Schools have become cesspools for cold and flu. But they don't have to be ottawa.citynews.ca/2025/12/21/s... @mjnabuurs.bsky.social @onschoolsafety.bsky.social More news → CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁

The U.S. is weaponizing global health aid. Countries that agree to incarcerate "deportees" get deals. Those that don’t get cut off. CECOT is the prototype.

The U.S. is weaponizing global health aid. Countries that agree to incarcerate "deportees" get deals. Those that don’t get cut off. CECOT is the prototype.

Yesterday I posted the 1st of my 2 recent papers with @tarakiran.bsky.social on the #GenderPayGap in medicine. Today I'm thrilled to share the 2nd, done with Dr. Fahima Dossa. We wanted to see if #WomenInSurgery did different types of work than their male colleagues. 1/8 #Medsky #Surgsky🧵

What Should You Do About H3N2 Flu? There's a lot to worry about right now on the winter virus front, but get your flu shot anyway. Seriously. Get your flu shot, by @angierasmussen.bsky.social rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/what-you-s...

The Health & Media Tracking Survey examines how misinformation shapes public understanding and health behaviours. It’s one of few consistent national instruments we have to track how Canadians experience the health information environment. Feb 10: Ottawa (in person) or online.

AI-generated “synthetic respondents” can now pass the vast majority of fraud, attention, logic, and CAPTCHA checks used in opt-in online survey-based polling. They can do this cheaply and at scale. Often without being detected. (1/3)

This is a genuinely important genetics paper. It suggests many psychiatric diagnoses we treat as distinct are biologically entangled. It should force a rethink of our diagnostic categories. It also creates new risks. 1/3

Why the “immunity debt” narrative ultimately collapsed: Over the past few months, the conversation has moved toward the conclusion the evidence has been pointing to for years. Since 2022, immunity debt offered an easy explanation for the unusual patterns of illness we kept seeing. 1/7

New CHW Perspective: an Alberta pediatrician describes how structural gaps in care are shaping families' lives, and argues that the province’s new “dual-practice” model risks making things worse. Full analysis: canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/12/05/a...

This Alberta pediatrician captures something clinicians everywhere feel but rarely articulate this clearly: Systems fail in patterned ways. Families absorb the cost. Governments sell “choice” while walking away from their duties. Worth your time:

Reimer is right about the near-term risk of losing US flu sequencing. It makes vaccine mismatch more likely. But the deeper issue is epistemology. Immunization decisions have always leaned on an assumption that the US science apparatus would remain politically insulated. That assumption is gone...

News framing casts this as another “experts disagree” moment. But this disagreement isn’t really about prostate screening at all. It's epistemic. The real problem is a structural failure in the machinery that produces our screening guidelines. (1/2)

Hyperscale data-centre expansion is outpacing the capacity of the local systems that support it. The public health costs are falling to small municipalities with limited leverage and no oversight mechanisms. This week we map out an emerging pattern:

We often treat measles immunity as a solved problem: "Childhood vaccination = lifelong protection" Might be a lazy assumption. A new Lancet study shows a slow, steady decline in measles antibody levels over the years. Does our “once in childhood is enough” thinking still fit the evidence?

We must not forget to thank ALL those who helped elevate these non-clinical elitist ideologues to the highest levels of power within the US Federal Government. Why the AMA’s actions are raising alarms by, uh, me and @nicktsergas.ca

This is how a health system burns to the ground. How Alberta's dual practice plan would drain hospital staff and delay lifesaving care, by Dr. Paul Parks canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/11/28/t... via @canadahealthwatch.ca @nicktsergas.ca

Alberta just opened the door to two-tier healthcare. This is what that actually means. New CHW piece by Dr. Paul Parks:

In a study of more than 18,000 live births, 16.3% of babies received a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by age three, compared with 9.7% who were not exposed to SARS-CoV-2 in utero.

This is exciting news for the Canadian media ecosystem. Love to see it! www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/new...

What Canada’s new supplement labels still won’t tell you canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/11/21/w... via @canadahealthwatch.ca Me: "The marketing of supplements has also become … one of the primary ways that the health misinformation ecosystem is funded." 🚩 Increasingly supplements = red flag for bunk.🚩

Everyone’s watching Quebec’s doctor revolt. For good reason. The real story is in Alberta. Both governments are testing how far political power can reach into medicine. Here’s how it looks from 30,000 ft:

Everyone’s watching Quebec’s doctor revolt. For good reason. The real story is in Alberta. Both governments are testing how far political power can reach into medicine. Here’s how it looks from 30,000 ft:

Parliament’s data-dive and Budget 2025 are not separate stories.

Most kids ask for lullabies or bedtime stories. Tonight, to get him to sleep, my 5-year old insisted that I speak endless streams of nonsense in a Jamaican accent. Seriously, this is what he wanted. And it worked. Out like a light.

The AMA is starting to fracture under political pressure. Our analysis explains what changed this week, and why it matters.

Retrieved from production-like.nhsd.io/data-and-inf... @1goodtern.bsky.social

The AMA is starting to fracture under political pressure. Our analysis explains what changed this week, and why it matters.

If we ignore Canada’s mental health crisis, AI companies will exploit it canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/11/22/i... @spichaksimon.bsky.social

Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…

She called all of it a year and a half ago.

Alberta is moving to a "dual practice" model. A pediatrician in the province sent me this scenario. It's a look at what healthcare becomes when physicians can work in two systems. Hypothetical, but not speculative. New on CHW.

Expert says Alberta’s proposed two-tier model would violate the Canada Health Act www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alber... @alannasmith.bsky.social @danyaalraza.com More news → CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁

The US isn’t “at risk of losing” its measles elimination status. Just at risk of admitting it. Canada lost its status earlier this month, and people treated it like an international embarrassment. But let’s be clear: Canada still has functioning disease-surveillance. The US does not. (1/3)

The US isn’t “at risk of losing” its measles elimination status. Just at risk of admitting it. Canada lost its status earlier this month, and people treated it like an international embarrassment. But let’s be clear: Canada still has functioning disease-surveillance. The US does not. (1/3)

Quebec declared a war on doctors it can’t possibly win. The rest of Canada is aggressively courting physicians, and national licensure is rapidly becoming inevitable. And as we enter the most physician-mobile era in Canadian history, Quebec is broadcasting: (1/3)

Told ya

Mazier says a national license for doctors is the way forward. The strongest indicator yet that this is becoming the default position in Ottawa. The debate is no longer over "whether." It's when and how fast.

Incredible piece of data journalism here from @wsj.com. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

The collapse of single-channel authority isn’t news. People no longer wait for institutions to define what’s true or credible. They confer that legitimacy themselves and do it instantly. It can’t be solved with a comms plan. You solve it by rebuilding trust across the actual centres of influence.

Is getting a 'mismatched' flu shot still worth it? Yes, absolutely www.cbc.ca/news/health/... @laurenpelley.bsky.social @cbcnews.ca More news → CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁

This one has really struck a chord. Every government treated physician supply as someone else’s problem, until it became everyone’s.

My latest at Canada Healthwatch: "Is the flu vaccine worth getting? (SPOILER: Yes.)" canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/11/11/i...

Hospitals across Canada are closing their ERs because there aren't enough doctors to run them. Millions don’t have a doctor. Millions more can’t get an appointment. It didn’t used to be this way. Turns out it wasn’t an accident.

PHAC really doesn't like the word "epidemic" for some reason.

Of note: In April, as the US was starting to dismantle its health and science apparatus, a senior scientist said the country was underreporting its cases. Today's coverage of the Americas losing elimination status "because of Canada" has shades of "Spanish" flu. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Hi Bluesky 👋 Small life update: I’m at the centre of a multimillion dollar lawsuit in Alberta launched by a failed candidate for Jason Kenney’s UCP It may be the longest and most expensive media trial in Canadian history I’m ready to go public about it and I want to share more details with you 🧵

omg. Meta clearly trying to polarize the issue of digital sovereignty by running this in the Hub.

omg. Meta clearly trying to polarize the issue of digital sovereignty by running this in the Hub.

The budget. It puts $5 billion into “health infrastructure,” which sounds like healthcare funding. But is it? My breakdown for Canada Healthwatch looks at what’s new, what’s missing, and why health is now being framed as infrastructure.