English version of my review of Bratlies book: A book filled with contradictions, cherry-picking of data, conspiratorial arguments, and serious accusations that undermine trust in research and contribute to making the world less safe in the face of the next pandemic. tjomlid.com/a-critical-r...

Vaccines get a bad rap on social media. But studies of vaccines for diseases like shingles and influenza suggest they not only protect us from pathogens but increase our chances of living into old age free from conditions associated with senescence. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/why-its-sm...

I recommend Carl Zimmer's book Air-Borne for the deep history that led to this shocking mistake. It wasn't just a matter of "oh it was a new virus, we didn't know anything about it" - there's a far more profound lesson than that for how science happens. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

As the US National Institutes of Health prepares to host a lecture on the "lab-leak" theory and the origin of Covid-19, I review the long history of pandemics and describe how the the question of origins has long puzzled researchers. www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

The meningitis outbreak sparking panic across southern England is a reminder that the infection can strike anyone, anywhere at any time. I should know - in 2012 it claimed the life of journalist friend shortly after his arrival in Paris. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/meningitis...

Freelancers, small businesses and so on have a statutory right under uk law to charge interest on unpaid bills. But the calculation can be complex. So my old friend the brill actress and podcaster Laura Shavin, built a calculator. It’s clever. fvo1.com/late-payment...

Aerosol infection, “the elephant in the room”…

Our understanding of the origin of COVID-19, while still incomplete, is one of the most well-supported scientific theories of any pandemic. When it comes to “Scientific Freedom”, it must be based in science and evidence - this is the opposite, platforming pseudoscience instead.

New email to Director Bhattacharya about a new Scientific Freedom lecture to be given my Matt Ridley on The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. Ridley is a British scientist and journalist who published a book in 2022 on the subject. 1/5

As a new study calls into question one of the central planks of the "lab leak" hypothesis, I review the long history of pandemics and describe how researchers have long puzzled over their origins. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/opportunit...

"Russian flu," the pandemic that hit in 1977, bears an evolutionary signature of having emerged from a lab, perhaps as part of a failed vaccine effort. Covid, mpox, Ebola, and other influenza pandemics don't. Here's my story on a new way to trace the origins of pandemics. Gift link: nyti.ms/46N0W33

Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/s...

As bombs rain down on Tehran, the world appears more than divided than ever. But was war in the Middle East inevitable? Or is the current conflagration further evidence of how Covid-19 destabilised our world, plunging us into permacrisis? open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

On World Book Day, we're remembering powerful contributions about the Wall from our Chair, @franfd.bsky.social, and journalist @honigsbaum.bsky.social to "When This Is Over - Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic"... ❤️ #WorldBookDay

In the last six weeks, Europe has seen Biblical levels of rain, exceeding the 40 days and nights described in the Book Genesis. When will the deluge end, many have been asking? But what if it has only just begun?And what are we going to do about it? substack.com/home/post/p-...

When Peter Mandelson bought a house in my street, I wondered how he could afford it. Pity then that all it took was one call to my editor from the ‘Prince of Darkness’ to kill my story. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

To Oxford to debate the Covid Lockdowns this evening with Sunetra Gupta, Hugh Montgomery & Toby Green. What did we get right and what did we get wrong? And what should we do differently next time? x.com/comacfreedom...

The new Netflix miniseries Death By Lightning based on the 1881 assassination of president James Garfield by a deranged office seeker is highly pertinent to our troubled times. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

Study in JAMA Pediatrics estimates that vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19 prevented 7,000 hospitalizations in infants and 3,000 in pregnant women from January 2024 to May 2025.  #Medsky www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/cov...

Some thoughts on the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and what the litany of campus shootings say about our violent, blood-soaked times. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/meridian-t...

www.thefp.com/p/sam-harris... Sage advice from Sam Harris:- Get off social media. Read good books and real journalism. Find your friends. And enjoy your life.

Charlie Kirk’s Killing and Our Poisonous Internet www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/o... “While the internet’s rot once felt safely bottled…within a digital realm, this act of political violence may have punctured whatever barrier once existed”.

When my beloved goldendoodle of 15 years died this summer I was overwhelmed with grief. Then something extraordinary happened: I took a hiatus from social media and began engaging with people in real life. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/murphys-gift

My worst nightmare is coming true. I am turning into Jay Bhattacharya. @reason.com is writing articles calling me a silenced and censored scientific dissident. What have I done to myself. 😅 reason.com/2025/09/03/f...

I am happy Gov. Kathy Hochul took action to defend COVID vaccine access in the face of the anti-science attacks from Robert Kennedy Jr. and his crank allies like Marty Makary and Jay Bhattacharya. But I note that it’s only for ages 3 and up. The CDC’s original guidance was 6 months and up.

Today, parakeets are a common sight in public parks. But in 1930 the birds sparked a worldwide panic when it was discovered their faeces contained a deadly bacterium. Click on my Substack to read my new post on the Great Parrot Fever Pandemic of 1930. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/the-green-...

Despite putting on her ‘happy face’ at the launch of Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS this morning, the British public are unlikely to forget Reeves’s visible anguish at PM’s questions in a hurry. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

Despite putting on her ‘happy face’ at the launch of Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS this morning, the British public are unlikely to forget Reeves’s visible anguish at PM’s questions in a hurry. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

@mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk To judge by James O’Brien’s call-in on LBC radio today, sympathy for the Chancellor as the architect of her own misery was in short supply. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

No one knows what sparked Rachel Reeves’s visible anguish on Wednesday, but for a moment at least she showed that she was human.That is something the public will likely remember long after her tears have dried. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

The idea that you can debunk your way out of a conspiracy theory is disproven over and over again. Better imo to ask people with an alternative point of view what their single strongest piece of evidence is and discuss that in depth. For "lab leak" those conversations don't last long.

1/ On average, respondents assigned a 77% probability to a zoonosis... However, only 22% of respondents said they were familiar with a 2018 research proposal known as DEFUSE, submitted by EcoHealth Alliance and partnering with the US labs and the Wuhan Institute of Virology...

RFK Jr claims Ralph Baric developed a "seamless ligation" technique to hide the laboratory origins of a manipulated virus, as if its use were nefarious. But its scientific point is to enable mutations to be precisely introduced, including making sure that one can introduce no mutations at all.

This is a good example of the sort of research that can help us detect the next pandemic virus before it can spread more widely. Such a shame that because of the distrust of science due to the obsession with the Covid lab/leak theory, more of this research isn’t being done.

It speaks volumes about the mentality of the fans who packed the West Holts arena that Bobby Vylan’s chant should be so readily adopted at a festival dedicated to love and peace. This is what happens when empathy becomes a substitute for moral thinking. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/hate-and-t...

The report faults the governments of the United States and Germany for not sharing more information from their intelligence communities but reserves its strongest criticism for China. www.science.org/content/arti...

SAGO Report is out: 1️⃣ No new data in report 2️⃣ Not bioweapon, man-made, or engineered 3️⃣ All scientific evidence points to zoonosis 4️⃣ No evidence for lab leak 5️⃣ New evidence could swing the conclusion In other words, what we concluded in April, 2020. Five years later. share.google/4I8ac1DJMZOM...

No picture can do justice to the UK AIDS quilt or the sense of loss contained in the brightly coloured fabric. Walking beside the panels as shafts of sunlight fell on the soaring concrete walls of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall it felt as if I had entered a cathedral… open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

You can’t cancel our freedoms #nokings

From Gaza to Los Angeles, compassion has become a zero-sum game in which you seemingly can’t have empathy for one cause without having enmity for another. No wonder our politics is so divided. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

“When empathy is stretched to the cosmic vanishing point or else compressed to the width of a grave, it ceases to be empathy.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

When did empathy become “suicidal”? Talk about Doublethink.

In this week’s Observer I review @carlzimmer.com new book Air-Borne, a fascinating tour of the forgotten science of aerobiology and the flawed reasoning that led the WHO to conclude (wrongly) that COVID-19 was a droplet infection that could not be spread via the air. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Excellent review of Christian Frei’s new film, Blame, making case for Covid’s natural origins and debunking the lab leak theory:- “The message is chilling: the very systems designed to prevent the next pandemic are being dismantled…for political inconvenience” www.wsws.org/en/articles/...

With so many humanitarian crises in the world it sometimes feels as if we're drowning in tears. But imagine a pandemic where tears transmitted like a virus? Would the wave of crying enhance our empathy for other people's distress or would it deepen our own grief? open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

Im Budongo-Wald in Uganda haben Forscher etwas Ungewöhnliches beobachtet: Schimpansen, die Fledermausguano fressen. Was das mit Tabak und der Gefahr einer Pandemie zu tun hat, darüber sprechen wir in unserer neuen Folge mit @honigsbaum.bsky.social, der daraus ein Ausbruchs-Szenario entwickelt hat

‘Ebola is believed to have a zoonotic origin (probably fruit bats). But colonial extraction and chronic dispossession in recently independent nations were also among the causes.’ @ednabonhomme.bsky.social on Uganda’s successful outbreak management, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...