Should I tell him?

Look what I just got! It’s good to be a friend of Gabriel Allon. ⁦‪@danielsilvabook‬⁩.bsky.social ⁦‪@jamiegangel‬⁩.bsky.social

If this platform has any content standards the account of this genius should be removed.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... This is incredibly bad. “It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote.

Texas is reporting that the number of measles cases has risen to 198, an increase of almost 40 cases in the last 3 days. 23 people have been hosp. If you live in Texas or anywhere in the US, and you or your children have not been vaccinated, you should do that now. www.dshs.texas.gov/news-alerts/...

How many deaths from measles will need to occur in the US before the Sec of HHS states unequivocally that everyone should be vaccinated?

RFK Jr still can’t quite bring himself to explicitly urge parents to vaccinate their children or to say that the MMR vaccine is safe. www.foxnews.com/opinion/robe...

I’ll be on around 7:30 with @PaulaReidCNN to talk about the current explosion of respiratory illnesses (mostly influenza A) in the US.

There’s a measles outbreak in W Texas where 18% of kindergartners have a vaccine exemption (c/w 3% nationally). This will get much worse with RFK Jr. Wondering if Sen Collins will be very concerned when people start to die from preventable illnesses. t.co/K9is8GHlte

Overshadowed this week by a tsunami of outrageous & possibly unconstitutional orders from the new administration was this shocking mandate for CDC researchers to retract submitted scientific papers so that they can be examined for banned terms or content. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

NYC has asked hospitals to subtype all patients admitted with influenza A. This is an effort to look for H5N1 in the community and stems from a CDC advisory 2 weeks ago. www.nyc.gov/assets/doh/d...

Imagine voting for confirmation of a nominee for NASA Administrator who thinks the world is flat, but promises to change his mind if he’s shown convincing evidence to the contrary.

Is it a coincidence that pages start disappearing from the CDC website only after RFK’s hearings are concluded?

In case this disappears from the CDC website in the coming days, here’s a reminder that the HPV vaccine prevents cancer. It’s an actual anti-cancer vaccine. Vaccinate your kids.

“For the German establishment, the situation was very clear. “A Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute,” the prominent German weekly Die Zeit wrote in an editorial. “There is no need to make this unnecessarily complicated,” the editorial said.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/w...

The central issue with the nomination of RFK Jr is less whether he’s qualified for the position (I think he’s not) but more that his antivax & conspiracy theories disqualify him from a post central to emergency response during a national health emergency.

My annual reminder that if you have heart disease, or risk factors like hypertension, DM, high cholesterol, or are over the age of 50 you should not shovel snow.

Jan 5/6 vibe…

So Biden awarded Liz Cheney a lesser recognition than Anna Wintour, Denzel Washington, and Bill Nye the Science Guy? Indefensible. This is the Presidential Medal of Freedom. No public figure has demonstrated courage in the defense of freedom more than Liz. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politic...

This is a beautiful tribute from one president to another.

At age 90, President Carter was cured of melanoma that had metastasized to his liver and brain. He was treated with a combination of surgery, radiation, and at that time a new drug, pembroluzimab (Keytruda). Immunotherapy has changed the outlook for many people with advanced cancers.

Figured out recently that a patient and I grew up in the same hometown (Brooklyn) and went to the same high school at the same time, a year apart. After HS we bounced around for 40 years then finally met when he got sick. The universe is amazing.

Imagine if your state prohibited your doctor or health care provider from discussing vaccines with you because they don’t believe in them. You don’t have to imagine. It’s happening in Louisiana, and it’s going to spread throughout the US. www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Every state and DC requires school children to get certain vaccinations (eg Polio, MMR, DTP, varicella). Is Trump/RFK trying to take the ability to set their own rules away from the states?

US measles cases 1962 - 2023. What do you think happened in 1963

I had polio when i was 9. I was taken from my parents & placed in a Hospital for contageous diseases- the polio ward. I would see them once a week - thru the glass window at the end of my ward. I could not walk. It was terrifying. Kids died. Iron lungs were awful. Dont let RFK Jr ban the vaccine

My 2 favorite jobs are taking care of people with heart disease and teaching young doctors how to do it.

Over 90% of Medicare beneficiaries rate their insurance positively. Maybe this country needs Medicare for more.

You say you got a real solution Well, you know We'd all love to see the plan He’s never had a plan. Still no plan.

Here are some of the amazing people I work with. I’m very grateful for them.

I told a patient that his new valve might last 10 or more years, and when it does it can also be replaced. He said, “You’re an optimist!” Indeed.

Don’t drink raw milk. Didn’t think this was controversial in the year 2024, but here we are. www.thedailybeast.com/distribution...

Why the shock that Biden pardoned his son? He watched his other son die from a glioblastoma, and as a young man got a call that his little girl and his wife were both killed in a car accident. At this point in his life I don’t think he cares much about your moral outrage.

Every time I open a stent that closes because a pt didn’t have insurance and couldn’t get medications, or see a doc, I feel ashamed. If RFK truly wants to MAHA he should start with a plan to get insurance for everyone who lives in this country. He can work on getting real cane sugar into Coke later.

Mike Allen on latest Trump picks: “Trump advisers are running out of words to describe what's coming in January. They say he feels empowered and emboldened, vindicated and validated, and eager to stretch the boundaries of power.” www.axios.com/2024/12/01/t...

Here’s my annual reminder that if you have a history of coronary artery disease do not shovel snow. Pay the kid down the street to do it.

There’s been a remarkable 65% decline in cervical cancer deaths in young US women as a result of the HPV vaccine. Vaccines work. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

A patient gave me this book. It’s f***king brilliant. Thinking of writing a version for my fellows.

If a new pandemic comes to the US we’ll have an NIH dir who advocated for letting COVID burn through the US, an HHS Sec who believes in raw milk but not vaccines, an FDA commissioner who said COVID would be over by 4/2021, & a CDC dir who supported the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.

Dr Jay Bhattacharya is Trump’s pick for Director of NIH. During COVID he advocated to let the virus spread widely so the US would get to herd immunity faster. His plan would have killed many more Americans. He also thought COVID might only kill 40K people. He was off by 1.2 million.

It doesn’t matter that not all of RFK, Jr’s ideas are crazy, because those that are crazy (“there are no safe and effective vaccines”, “the COVID virus was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese”) should exclude him from a role in the government. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I feel privileged to have watched the worst game in the history of sport.

Here’s my conversation last night with Kaitlin Collins about Trump’s latest round of health picks. Take a look.

The central disturbing, but maybe not shocking, point about Trump’s health picks is that not a single nominee is qualified for their post.

What qualifies Dr Weldon to run CDC, other than the fact that he’s a doctor and former GOP congressman?

On Bluesky, in addition to my usual mix of medicine & politics, I’m going to try to post little beams of light. Tonight I’m thinking of the patient who smiled and said hi as we passed in the hallway this morning. He’ll be home for thanksgiving. He was dead a few days ago. His friends saved him.