I’m learning today that much like clownfish after Finding Nemo, there is now a boom in sales of tree vipers after the release of Zootopia 2.

ruin two bands by combining them: My Bloody Hole

lol. Lmfao.

A Hampton Inn in Asheville just canceled my family's reservation because our address (incorrectly) showed Asheville—and the hotel bars locals within 50 miles. When I asked why, they said, "because of our homeless population," adding that most hotels here have similar policies. This is outrageous.

"'It is out there — the concept of pawtism,’ said Dr. Brennen McKenzie, a California-based veterinarian who runs SkeptVet, a blog about evidence-based veterinary medicine." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/s...

“Noxious MAHA fluffer” might be Dr Howard’s most masterful turn of phrase. It’s a very apt, and hilarious, descriptive term for what these people do. If you don’t know what a “fluffer”’is, I suggest watching the classic film “Boogie Nights.” Or read some of Olivia Nuzzi’s texts to RFK Jr 🤮

I can’t tell if we are living through peak irony, or if we’ve blown past it and irony is well and truly fucking destroyed. I wonder if Podcast Jay had even a moment of introspection when he typed this out.

“I have never met an infectious diseases physician who wasn’t also an advocate The nature of the work demands it bc pathogens do not exist in a vacuum, & neither do the people they affect.” Grateful to learn from @boghuma.bsky.social & ID physicians, patients, & epidemiologists

New: Long-time predator Mary Talley Bowden, MD is officially reprimanded for unprofessional conduct by the Texas Medical Board. The reprimand amounts to a sternly worded letter. There is no substantive punishment. No fine. No CME. No probation or license restrictions.

Top ten album of the year for me. Neighborhood Gods Unlimited by Open Mike Eagle.

Merry Boocatmas!

Now is the time for the holiest rite of the season, the annual watching of Die Hard while we wrap presents.

🎯 🎯 🎯

Social science research can help us to understand why doubt and disinformation find a landing strip in some communities. Community-level research and interventions will not alone overcome the political economy of disinformation and doubt fueling these trends. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/o...

Good friend of Jay “Podcast Jay” Bhattacharya, our NIH director. He’s been on his podcast. Also the keynote speaker at RFK’s MAHA Grift-fest a few weeks back. Oh, and he was already under indictment for assault back then, this is a new charge.

"[RFK jr.] may as well have shot the bullets himself [...] and I hold him and his colleagues personally responsible for that violence and the death of that officer", says Daskalakis. Their rhetoric dehumanizing people who do public health created the environment that led to the attack, he says.

I was just typing the phrase “made me vomit” and thanks to my thumbs and autocorrect it was changed to “made Mercola” and holy shit, I think I just discovered a new phrase.

This guy will be remembered forever in epidemiology—when you’re teaching about gross violations of research ethics

Please give a warm Bluesky welcome to one of the nastier “vaccine skeptics.” Freddie here is either part of, or jealous that he’s not part of the study where they’ll let African babies become chronically infected with Hep B in their Quixotic yet fruitless search for vaccine induced mortality.

Making the point that public health needs to cater to what’s popular isn’t “meeting people where they are,” it’s leaving them behind. Co-opting the language of harm reduction to give people a pass from having their kids vaccinated against contagious illness is the exact opposite of harm reduction.

🔨The razing of the White House's East Wing to build a ballroom is "a metaphor for Trump's policy of destruction of leadership in health and science: the tearing down of venerable and respected institutions, to be replaced by a self-serving and vainglorious facade." www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Happy #BatMas everyone! Follow this thread ⬇️ or check out the hashtag to find out about a new bat species everyday, for 25 days! 🦇🌎🧪 #BatSky🧵

This headline upset me all morning, so I sent the NYT this letter. “This headline egregiously misrepresents the ethical and political implications of embracing those who promote hatred… To refuse to draw any moral line is not to refuse to take sides. Quite the opposite: It is to side with bigotry.”

Rachael Bedard is the Matt Yglesias of public health punditry.

Seems like a good choice for chilly, grey solstice morning. Original 1961 pressing from my Grandfather’s collection. I remember his buffet table sized record player cabinet that was the centerpiece of the living room back in the 70s.

I agree that I’m not sure self-experimentation is the right way to roll this out. You can’t tell anything from an uncontrolled experiment of n=1. At the same time, it’s a cool idea. Would love to see an actual trial. www.sciencenews.org/article/vacc...

New profile pic. This was a rescue kitten found inside the engine block of a car with two broken legs. Didn’t stop him from purring constantly. He lived in a little cage to help him heal, and inspired by Vincent D’Onfrio’s pig tweet, I brought him out to see the sky. He’s fully recovered now!

we are in the middle of the most serious, existential public health crisis in our nation’s history. the situation IS really, really bad, but it’s also important to avoid contributing to parental confusion about near-term vaccine availability with hyperbole

Happy #Caturday, Boocatmas edition. Can’t overstate the danger of putting a hat on this house panther. Revenge will come when I’m not expecting it. Elf has already faced her wrath (that scene would have been a minor family emergency when the kids still believed).

I cannot fathom what would possess a person to want to leave their child vulnerable to rotavirus or varicella if they could avoid it. Even if the chance of mortality from both of those is low, it is such a terrible experience for everyone involved.

Good insights about antimicrobial use in animals.

When might more antimicrobial use (AMU) use in animals be better? (Or why we should focus on metrics beyond mass of antibiotics) Not all antibiotics are alike - Some drugs are more important than others. 1/n

These centers that UNC is cutting will save $4.8 M per year. Bill Bellichick’s salary for coaching the football team to a losing season costs $10M per year.

These single food exposure➡️specific diagnosis studies are often confounded to hell. But OTOH, when they feed my confirmation bias I find them extraordinarily valid, and I’m happy to infer a solid causal connection here.

“‘In evidence-based policy, you gather data and then make a decision,’ [Jake] Scott said. ‘This is the reverse. CDC made the policy decision and then funded research to back it up. When you commission research after making a decision, you're not looking for answers—you're looking for validation.’”

I thought it would be worthwhile to substantiate @katherinejwu.com 's reporting on "Podcast Jay". I went looking on the internet for all the speaking engagements or shows he's been on since getting confirmed back in April. So far I've found the NIH Director in 66 separate appearances. 🧵

He thinks equipoise is an incontinence pad for horses.

The word of the day is: “Equipoise” This is one of the core ethical principles of clinical trials. If there isn’t genuine uncertainty about the benefit of an intervention, the trial is not ethical. I guess someone like RFK might have genuine uncertainty, but that’s only because he’s a fucking idiot

This guy’s idea of “robust marriage” is an awkward thrust or two with his pants still halfway on followed by 30 minutes of sobbing.

I can’t get over how this vanguard of new eugenics is composed of the weirdest, grossest people I’ve ever seen. More like ewgenics.

Forgot I had this in the stack. Classic.

What is it with these weird ass motherfuckers and their rotting animal carcass obsession?

But at least a handful of feckless democrats didn’t have to have their Thanksgiving travel plans interrupted. So looks ok on the balance of it.

I hope the photographer told him it would cost more than $1,000 in post production labor to make anyone look shittier than JD Vance. Probably just the electric bill for running photoshop for that long would hit $1k.

I hope the photographer told him it would cost more than $1,000 in post production labor to make anyone look shittier than JD Vance. Probably just the electric bill for running photoshop for that long would hit $1k.

In 2012 I posted up at the ED with what ended up being viral meningitis. I knew from my symptoms what was up, so I downloaded “Spinal Tap” to watch on my phone during my inevitable lumbar puncture. It made an otherwise kind of scary night and experience a lot fucking funnier. Along with the morphine

Don’t they know how much easier thoughts and prayers are? This seems like work.

One way that the reaction to Rob Reiner's murder mirrors Charlie Kirk's is that the best way to eulogize each of them is to quote their words, and in both cases, doing so pisses off conservatives.

A really good analysis of why the vaccine injury compensation program is important to public health and how RFK Jr. and his minions are trying to undermine it (with some explicit Kennedy family drama thrown in). www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore...

Tonight, I’m published in MSNBC—sorry, MS Now. In this piece, I explain how the right-wing war on COVID mitigation measures and politicization of science led us to this moment. www.ms.now/opinion/fda-...