“Children today receive roughly 4-5 times as many shots as their 1986 counterparts, yet are exposed to 95% fewer antigens and only modest increases in aluminum. We’ve achieved far more protection with far less immune burden through decades of scientific precision.” www.statnews.com/2025/06/24/t...

Today makes a very good day to listen to people who actually practice public health, pediatrics, and those with expertise in infectious diseases, developmental pediatrics, and/or epidemiology.

this is really serious. if it continues, we’ll start to see states make do their own drug labels in some manner, possibly through collabs with other states, similar to what we are seeing with ACIP recs

There's a wrong way and a right way to report this

It was bad enough when politicians were proposing bleach to treat COVID-19. But to actually change the label on acetaminophen?!? “Kennedy said that the F.D.A. would issue a note to doctors about the risk of acetaminophen during pregnancy and begin the process to make a safety change on the label.”

The government knowingly putting false information in the label of a drug is crossing a Rubicon that should not be taken lightly

The answer may not surprise you! Because it’s yes

Maybe this be the first of many victories for free speech, perhaps propelled by everyday people voting with their wallets. Also, I wonder what Kimmel will have to say on Tuesday!

Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after our government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for free speech in our nation. More than 400 artists across our nation signed on to say: We refuse to be silenced by those in power.

Love this. The differential grooming behaviors definitely could impact effectiveness of this program. But, any drop in rabies in reservoir hosts is welcome. Oral rabies baits in the US have been very effective.

This week, it's @bachynski.bsky.social's turn to teach about rabies and I'm so intrigued by this article about how vampire bats’ mutual grooming habits help spread a rabies vaccine, but I also LOL'd at this sentence. www.science.org/content/arti...

Just let me vent for one second. I wake up this morning. @washingtonpost.com piece that leaves out major study on Tylenol and autism (which found no link) Then a @nytimes.com piece on the failures of NIH written by a guy with ties to right-wing theocrats and undisclosed. What the hell is going on?

“In interviews, half a dozen current and former employees of HUD’s fair housing office said that the Trump political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs, which involve investigating and prosecuting landlords, real estate agents, lenders and others who discriminate”

“Since its founding, Spotlight PA has directly saved taxpayers more than $20 million through its investigations. Its reporting has led to 36 local, state and federal policy changes, prompted 14 pieces of legislation, and resulted in eight legal victories — some setting statewide precedents”

“Federal regulators can fine hospitals hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars if too many of their patients get hospital-acquired infections. Some hospital leaders, realizing that if they don’t look for infections, they won’t find them, are discouraging testing, clinicians told STAT”

The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

The United States also already has a major physician shortage, which is bad now and projected to worsen to pretty extreme levels as Boomers continue to age. Making H1-B visas dependent on a $100K bribe is going to cause thousands of medical students & residents to stop coming here every single year.

📽️ WATCH: Epidemiologist Erin McCanlies spent much of the past 20 years studying how parents’ exposure to toxic chemicals affects the chances that they will have an autistic child. RFK Jr. cut her entire division — yet promises to identify the causes of autism by September: https://propub.li/4nhXQua

The bees are happy in my garden and so am I! Some are enjoying the asters and some are enjoying the goldenrod #bloomscrolling #gardensky

I’m very interested to see this too, and also: There is NO credible evidence that Tylenol causes autism. It’s appalling our federal government is apparently planning to say anything otherwise.

Reading papers is a basic skill (and dare I say duty?) of scientists, and I include medical doctors in that group. Keeping abreast of the literature is a foundational part of our professions. There aren’t good shortcuts. In any case, reading papers regularly is fun. arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/s...

If you want to understand this Trump administration's rampant corruption ... you have to go back to Eric Adams, and how they made the case against him disappear. I got a bunch of new details on this deep dive for @nytimes.com ... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

“The implications extend far beyond the five boroughs of NYC... Each turn of the gears moves us further from the ideal of public officials who observe the rule of law. The most wrenching turn of all was how the Trump administration ordered prosecutors to make the case against Mr. Adams disappear”

“When medicine now looks at our federal government, it is with increasing nihilism; the nihilism in turn risking inaction. But advocacy for our patients is never just federal but rather a rich palimpsest of local, departmental, hospital, city, county, and state layers.”

Nick Kristof went to talk to some of the moms losing their beloved children to Trump’s aid cuts. We are paying storage on already existing food rather than release it to starving kids. “I loved my child so much” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

Disney+ subscription cancelled

Eight states and New York City officially announced the Northeast Public Health Collaborative this week, while the West Coast Health Alliance released its first vaccination guidelines. My latest: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Our mistake when we wrote _Calling Bullshit_ was to assume that people would deliberately abuse the flexibility of quantitative metrics to mislead. We devoted inadequate attention to people making up complete and utter nonsense with no possible grounding in fact.

Tatiana Maslany posted an image on Instagram “with text overlaid that says “cancel your @disneyplus @hulu @espn subscriptions!” Marisa Tomei, who played Aunt May in Spider-Man movies distributed by Sony & Avengers movies from Disney, reposted a call to “unsubscribe and boycott” Disney platforms.”

“For now, Munsch says, his old stories have survived the disease and its otherwise indiscriminate ravages. They remain with him. He can remember them in their entirety and tell them through to completion… there they are — still preserved: “these little nuggets,” polished and perfect.”

“White House interference in the work of US attorneys was once considered such a taboo that former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who served under President Bush, resigned in scandal after the Justice Department fired nine US attorneys in 2006 for what were perceived to be political reasons”

A double monarch butterfly sighting today!

“In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration”

“If you look in the literature you can find papers that say that the earth is flat… they find one paper or two papers that make an outlandish claim based on bad data that hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of other papers refute, they don’t mention everything that refutes it”

Rest in peace, Dr. Rennie. Thank you for responding so generously, kindly, & wisely when I was an over-eager, ECR who cold emailed you a tome expressing frustration at some aspects of scientific publishing. Your open, collaborative, encouraging response & our exchanges left such a warm impression.

Worth watching this brief clip. -Note the reporter who asked about Memphis. -Note that every other reporter should have picked up the baton and kept asking that same question. Missed opportunity to do their professional, collegial, and civic duty. Please try it next time.

Important story! Gift link! The EPA's Office of Water has been told to stop publishing its research. They're studying PFAS and microplastics, how to best test drinking water for lead, and to test for naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater. By Amudalat Ajasa and @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

ACIP’s job is to make vaccine recommendations (and decide what’s covered by the Vaccines for Children plan). They don’t have direct authority over the vaccine information statements, they can’t order a prescription for something, and they can’t tell doctors what to tell patients.

I cannot overstate how remarkable it is that under GOP rule, US federal health regulations have been captured by fringe crackpots who espouse views that the vast majority of the US public—and nearly 100% of health professionals—reject. Gift link:

25% of Drs in US are foreign grads. Many are on an H1B visa. This will hit health systems hard especially rural hospitals and hospitals in underserved areas that sponsor these visas through waiver programs. The old cost was about 5000$ a year. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

“They’re politicizing medicine to the point that they’re putting doctors against the wall,” said Dr. Lizy Paniagua… where Dr. Paniagua practices, doctors have decided that anyone who comes in with a fever and a rash will be placed immediately under airborne precautions with concern for measles.”

“Even states that are going to try to do their best are going to face really difficult choices. And unless this is undone, it really is the end — and I’m not being dramatic, it’s a reality — of SNAP as we know it,” said Gina Plata-Nino, interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center”

“Last week Senator Bill Cassidy called for Mr. Kennedy to publicly encourage parents to have their children get the pertussis vaccine, which he has not yet done, despite the fact that in the past year alone at least four infants — two in Kentucky and two in Louisiana — died from pertussis.”

“Doug Rand, a former senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., questioned the legality of the policy. “Tying an entry ban to a fee, let alone a $100,000 fee, isn’t likely to survive five seconds in court,” he said.”

Assuming CDC formally adopts ACIP's recommendations, CVS tells me it will provide Covid vaccines without a prescription in all 50 states and won't require even self-attestation of a qualifying condition — "it’s up to the individual patient." No confirmation from Walgreens or Walmart yet.

The incompetence is staggering. To have 4 votes and not even legal experts can figure out what the recommendations are is wild (I’m not positive either- the meeting was profoundly incoherent)

“The government is free to encourage and persuade private entities to support its policies, the court said. But the First Amendment forbids the government from using coercion backed by threats of punishment to suppress speech. That line has been tested by ABC’s decision to suspend Mr. Kimmel”

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition. www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

Secretary Kennedy presents a clear and present danger to the American people and their families. This week, even more of our colleagues in the fields of medicine, public health and patient advocacy join us in calling for his resignation. Our full statement: https://bit.ly/42zItEV

Almost certainly illegal and likely to be struck down in court. Congress has only authorized the government to set fees to recover the cost of adjudicating the application. There is no statutory authority to impose fees designed to limit the use of a visa.