Unfortunately, @apoorvanyt.bsky.social wrote about this last week, too: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/h...

The destruction of US pandemic preparedness, infectious disease research, our withdrawal from WHO, is a five-alarm fire. Want something to be worried about? Should we be faced with another pandemic, we are now more vulnerable than ever. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

There was a good meeting on test negative designs yesterday - recording should be available soon

You could write the same sentence about Daszak and Shi. Literally wrote a paper recommending better PPE in wet markets that was published right when it theoretically could've made a difference had everyone read it.

“HHS is punishing a world-class scientist who was working to protect people against pandemics, and if he had been listened to more thoroughly, we might have been better prepared for SARS-CoV-2” This might be the most insane thing yet. www.science.org/content/arti...

Based on how it differs from its preprint, I suspect that transparency about the peer review history of this article at other journals it was submitted to would reveal that the authors became aware of the flaws. But Bhattacharya published it, anyway.

This article on masks in the journal Bhattacharya founded is a great example, combining lack of proper control and fundamentally flawed analysis of the data -- publichealth.realclearjournals.org/research-art...

COVID infected 17% of the Diamond Princess in a month. Hantavirus: 5% of the Hondius in five weeks. The biology explains why this outbreak won't scale. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

The test-negative design has real statistical limitations. It also recovers the right answer when checked against randomized trials. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Such a great, highly readable piece on test negative designs from @jdrakephd.bsky.social. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

no surprise that an institution that has always been highly solicitous of privilege and power would look suspiciously on those amendments and that project

the fact of the matter is those amendments write a principle of anti subordination into the constitution and empower congress to do whatever is necessary and proper to uproot subordination and its effects.

i think it is a testament to the inherent radicalism of the reconstruction amendments that the supreme court’s main project with regards to them has been to limit and weaken their impact on american society.

Imagine if they had written: “As health secretary, Mr. Kennedy has demonstrated increasingly deranged and conspiratorial views about vaccines, completely disconnected from scientific findings. He also has a predilection for swimming in raw sewage, and snorting cocaine off toilet seats.”

Zena was a legend. So honored I get to give this talk in her memory next week at Columbia. Come join us.

We do not need a Surgeon General who hawks supplements on the internet, spreads lies about vaccines and blames you for any health problems you may have as your personal responsibility. Tell your Senators #NOonSapier. Another bad choice for America. actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Great Jay. Looks both spiteful and stupid at the current moment. Hantavirus doesn't pose an imminent threat to the US, but there will be another pandemic and this is Bhattacharya's strategy.

“Superpower Suicide” is a concept to help understand the approach of the Trump regime to the rest of the world. We are fighting a war for no reason we can name, losing it, and covering our defeat with genocidal and apocalyptic propaganda. snyder.substack.com/p/superpower...

One way to think about this is that these people, including the secretary of defense, oppose the existence of the American republic. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The U.S. has spent billions to lose a war that enriches its oligarchs, impoverishes the citizenry, sabotages its alliances, and strengthens its enemies. Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power. snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpo...

What has #RFKJr done for moms? Though he has a following among some moms, the truth is he's been bad for mothers and children. The latest from @drjudystone.bsky.social. www.forbes.com/sites/judyst...

Are you worried about hantavirus? Well research on this virus and other emerging infections is disappearing in real time, right now. My Yale colleague just lost $5 million, which the National Science Foundation (NSF) has refused to release to his group. It is so twisted and sick.

My colleague @stephseifertphd.bsky.social just published new groundbreaking work on hantaviruses in the United States as part of our shut down @viralemergence.org project. Want to prevent hantavirus outbreaks here? Fund her work. wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/...

The @nationalacademies.org has become an embarrassment, previewing their "State of the Science" address on 6/2 like this: "Since McNutt delivered her 2025 address, federal funding for science has held steady, but significant cuts are still being considered." 1/ www.thenation.com/article/soci...

I attended last year's event in person to gauge the mood and approach. I will attend again this year, but with different objectives in mind. And, this "State of the Science" deserves a rebuttal. More soon. /🧵

A year ago, it was already apparent that 'good faith' negotiations were bound for failure. The reason: "we" don't all want the same thing. Publicly funded science has opponents, but it appears that NASEM would rather find ways to collaborate with opponents of science than remain independent.

Disregarding facts and evidence is not just a political move, it comes with real reputational harm that will linger beyond this year. Why should scientists turn to NASEM for advice and counsel if we cannot trust it to look at the state of science honestly in this moment?

Yes, new leaders are coming, but this declaration indicates a willful disregard for facts and a sign that NASEM is more interested in signaling that it will play ball rather than address cuts to funding, loss of programs and people, and the dismantling of independence in agencies.

American science deserves better... not just from the federal government but from the leaders of the organization that ostensibly represents the best of the best in science, engineering and medicine. But, that reputation depends not just on past achievements but what they do in the moment.

Following upon the firing of all of ACIP jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Explain all of this to the members of the recently fired National Science Board www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Explain the steady funding and cuts being considered to the more than 25,000 experts no longer working in federal agencies to oversee, perform, and enable R&D: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Explain the steady funding and cuts being considered to anyone who has applied for a NIH R01 grant. Top-scored grants with 10% percentile used to be nearly certain to be funded. Now? A coin flip. joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/moving-the...

Announcement for @nationalacademies.org "State of the Science" address on 6/2 declares: "Since McNutt delivered her 2025 address, federal funding for science has held steady, but significant cuts are still being considered." Really? On what planet is funding steady & cuts being *considered*? a 🧵

The @nationalacademies.org have lost the plot. As @joshuasweitz.bsky.social explains science is under siege and we are sliding towards a profound degradation of research and discovery capabilities in the US. What is wrong with these people. #VichyScientists, each and every one of them. 1/

RFK Jr. is a eugenicist. Plain and simple. He's ignorant of science and medicine and lives in a conspiracy-addled world of his own mind. He's is destroying American public health and biomedicine.

The CDC was certainly one of the best respected public health agencies in the world. Seeing what RFK Jr has done to destroy it—& seeing how the current interim CDC director Jay Bhattacharya is now censoring CDC research if it shows vaccines work—it’s all so incredibly depressing & damaging

My new take for @msnowreports.bsky.social is similar to @marisakabas.bsky.social’s. Antidepressants help me to thrive & build a career in health policy. And RFK Jr is acting like docs/pts aren’t discussing tradeoffs of meds. (Projection amid MAHA docs selling magic beans?) www.ms.now/opinion/rfk-...

excellent discussion of RFKjr’s antiscientific nonsense about antidepressants from @mirandayaver.bsky.social

weird that this isn’t doing numbers

it is pretty great that the first thing this website did after the news broke was drive off one of the like three people on here who actually works on outbreaks and hantavirus

i honestly haven’t even begun to wrap my head around that issue with everything else going on lol

at some point we need to explore how to address this fault line before we end up drawing the short straw one of these days, and it becomes a much bigger problem. trusted messenger model isn’t going away but the status quo is a recurring problem

the incentives underlying the public health influencer economy conflict with the fact that good outbreak communication often requires pretty specialized expertise and professional experience, which are difficult for most people (including folks in our field) to suss out.

SPREAD THE WORD. Can we get to 1000 letters? Nicole Saphier lies about vaccines, hawks supplements on the internet and tells you that your health is your "personal responsibility" (get sick: it's your fault). Write to your senators now and oppose this nomination. actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

More confirmation that the hantavirus species sequenced from the cruise ship MV Hondius is indeed Andes virus. Still waiting for actual sequence though… 🧪 www.cnbcafrica.com/2026/two-cas...

✔️ Letters sent and will give their offices a call later this morning too.

There's no competent opposition party in the US that can narrate what's happening coherently for a general public.

Great reporting by @by-cjewett.bsky.social.