Kennedy cares only for himself, and Elizabeth Warren is awesome. Sen. Warren "is demanding answers from Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the impact of federal immigration surges on children's health." abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics...

Fine with me. Hold the line, Dems. Do not cave this time. Homeland Security shutdown grows more likely as Republicans rebuff Democrats' ICE demands www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I'm not a fan of animal testing. But I wonder whether/to what degree the NIH decision to end some primate research is simply a way to frame biomedical research funding cuts in a way that appeals to an animal cruelty-adverse public. There doesn't seem to be any... 🧵1/4 share.google/ZanrRroARKmf...

ICYMI: this egregious b.s at Stanford & other elite schools matters - not just because academic dishonesty (cheating) disadvantages non-cheaters, but because it's incredibly harmful to the disabled community. When people like Elsa claim disabilities they don't have, that undermines the... 🧵1/4

Reposting, because engagement is still suppressed & this is important. One of the reasons people are unresponsive before & when Trump's (& RFK's) agencies do Bad Things is because they don't really know what federal agencies are supposed to do or why it matters. Data collection is a major... 🧵1/5

This is big & bad. Tennessee folks - call your state legislators & tell them to reject these eight bills! The bills "would turn state and local police officers, judges, teachers, social workers and others into an auxiliary extension of the federal immigration... 1/3 share.google/UksgLGsFRtcE...

NEW: NEW: HHS is working on an AI tool to analyze VAERS—a database of vaccine injury claims to which anyone can make submissions—and "generate hypotheses." This is from @emilymullin.bsky.social:

As a disabled Stanford alum working in academia, Elsa can fuck right off.

👀Wow! Look what our most privileged students are up to, unapologetically! They should be tossed out for lying about disability. "You’d be stupid not to game the system," writes Elsa Johnson, a 21-year-old Stanford jr. No, just an a*hole. I say this as an... 🧵 www.thetimes.com/us/news-toda...

The CDC has stopped doing its job. "Dozens of routinely updated CDC databases have gone quiet," & a "'shadow CDC’ is scrambling to fill gaps in public health data." Details: 🔹️Last week, an audit in the Annals of Internal Medicine "revealed that... 🧵 www.scientificamerican.com/article/stat...

I'm good with money, but the affirmation from this NYT quiz still felt surprisingly rewarding. (I'm also great at the periodic history quizzes, but the ones with sports questions...ughnh. Those blow my weekly news quiz score almost every damn week.)

Not sure what folks thought was going to happen, here? At least no one died; it's lucky inspectors caught it, given the national shortage under Trump. Neeleman had promoted her raw milk by saying it aided "her beauty and wellness routine." If I don't stop rolling my eyes, I'm gonna have a migraine.

The stupid is spreading, & infants will pay the price. (You can thank RFK, Jr.) For more than 60 years, newborns in the US have routinely gotten a Vitamin K injection to prevent life-threatening bleeding. Now parents are refusing the shot. 🔺️What to know: 🧵1/8 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/w...

42,680 Americans and 670,000 people globally die of breast cancer each year. Voting for the party that supports funding mainstream scientific research is everyone's responsibility. #WeAreNotThem www.medpagetoday.com/washington-w...

Maybe antipathy towards Elmo is why Republicans are less educated than Democrats. That Sesame Street is pretty useful stuff.

The House voted 217-214 to end the partial shutdown. 21 Republicans opposed the bill; 21 Democrats supported it. They now have until the end of next week to sort out new ICE restrictions; if they don't, funding for the Department of Homeland Security expires. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/u...

Political psych. 🧵: I'm not a big fan of Freud, but the thread below is on displaced aggression, which (unlike some Freudian concepts) is a real thing.

Oz is a bad man who doesn't mind at all if rural Americans don't have access to actual, human healthcare providers.

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