I heard the Covid’s Wake authors speak at Johns Hopkins, and was genuinely amazed at how much of an alternate reality they were living in and what a poor grasp of scientific concepts they had (yes I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t totally disingenuous from start to finish.)

It is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. plans to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines. It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States. And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

This is an important article by @katherinejwu.com on the destruction of infectious disease research - and the man behind it. As someone in the ID field reliant on US federal funding for our research, know that once the next pandemic happens, we won't be around. www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

Well, he stepped onto the stage w the statistically problematic/wrong but politically useful Santa Clara serosurvey, followed it up w the unethical, medically impossible but politically useful Great Barrington declaration— I don’t think actual working was ever in the cards.

I had the opportunity to ask NIH Dir. Jay Bhattacharya about his comments re: mRNA vaccines, that they had "failed to earn the public's trust" so the NIH should not invest. His answer demonstrates that science and pandemic preparedness are taking a backseat to ideology. youtu.be/S0rsz3Ph7XE?...

🚨 Today, I formally introduced articles of impeachment against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. RFK Jr. has turned his back on science and the safety of the American people. Michiganders cannot take another day of his chaos.

Trump is putting the public’s health at risk— vaccine preventable diseases should remain prevented.

This is the fringiest of fringe theories and complete and utter nonsense. Lyme has been around a lot longer than there have been labs, and makary should have the common sense to do the tiniest amt of fact checking (if he actually believes this). It’s like a violation of both oath and conscience.

It’s Caturday.

Fun fact: I just learned that there are approximately 1.4 billion insects for every person on earth. www.royensoc.co.uk/understandin...

The @nytimes.com , @washingtonpost.com & the rest treat #RussellVought like he's a run-of-the-mill small government conservative. The man is a religious zealot that wants to bring down the state & replace it with an American theocracy out of Margaret Atwood. It's the biggest story no one is telling.

This is beyond bad. All of our disease defenses are down now. We are sitting ducks. This is #RussellVought #DonaldTrump. They are endangering American lives with their insane crusade. These men are hazardous to your health and dangerous to the republic.

I wrote a thing about how this split the MMR up into monovalents is bullshit that Andrew Wakefield cooked up. It will be used to strip access to the MMR. The MAHA movement continues to destroy public health. open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

This ostentatious Christian with the big cross around her neck is really saying that people who cannot prove their citizenship in an emergency room should be left on the sidewalk to die. And that's what she believes.

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

Emergency Caturday — so much medical disinformation, dumbness and meanness.

Another great analysis of what is likely coming out of ACIP. Must read (also, RFK Jr. must resign.)

I’m nostalgic for the days when Americans lectured other countries about violations of civil liberties.

I am not aware of any gun violence that happened when I was a kid. by RFK Jr.

First of all, renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. Second of all, let me introduce you to the humble battery

Missing the days of potatoe.

He's an antivaxxer. People don't say things or do things like this if they aren't antivaxxers. He is not a skeptic, he just wants children to get polio.

there is no question in my mind that rfk jr is the most dangerous person in this administration and that his eugenicist ideology threatens the lives of millions of people www.advocate.com/politics/dem...

#NIH is hanging by a thread. The #CDC has been decimated. #RFK Jr. and Russell #Vought are psychopaths--I don't say this frivolously--they are cold, calculating, inflicting violence on millions through public policy. It is where we are right now. These men are not normal. 1/

Normally, I track how Trump, RFK Jr. et al deny facts about biology and how that will kill a lot of people. But, reading about climate today and it's the same, getting fringy scientists on board to make money/destroy our planet-- and, kill lots of people. Fun times! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/c...

Looking at the landmark 1978 publication for synthetic insulin. The Genentech website says there were 12 employees in the company but there are only 10 people on the paper. Ah yes-- the ladies in the acknowledgements thanked for their "excellent technical assistance." 😒 www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

The whole article is damning, including the unscientific HHS push to include vitamin A into measles communications. “If pregnant women took too much vitamin A during the outbreak, their babies could be profoundly disabled. We haven’t seen those babies born yet.” kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

Research saves lives. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

The people who say we talk too much about slavery are the same ones who insist that we need public monuments and statues of men who are famous solely for waging a war of treason in defense of slavery. Statues that were created explicitly to deny any sense of "hope and progress" after the Civil War.

Привет, товарищи! It’s another glorious day in which Trump’s America is increasingly indistinguishable from Stalinist Russia, so I thought an armchair comparative analysis was in order. Specifically about Jay Bhattacharya's twin from times past, Trofim Lysenko. open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

“Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands.” www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/r...

Only 2 chapters in but love love love his clarification that Moore’s Law is NOT a law of nature. Good grief.

For those scientists and public health experts who were around during Laetrile, the last few years must have been especially rough. [catching up on some history-- thanks, @iwriteok.bsky.social]. This was a great podcast about a cancer "cure" (literally cyanide): podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

The main thing - is it not already clear - RFKr Jr is uniquely unqualified to lead the HHS. All main agencies under his watch - NIH, FDA, CMS - are also headed by incompetent contrarian peddlers of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience. This will, and already does, cost lives.

The shooting at CDC was domestic terrorism. It was instigated by the HHS Secretary's years-long campaign against an agency he oversees. open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

RFK Jr must resign and I believe those of us who work in healthcare, public health, health research, or any related field should demand his resignation

I was in the Brussels airport when it was bombed— it was pretty clear what happened, but it took people around me a long time to snap out of normal and into the new reality. This reminds me of that experience.

This isn’t just a change in funding priorities. It is theft. Of our democracy, our lives, and our future.

Pandemic preparedness in the US has been leveled a crippling blow with the cancellation of multiple #BARDA contracts to help develop mRNA vaccines. No other vaccine platform produces vaccine so quickly; without mRNA, Americans will have a long wait for pandemic vax. www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

They really won’t stop until every expert has been removed from any aspect of vaccination in America. www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/h...

On the one hand, a patriot with decades of experience defending America. On the other hand, a conspiracy theorist who hates Americans and American institutions. Presented here as "two visions of America under Trump" www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

Our research has been engulfed by an endless torrent of lab leak conspiracy theories about the origin of the pandemic - even as the evidence for zoonosis has only grown stronger. This fuels anti-science agendas and erodes public trust. Now, we respond 👇 theconversation.com/how-conspira...

few outcomes, except for 99% of FDA-approved drugs, 174 recipients of 104 Nobel Prizes, training ~30K MDs and ~10K PhDs per year to enter the workforce, and a 34% reduction in age-adjusted cancer deaths since 1990 -- the largest decrease in history

End of an era. Though he stopped writing songs before I was born, I grew up listening to his music because my dad was a huge fan. What a gifted, generous (he gave up the rights to his entire catalog), quirky, smart, and hilarious man. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

Happy birthday Rosalind Franklin (25 July 1920) Chemist and X-ray crystallographer, Franklin’s work illuminated structures of RNA, DNA, coal, graphite, and viruses. #WomenInStem

Rest in peace, Chuck Mangione. youtu.be/ZOtxTyJmxVI?...

We are six months into the second Trump administration and the scale and severity of its assault on our nation's science and democracy has been unrelenting. Today, @ucs.org releases a detailed assessment of the damage so far and where we go from here: www.ucs.org/resources/sc... #ProtectScience

Happy Caturday from Sloopy!

It’s so bad. But read the next-to-last paragraph for a taste of the really gross misogyny Ed Hammond feels comfortable displaying in a professional interaction.

Several COVID lab leak conspiracy promoters are now consulting at NIH in the office of the director. Two of them have called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted. This is the kind of insanity Jay Bhattacharya has brought into the agency.