Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. “Have you ever had contact with an armadillo?”

We lost a beloved a beloved ID colleague & friend unexpectedly this week. Dr. Lauren Collins' legacy and the many lives she touched will live on. A compassionate physician who was leader in the fight to end HIV locally and nationally. #IDSky gradyhealthfoundation.donorsupport.co/page/laurenc...

1. #CDC posted new #flu data today. A 🧵 Another pediatric death was reported in the 2024-25 flu season, making it the deadliest flu season for kids since CDC started collecting this data point 20 years ago. 2024-25 has surpassed the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. 9 kids have died from flu so far this year.

For my Pediatrics and Family Medicine colleagues- As someone who did a stint as both ward attending and ID consult attending over Christmas, I was struck by the number of infants, children, and teens that I cared for with severe influenza and complicated pneumonias. Most not vaccinated vs Flu.

Visiting the Jamaraquá community in the Amazon River Basin was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn about local climate solutions and the sustainable economic practices happening here. Proud to stand with Indigenous leaders in working to help California drive real solutions to the climate crisis.

Do you want to learn more about domestic Hansens’s disease (leprosy), an emerging infectious disease in the southern US? Stop by our poster today at #IDWeek2025! #IDsky

#IDweek25 peeps- Come check out one of the only posters on leprosy! P184. I’ll be there in today’s poster session. Preliminary results on a 3 year cohort on risk factors for leprosy. #IDweek

Boston, ilu

Atlanta No Kings rally.

Heartened by the showing in suburban Atlanta, while sporting my DEI shirt (again) and showing my 9-year old how it’s done! #NoKings

They recovered over 180 bullet shells at the CDC. Debris from shattered glass is still being cleaned up. I am completely stunned at how quickly the news cycle has moved on. This was an act of terrorism targeting public health experts, and the response seems to be a collective shrug.

This was an attack on a federal institution. An attack BECAUSE it is Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This was domestic terrorism. Why isn’t it getting more press coverage? Some coverage, not enough. Domestic. Terrorism.

Not enough media attention. This was so unbelievably scary. The fact that more people were not killed is really incredible. I drive through that intersection multiple times a week. There’s always cars and pedestrians especially around 5. And this photo is terrifying.

Big crowd earlier today in the home of MLK, CDC, and John Lewis. #Handsoff Atlanta, @indivisible.org @meiselasb.bsky.social

99.4% of new drugs approved by the FDA are the product of NIH funded research. Remember this every time you see another headline on the NIH funding cuts. It will directly impact YOU. #ScienceNOTSilence

Stand up for science! Atlanta is standing up! #standupforscience2025

Atlanta @standupforscience.bsky.social #standupforscience

Come on down to the Georgia state capital and stand up for science!!

MORE LOCATIONS BEING ADDED BY THE DAY! Want to plan a local event or be included on the map of events? Visit standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information for more information & to be added to the map!

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts. Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

31 years ago today my father died from metastatic melanoma, leaving 5 kids ages 5-22. Today he would have likely been cured. 36 years ago my uncle died of AIDS. A few years later and he may be still alive. I’m older now than both of them were when they died. 1/2

Thank you to everyone who stands with USAID. Share far and wide. Unfortunately we don’t have $40 million to buy up ads during the Super Bowl. Even if we did, we’d use it to support the U.S. economy while feeding kids around the globe. #StandWithUSAID #SaveForeignAid m.youtube.com/watch?v=PqUE...

This is what amounts to an ILLEGAL & indiscriminate funding cut for research centers everywhere. It will mean shuttering labs across the country, layoffs in red & blue states, and derailing lifesaving research on everything from cancer to opioid addiction. We all need to speak out to save lives.

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

USAID funded projects in 120 countries - fighting epidemics, educating children, providing clean water, supporting life saving work. Now nurses laid off, clinics closed in 25 countries where 2/3 of all child deaths occur

The Nazis burned books they considered subversive. The #Trump administration is conducting a "digital book burning" according to researchers--destroying information from federal agencies on the web on topics they consider subversive but are essential for public health. www.npr.org/2025/02/05/n...

Dear Democratic Leaders: here’s a free idea, send members of congress into the buildings where Elons people are and see what they’re doing. Dare them to stop you. Do something

Where.are.our.Democratic. leaders …remember when John Lewis led a protest on the House floor for gun control? They should be sitting in and chaining themselves to the congressional floors. The inaction is deafening @schiff.senate.gov @schumer.senate.gov @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social @aoc.bsky.social

You say: they shutdown USAID. You mean: they illegally broke in to a secure facility over a weekend, hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and US businesses, destroyed property Americans paid for, cut off resources for sick and hungry families, and fired Americans across the country.

It’s official: Elon Musk’s staffers have now illegally obtained classified information from the USAID office. Here’s a recap of what’s happening:

"To condone policies that the profession knows will compromise health—or to remain silent and look away—is to be complicit in putting population health at risk" To every university, every public hospital, every academic society: SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION. #medsky

Good morning. RFK Jr would be an absolute disaster for NIH. The HHS Secretary has enormous power over NIH. Enormous. He could effectively end the agency as a science funder. Please organize to stop RFK Jr. Students, you can help: use all the channels you have to get the word out.

Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) just now: “You could literally walk down the street and the first 100 people you’d find would be less dangerous as the head of HHS than Robert F Kennedy Jr. He will get people killed”

Please. please. Please. Contact your Senators about RFK Jr. Keep calling and get everyone you know to do the same.

Why should the public care about the freeze on the NIH? Aside from the need for scientific pursuits to make our society better… -For every dollar we invest in NIH research, there is a $2.5 return. -Research dollars help fund universities that employ non-academics. (1/)

#RFKJr is a menace to society. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/h...

New in @leprosyreview.bsky.social (Vol 95/4) Challenges of delay in diagnosis and high disability rate among newly diagnosed leprosy patients in Karachi, Pakistan by Murtaza et al leprosyreview.org/article/95/4... #Leprosy #Disability #Epidemology #IDsky #Health #Research #GlobalHealth #Pakistan

As someone whose family is affected by this devastating disease, this is exciting. Too late for my mom but may help a future afflicted member of my family.

Walter Orenstein on miracles: www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/mira... "I was 7 years old in 1955 when the Salk polio vaccine became available. I was a real anti-vaxxer, not wanting a shot for something I knew nothing about. My mother said to me, 'Better you should cry, than I should cry.'"

@defendpublichealth.bsky.social is composed of some of the leading scientists, public health experts, clinicians and patient advocates in the US. Our press release, see first comment, gives you a sense of the breadth of expertise of our membership. All of us are opposed to the RFK Jr. nomination. 1/

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/o... “…Given the lack of appropriate guardrails that would normally prevent an anti-vaccine activist, science denialist and conspiracy theorist from heading the country’s most important public health agency, it’s a dangerous time to be a child in the United States.”

If RFK Jr. is confirmed. @donttreadonkids.bsky.social

Honored to pay my respects to one of the biggest champions of the forgotten. President Carter’s commitment to eradicating Guinea worm and other #NTDs continues to inspire me. Moving experience, no wait here at the Carter Center. We will miss you! @cartercenter.bsky.social @emoryrollins.bsky.social

The Dems who are allegedly open to confirming RFK Jr—a man who pushes grotesque, dangerous lies about HPV & Covid vaccines, & who says he’ll support Trump’s anti-abortion agenda—should be deeply ashamed of themselves

Great article! Missing is Travel Medicine, both pre and post, which I would argue adds significant ID value to both institutions and patient care, especially in an ever increasingly connected world. And it’s fun! Trainees enjoy it and opens clinical, public health, and research doors. #IDsky

Came across this quote today: “…mercy is no substitute for justice”, Sr Catherine Sullivan, nurse at the former leprosarium, Carville, LA, 1920s. I know the same sentiment has been expressed by many in history. A good reminder for global health, especially when “charity” does not advance justice.

‘Twas the night before Christmas And all through the land The people were wishing Things had gone to plan An election so horrid Can hardly believe A country so broken We see no reprieve Yet still we persisted To fight for what’s right This Christmas our wish list Is to lift up the light 💫