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

Why does Spelling Bee become 50 times harder when the center letter is F

Tom Homan, who was later named President Trump’s border chief, was recorded in September 2024 accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover FBI investigation, according to people familiar with the case, which was later closed by Trump administration officials.

I made a fool of myself in front of Aly Raisman (asked if I could take a selfie with her, she said yes, then I proceeded to drop my phone three times in my nervousness), and she was positively superhuman in pretending I wasn't making a fool of myself

"How dare you eat dinner instead of playing with me"

Friendly reminder: Using alt text just to make a disparaging comment about the text you're screenshotting defeats the purpose of alt text. e.g. "bullshit corporate statement" as alt text for a screenshot of a company's statement. The alt text should include the full text of the statement.

“The good news is anyone can get this vaccine. The bad news is that no one is encouraged to get it even if you’re in a high-risk group,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia vaccine researcher and former government adviser. apnews.com/article/cdc-...

Because I'm seeing some confusion in my mentions: This doesn't mean you can go on the CVS website right now and make an appointment with no self-attestation. The information is "assuming CDC formally adopts ACIP's recommendations, CVS will" make this change. Not "CVS has already made this change."

Final update for tonight to this explainer (gift link). I'm going to go eat something unhealthy.

Assuming CDC formally adopts ACIP's recommendations, CVS tells me it will provide Covid vaccines without a prescription in all 50 states and won't require even self-attestation of a qualifying condition — "it’s up to the individual patient." No confirmation from Walgreens or Walmart yet.

Here's my first attempt at updating my covid vaccine explainer to reflect what happened at ACIP today. It will be updated further in the next couple hours as I speak to experts and hopefully get some info from pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens.

It's a journalist's job to ask questions of government officials, no matter which party is in power. That often means respectfully knocking on doors to get answers people deserve to know. Tips and evidence are essential to our nonpartisan work: www.propublica.org/tips/

Okay. ACIP meeting is over. Here are the four things they voted on with regard to Covid vaccines. Votes 1, 3 and 4 passed. Vote 2 (the call for a prescription requirement) did NOT pass. The language is so unclear that two legal experts I've consulted so far don't know what this means for access.

ACIP is in the middle of its series of votes on covid vaccines. The recommendation they're now discussing says “state and local jurisdictions should require a prescription” for covid vax and one panelist proposed an amendment to take the prescription requirement out, which would leave... nothing

Novavax news: A Sanofi rep said at ACIP this morning that it has begun shipping, and a Sanofi spokesman confirms that to me. This is in line with the company's statement last week that it would begin shipping this week.

This graph on COVID-associated hospitalizations shows the burden of the disease on infants.

ACIP, the CDC vaccine advisory panel that RFK Jr. purged and filled with his own members, was expected to gut a longstanding hepatitis B vaccine recommendation today, but they just voted to postpone a vote to a future meeting. Covid vaccine vote(s) scheduled later today (I do not know what time)

"The advisers ... needed explanations of the usual protocol for these meetings, the design of scientific studies and critical flaws in the data they suggested including ... It was unclear whether the members all understood what they were voting for"

Re-upping this: Especially if you're in the first category, pregnant and struggling to get a Covid shot or confused by federal guidance, I would love to hear from you. [email protected]

counterpoint: no

Me doing today's crossword: "Elder brother of Moses," welp, not getting THAT one until I have the cross clues, maybe I should've paid attention to a single second of Hebrew school Me five minutes later: YOU'VE SEEN PRINCE OF EGYPT, YOU ABSOLUTE BIRDBRAIN

I'm looking to talk to people who have sought but been unable to get a Covid vaccine. (You don't have to have given up — you can still be trying to get one and hopeful about succeeding, but if you haven't been able to get one yet, I'm interested.) Please email [email protected] if that's you!

I've said this take before, but All the President's Men is the most accurate journalism movie in large part because there are long stretches where no good source will talk to them and it's not clear they're going to get the story even if they stay really dogged at it and it's really boring to watch

Even if you don’t normally mask remember that two major categories of people at pharmacies are 1. People with chronic health issues who may be immuno comprised and not be covered well by one-way masking 2. Sick people getting meds who didn’t mask up

Update: spotted lanternfly. He killed it.

What are the odds I'm going to see a mouse before today is over, and how much do they increase with each additional minute Matlock spends there unmoving

CALL FOR SOURCES: If you're in one of these categories, I'd love to hear from you. 1. pregnant and struggling to get a Covid shot, or confused by federal guidelines regarding vaccination in pregnancy 2. an OB-GYN who is seeing confused/worried patients firstname dot lastname at nytimes dot com

I would have this badge if I were a scab, but not being a scab is better (I broke my streak for the NYT Tech Guild strike. After the strike was over, I played the games I missed in the archive. So I've completed more than 960 consecutive, but the ones I played in the archive don't officially count)

A school-age child in Los Angeles has died of a rare complication from measles, years after being infected with the virus.

Every single piece of information on this list is, in fact, in the document, but sure, I should use AI to read documents for me

[Bojack inner monologue voice] This is Bluesky. This is not sleep. You are scrolling Bluesky. Stop it. Stop scrolling and go to sleep. Stop it. Don't scroll one more time. Put the phone down. Do not scroll one more time. I can't believe you scrolled one more time.

I know this isn't the news right now. But I have some updated info on Covid vax availability. Several states where CVS/Walgreens weren't offering them or required Rx 1.5 wks ago now have them without Rx because of state officials' actions. But still 13 states where CVS and/or Walgreens require Rx.

I can't help but notice that this job was posted in February but still appears to be open. "Come use your journalism degree to shovel out multiple pieces of AI slop every day in order to 'enable' your colleagues to do actual journalism" is such a good pitch though, I don't understand

Love to get back from vacation and immediately be flung into an "it's 3pm and I haven't eaten yet" news day

As always, there are multiple people coughing at the gate and only three people masking, two of whom are me and my husband, and there is no overlap between the people coughing and the people masking

I am OFF WORK until Tuesday, Sept. 9. My colleagues will be following vaccine news in the meantime, and I'm sure there will be plenty for me to cover still when I get back. See you later, don't break the world (more) while I'm gone please

Updates on the pharmacy vaccine situation today: CVS is now requiring a prescription in 13 states and not offering shots at all in three others; Walgreens appears to be requiring prescriptions in 16 states, but not all the same ones as CVS. The lists of states are in the article. Gift link:

Major update: As of this morning, CVS says it's decided it can offer the vax in 13 of the 16 states IF you get a prescription. Still a big new barrier for many people, but a change from its "no vaccines at all in these states" position yesterday. The three remaining absolute-nos are MA, NV and NM.

Not trying to call this individual out in a quote post, hence the crop, but I've seen several versions of this sentiment and it's wrong. The list is red and blue; it literally includes Massachusetts and New York. The distinguishing factor is esoteric laws on pharmacists' scope of practice.

NEWS: CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the country, is currently not offering Covid vaccines in 16 states and DC — even to people who meet the new FDA criteria — because the CDC hasn't signed off and isn't expected to do so (if it does so) for at least three weeks.

One thing to highlight: The CDC list of high-risk conditions is long and almost certainly encompasses many people who don't think of themselves as high-risk. For example, ADHD, depression, hearing loss, physical inactivity, former smoking. Check the list before concluding you don't meet the criteria

ICYMI: Here's what we know about the impact of the FDA's decision to limit Covid vaccine approval, and how people who don't meet the new criteria may be able to get vaccinated. I will update it as I learn more. Gift link:

Why is there an AI bot in my mentions complaining about the NYT paywall in German

My bank account: for the love of god stop ordering in and start making your own meals The news: 🤡 🤡 🤡