Sayre: "My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones in Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. What I've seen here is what I've seen there. A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people."

The study that started it all. Published after 5 years of re-analysis, revision, & rejection pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37190885/

Concentration camps are the biggest story in American public health right now

The CDC was truly a marvel – some of the brightest minds in our country, working tirelessly to keep our families & communities safe, so effectively that they were a global resource for recommendations & support in emergencies, all for a couple bucks of our taxes every year.

excuse me wut

An 823-word health insurance plan that forgets pre-existing conditions is like a fire insurance policy that doesn’t mention fire. Bold choice.

"No"

First Kennywood reference ftw

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/how-donald-t...

Last chance... almost full. Where else do you want to be on a Tuesday evening in Pittsburgh?

A Texas rural health consultant said he has “a ton of concerns” about companies taking the money instead of it helping rural hospitals and residents. “I was blown away about how many for-profit companies reached out.”

BREAKING: The controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau has been *cancelled,* I can now report. A senior official with Africa CDC confirmed the cancellation and said GB officials are working to make sure any research is conducted ethically: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The main outcome of this farcically horrible trial is death or hospitalization with any infection over *42 days*. That’s not even a little bit close to time Hep B takes to do anything. They will expose hundreds of newborn babies to Hep B for a trial that is all but guaranteed to be null. Evil.

Which types of welfare fraud are politely litigated between white collar lawyers, and which types of welfare fraud are used to justify an immigration purge and shutting off resources to the poor?

Whatever your thoughts on the upcoming RCT of HepB vaccination are, it is way worse. How bad? THEY ARE NOT TESTING MOTHERS FOR HEPB INFECTION IN A COUNTRY WITH A 19% PREVALENCE BEFORE RANDOMIZATION In depth breakdown from Dr Faust with input from Dr Boulware (who is an experienced trialist)

I really wish @maxbayer.bsky.social and @zacharybrennan.bsky.social were more active here to share @endpts.com scoops with the wider vaccines and health policy audiences rather than just those of us with company subscriptions…

More on dementia & finances: similar to credit outcomes, we see declines on asset side start about 6 years before dementia onset, patterns are consistent with mistakes driving declines, not healthcare spending or spenddown

As important as the federal government is for health care, there are non-federal substitutes available for many health policy tasks: Dietary recommendations, vaccine recommendations, clinical guidelines etc. Not the case with the DOJ.

Why Pharmacies Like Walgreens, Rite Aid And Independents Are Dying www.forbes.com/sites/sethjo...

This NYTimes feature on Noah Wyle and the second season of The Pitt is one of the best magazine profiles I have ever read (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2026/01/04/m...

Copy Editing Matters, from HHS's release on the new childhood vaccine schedule: All the diseases will still be available to anyone who wants them

The “all of this was preventable” part is true. And we know who could have prevented it.

Every reporter covering the vaccine schedule should ask Cassidy to explain why he anticipated a different outcome from his vote

This is great, "Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death," a story where Isaac Chotiner interviews the guy who administers the lottery from "The Lottery" archiveofourown.org/works/733964...

there we go

The nearly 80-year-old law that could hamper RFK Jr.’s drive to remake the childhood vaccine schedule. I wrote this for CIDRAP News as an explainer for the general public and public health folks, who may not be familiar with the legal issues involved. www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...

New vaccine policies, whatever one thinks of them, will have consequences. www.statnews.com/2025/12/23/t...

His view on the future is pretty bleak. He thinks much of what public health has achieved in the US will be dismantled: "We've entered this, like, dark age and it's going to get worse. It is going to get so much worse."

I suspect many people would be fine with getting rid of insurance companies. It’s how you then guarantee broad access to health care where there would be big disagreements.

Variations in annual dengue intensities are explained by temperature anomalies Our new work led by Abbey Porzucek, @rafalpx.bsky.social, @colincarlson.bsky.social, Dan Weinberger to develop a method to compare relative dengue intensity between years and countries. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

NEW: Paper in @jama.com (me, Glenn Cohen, & @drsinhaesq.bsky.social) discusses FDA plan to approve leucovorin for new indication based on "case reports" and "mechanistic data" 1. Departure from FDA's evidentiary standards 2. May harm patients and set bad precedent jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Huzzah! There are rational people at HHS!

i think it’s more helpful to think about the vaccine rec news like it’s a step in a project instead of an immediate crisis. they are chipping away at the foundation for vaccine access. but many states/coalitions will fight. remember, drops in vaccination rates are inherently slow (years to decades)

Lutnick and Trump in the Oval Office

i hadnt heard of this so i looked into it and this is wrong, it was 1961 dont trust everything you see online.

Covid vaccines released last fall sharply decreased the risk of ER and urgent care visits in children, according to new data released by the CDC — providing a striking counterpoint to Trump administration rhetoric about the shots Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/h...

…is it true that new ACIP chair Milhoan was just fired by his medical system? 👀 (Please don’t make me link to Malone’s substack)

My students asked me what I thought might turn the tide of vaccine sentiment in the US. I don't honestly know what will, or if any horrific outbreak or loss of life will make a difference. But my nightmare scenario looks something like this ... 1/

A lot of the history and shape of American public health is explained by civil society (professions, health care institutions, philanthropy, even payers) designing policy to circumvent governments they never trusted. Ideal? Not even close. But now, there might be something useful in that DNA.

What a disaster of a week for public health in the US. www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

The cherry on top of today’s ACIP fiasco

“The West Coast Health Alliance (WCHA) strongly supports that hepatitis B vaccination continue to be routinely offered to all newborns…” doh.wa.gov/newsroom/wes...

'Puppets on a string': ACIP chair airs independence concerns www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

...did Hoeg really just invoke Lysenkoism as an argument in *her* favor?!?

Annenberg survey suggests Americans trust AMA more than CDC, ie trusted experts can protect people from wing nuts www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-mo...

all they know how to do is podcast

Here is Jason Goldman's beautiful, amazing takedown of the whole sham #ACIP meeting today. (2 parts) So glad he said what every expert in the field is feeling today (and all year).

People who conflate "elimination" and "eradication" of infectious disease are telling on themselves

Chairman of Senate’s health committee with his sharpest words yet as CDC’s vaccine advisers meeting gets underway. The question is what does Cassidy do now, beyond issue rebukes.