This alone is enough to disqualify Vinay Prasad from being taken seriously ever again. He’s irrelevant.

What would be a clue that you’ve gone to the dark side of your profession? Mine would be if I started peddling dietary supplements.

Science is a container ship carrying 200,000 tons of observations. The weight comes from years of hard work mining and refining these observations. The ship can’t turn on a dime, so scientific knowledge often changes slowly. And I think the public’s expectations don’t always match this truth.

Here’s a biblical quote for RFK Jr.’s hearings. “At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul”

For @defendpublichealth.bsky.social’s Whopper of the Week, the team took on RFK Jr.’s peptide obsession. The man is a menace.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information has published a report showing that in 2024, hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses were more than twice as high as they were before the pandemic. They specifically looked at vaccine-preventable disease, so vaccine refusal is part of it.

My latest op-ed in @statnews.com is out today. I wrote it in response to the LCME removing explicit language requiring medical schools to teach about structural barriers that shape patients’ health. This isn’t ideology. It’s clinically competent care. www.statnews.com/2026/04/15/l...

Important thread from an NIH scientist who has been placed on leave for daring to speak up about the myriad unfolding disasters caused by RFK Jr.

Cozy show recommendation: Designing the Hebrides. As the title very strongly suggests, it’s an interior design show set in the Scottish Hebrides. The designer is a guy named Banjo Beale, and he is a real life Ted Lasso. And now I want to live on the Isle of Mull with the other 3000 residents.

I appreciate the term Reconstruction II and this time we’d best make sure to do it right.

Has a healthcare provider ever held onto a “credit” for overpayment without telling you? My dog chewed up my night guard (my fault for losing track of it). I called to see if could get a replacement and they said sure and exciting news you have a $350 credit! That’s a lot of money.

Great news, everybody! Russ Vought says DHS is “disintegrating”. How can we help?

"You're killing children to save children"? -Lois Frankel (D, Florida), asking RFK Jr. about funding cuts.

RFK Jr. presided over firing thousands of HHS employees. Now, HHS is hiring 12,000 new people. He claims that the fired employees “failed” at their jobs and didn’t work on chronic disease. He is a liar. If I’d been fired by those DOGE punks and slandered by RFK Jr… I can’t even express it.

Trump has announced his nominee for CDC Director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, who seems like a person who is actually qualified for the job. RFK Jr.’s surrogate and BFF Aaron Siri, an anti-vax lawyer who profits from casting doubt on vaccines, absolutely hates the idea, so that’s an excellent sign.

All right, taking a break from the hearing for a meeting. And also possibly for my sanity.

RFK Jr. just decried the funding spent on the genetic causes of autism, which he asserts is equivalent to studying the genetic causes of lung cancer but not studying smoking. This is a false equivalence, highlighting by RFK Jr. putting the phrase "genetic causes" in air quotes.

RFK Jr. is being called out for his shifting position on glyphosate He is asked if he still believes that glyphosate causes cancer. RFK Jr. says yes. It is then pointed out that it's strange that RFK Jr. both thinks glyphosate causes cancer and also supports Trump ordering more production of it.

RFK Jr. was just asked about the morale at CDC, which has been reported to be "very low". He responds that "I can't give you an honest assessment of morale, I can only give you by what I've been told by Jay [Bhattacharya], which is that morale is much better than a year ago".

RFK Jr. is claiming that Casey Means hasn't been confirmed because, he claims, the only thing that is preventing her confirmation is "lack of integrity, lack of courage, and the tribalism that is polarizing and destroying our country". But Republicans have the numbers to confirm her.

Rep. DeLauro (D, CT) is holding RFK Jr.'s feet to the fire about Raw Farm's refusal to comply with a recall of their raw milk products that caused an E.coli outbreak. She asked him why he won't stop promoting raw milk. He refuses to answer.

“You’ve been in this position for 14 months, if you’re still claiming today that you have not seen evidence that supports vaccines, this is a remarkable failure of leadership and …of refusal to avail yourself of information that is…relevant to your role in government”. Rep. DeLauro to RFK Jr.

The amazing @drjudystone.bsky.social has an important article out on a new drug that prevents HIV transmission in which she asks why access is currently restricted.

He’s absolutely right.

RFK Jr. hearing is in recess, so I wanted to take a minute to address his stated belief that Black Americans died of COVID19 at higher rates than others because, he said: 1. Family members couldn’t visit them in the hospital, so 2. Hospitals had no incentive to care for these patients properly

“I think blacks were…most likely to die because…depriving them of access to a family member meant that there was a reduced incentive within the hospital to provide them with the kind of good care that they needed”. RFK Jr. today on why Black Americans had the highest pandemic death rate.

I am pretty sure that RFK Jr. just said that he believes that “Blacks” died at a comparatively higher rate during the pandemic because relatives weren’t allowed to visit them in the hospitals and hospitals could get away with not providing the care they needed.

RFK Jr. just claimed with a straight face that Trump and Vought “didn’t want to cut SNAP”.

Just want to be clear that when RFK Jr. said in the hearing today that he is “overhauling” the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, it is because this administration wants to reduce the number of services that health insurance companies are required to cover.

Again, if you’re going to quote post me and turn off replies, I’m detaching the quote, every time. No exceptions.

If Arizona needs a new Senator, I’m available. My resume: -I’m not in the files -I’ve never sexually harassed or assaulted anyone -I’ve never taken a dime from any dark money group -I keep my speeches brief -I genuinely care about the people of AZ -I will make it my job to impeach RFK Jr.

😂 Botanists are hilarious.

I don’t know fam I think Trump might be wrong about Diet Coke killing grass and therefore also preventing cancer. And if the above sentence doesn’t make sense to you, it may be best to shrug your shoulders and walk away. You’re better off not knowing.

😂

Trump thinks Diet Coke may prevent cancer because “it kills grass so it must kill cancer cells in the body”. Scientific review: This is a horseshit. It’s also in line with Trump’s understanding of biology, which is a 0.0 on the Got It scale. Anecdote: I drink a lot a Diet Coke. I also had cancer.

Kearny, AZ may run out of water by July 15th. The town council issued an emergency decree in January but water use still went up. The new order bans “Any…use of water not related to sanitation or use to support life”. Maybe we should pay attention to climate change after all?

This is all that is required in Idaho to exempt your child from vaccines and thereby put your entire community at risk because you gladly drank from the firehose of misinformation.

Idaho has the worst vaccination coverage in the United States due to their pathetic vaccine exemption policy, and someone with measles just rolled through the Boise airport. I won’t ask what could possibly go wrong because we already know. Another great piece by @bethmariem.bsky.social

The USDA is going to use Elon Musk’s Grok for a myriad of functions, including “scientific research”. I can’t see any potential drawbacks to using a bigot-coded AI that is fed and watered by scientific misinformation at the joint that oversees food safety. /s

Don’t worry little sign, I’m watching for ICE everywhere.

This makes me SO angry! We developed a vaccine that effectively prevents a deadly CANCER! And the argument is "cancer is good because it keeps people from having sex". It's evil, it's ridiculous, and yet people are saying it out loud and not being immediately shouted down.

HPV vaccines have NOTHING to do with “parental values”, as RFK Jr.’s surrogate claims. You could have sex with a single partner—your spouse—and become infected. If your parental values include a desire for your child to die from a vaccine preventable disease, your values need an adjustment.

While Bhattacharya has control of the CDC, RFK Jr.’s surrogate is petitioning him to remove CDC recommendations for HPV vaccines. He claims, without evidence, that there are “significant risks” with HPV vaccines and that “parental values” should be considered b/c HPV is sexually transmitted.

RFK Jr. has been told to STFU about vaccines, but the public needs to know that he continues his agenda to dismantle US vaccine policy through his surrogates. His attorney and buddy, Aaron Siri, wants to further undermine vaccine recommendations from the CDC. One of his targets is HPV vaccines.

We shouldn’t be able to get through on any Republican Congressperson’s line today. The phone lines should be jammed. I just called Juan Ciscomani’s office and was able to speak with someone about what a coward and a fraud he is. I was hoping it would take more than one call to get through.

I’m grateful that Dr. Yaver and her students will be the faces of public health when this era ends. Keep going.

Republicans could end this by lunch. They truly do not care who dies.

I didn’t know that ivermectin looked like a glowing tennis ball.

Don’t mind me, I’m just over here pressing the little lever with my paw, waiting for a hope nugget to drop.

I’m going to Captain Obvious this, but Trump appears to have gotten himself into a situation that he can’t control. And this he cannot abide. I think today the U.S. is much closer to “the worst that could happen” than we ever have been.