I have to take my cat to the vet for his checkup and boosters tomorrow and can't wait for the annual tradition of my neighbors staring at me suspiciously as the carrier in my arms emits bloodcurdling screams

I honestly find these sorts of patronizing, journalistically illiterate messages more annoying than the ones calling me the c word

Whichever techbros think that shoving Gemini pop-ups in my face every time I blink might get me to try Gemini doesn't know that, almost a quarter-century after my bat mitzvah, I still deliberately make pasta on the first night of Passover every year because my mom made me go to Hebrew school

Fuck offfffffff

"In North Carolina and other states, low-income families who normally get no-cost Covid-19 vaccines for their kids have been told those shots aren’t available because states have been unable to order Covid-19 vaccines through the VFC program." www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/h...

I wrote 15 pages of a 30-page paper the day before it was due, paused for a panic attack in which I literally tore my bedsheets by digging my nails into them, wrote the other 15 pages the night before it was due, printed it five minutes before class started, and got an A. I didn't make any of it up.

We will be writing more of these. If you’re a scientist and your science has been disrupted, we want to hear from you: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/c...

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

ICYMI: You're not alone if you're having trouble finding a Covid shot for your child. A lot of factors are at play. Access through the Vaccines for Children program should open up now that the acting CDC director finally approved the CDC vaccine panel's recommendations, but other barriers remain.

The email is three paragraphs

President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have created new obstacles for many people seeking Covid vaccines. But it has been particularly difficult to secure shots for children, including infants and toddlers, who are at higher risk of severe illness from Covid even if they are healthy.

This one's for all the parents who have told me they're going through hell trying to find Covid vaccines for their children: It's not just you! Gift link:

CDC has finally adopted the recommendations its vaccine panel made Sept. 19. This should increase access to Covid vaccines somewhat — CVS and Walgreens had said once the recs were official, they'd offer the shots w/o Rx nationwide, and Vaccines for Children program also needed the official approval

Only people with bad backs can understand the horror of arriving at your desk to find that, over the weekend, the company "helpfully" replaced the chair that you spent months painstakingly trial-and-error fiddling into the one, single, precise non-painful configuration with a New Fancier Chair

I need a computer running Windows 95 so I can ask @drewmagary.bsky.social to review this

(Deleted post about $1 coin because I'm not a lawyer and its a Friday night and I'm not professionally or mentally equipped to parse the difference in laws governing "currency" and "coins")

This is the second time I'm aware of, in quick succession, that @moderation.bsky.app has flagged a photo of a pregnant woman as "adult content." I filed an appeal when it did it to my article nine days ago and haven't heard a word.

Another call for sources: I'm reporting on pediatric Covid vaccine access. If you've had trouble finding pediatric doses in stock, or if your child was turned away, I'd love to hear from you: [email protected]. Thanks to those who replied to my pregnancy callout; that story will be out soon.

Thanks

"The request for a gift for King Charles came from a State Department liaison who used the email address 'giftgirl2025' and initially told the museum that they were looking for 'like a sword or something,' according to a person familiar with the discussions"

Important to remember that stories about children killed by vaccine-preventable diseases when they're too young to be vaccinated are, beneath that, stories about the loss of herd immunity. This baby caught whooping cough from somebody. That somebody was probably old enough to be vaccinated.

WHAT THE FUCK

New: The CDC acknowledges that pregnancy, in and of itself, is a high-risk condition for severe Covid. Yet it removed its vaccine recommendation for pregnant people without other conditions. Its contradictory messaging, plus the Trump admin's broader actions/inaction on vaccines, has reduced access.

In July, we asked what readers wanted to know about vaccines. We received hundreds of questions. Here are some of the most common, answered by me and five other NYT health and science reporters.

Another call for sources: I'm reporting on pediatric Covid vaccine access. If you've had trouble finding pediatric doses in stock, or if your child was turned away, I'd love to hear from you: [email protected]. Thanks to those who replied to my pregnancy callout; that story will be out soon.

Twice in two weeks 😭

Low-income children lack access to Covid vaccines because of approval delay www.statnews.com/2025/09/30/c... via @statnews.com

The NYT Well desk is reporting on how people are using chatbots for health advice, and implications of that. If you're willing to share, please use this form! @teddyrosenbluth.bsky.social, I or another Well reporter may reach out, but we won't publish anything you submit without your permission.

today in Everything Is Gender Politics

One thing I'm grateful to have learned from the pandemic is how to guiltlessly stand up and walk to the other end of the car/to another car when someone sits down next to me and starts coughing without covering their mouth

yea why consume things made by humans when you can just consume slop and help train the next generation of slop in the process.

I don't think the crossword and the mini should be allowed to both have the same clue/answer pair on the same day

I really want a neurological explanation for why I don't remember a single thing about trigonometry, but any song that was in the Billboard 100 from age 7 to 17 is permanently archived in my brain such that it can come on the radio after I haven't heard it for two decades and I know every word

I am once again asking for photo editors to stop making my needle-phobic ass flinch every time I see an article about vaccines

The NYT Well desk is reporting on how people are using chatbots for health advice, and implications of that. If you're willing to share, please use this form! @teddyrosenbluth.bsky.social, I or another Well reporter may reach out, but we won't publish anything you submit without your permission.

How weird must it be to be Isaac Chotiner opening Bluesky this week

Amid the [gestures at everything], I've been meaning to re-up this piece from April. “‘Nonspeaking’ does not mean ‘non-listening,’” a formerly nonspeaking woman told me. “I was aware of the terrible things people were saying about me, when they discussed me like I wasn’t even there.”

Love to receive a 12,466-word treatise about China from a man who appears to have sent said treatise to every single NYT reporter whose email address he could find, regardless of whether they've ever written about China in their entire life

I guess I have to post a screenshot from the article in order to get rid of the headline-and-photo preview that Bluesky is ludicrously flagging as adult content, lol uh anyway hope you'll read it, gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/w...

In attacking the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy yesterday, Trump and RFK Jr. glossed over the potential danger of *not* using acetaminophen: the pregnancy risks posed by the fevers that acetaminophen treats.

Strong independent woman except when something like this appears on the wall a few inches from my face and I scream for my husband

I'm working on so many stories about some combo of vaccines, Tylenol, autism, pregnancy that I've stopped being able to summon the right pair of words to identify the story I'm trying to ask my editor about The Tylenol and vaccines story — no, pregnancy and vaccines — no, autism and pregnancy — no,

I'm rich

Trump, Kennedy et al claimed yesterday that Tylenol causes autism, which the evidence does not show. (There was a LOT of eliding of correlation vs. causation.) Here is what the evidence actually shows. Experts say Tylenol is the safest option to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.

Icymi the first time this ran, here’s a refresher: Vaccines today are more efficient and contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system than some used decades ago www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/h...

When the draft is going well

Walgreens confirms to me that they, too, will provide Covid vaccines without a prescription nationwide if CDC formally adopts ACIP's recommendations. (Please note that, for both CVS and Walgreens, this change is still contingent on that formal adoption!) Explainer has been updated to reflect this.

Listen, sometimes when your job requires you to be immersed in Everything That's Happening All the Time, you just have to draw a line for your sanity, and my line is that I simply refuse to learn why people are talking about the rapture

I love my fellow Spelling Bee fans but please, you have to stop posting spoilers in my mentions

I've played 784 Spelling Bees and gotten to Genius 780 times — that is 99.49% of the time — but I've been coming back to it all day today and I'm still stuck on Amazing