I read The Double Helix as an undergraduate. I was a science major at a women’s college taking molecular biology. Our professor taught us that Watson & Crick screwed Rosalind Franklin over. So I read the book to learn more. I’ll never forget how reading this passage made me feel.

It is readily apparent that most lawmakers in the United States have never been poor; do not know any poor people; have never actually had a conversation with a poor person; and have no clear understanding of how poverty actually affects people’s health and opportunities.

AUTHORS!! Remember that case where a bunch of authors sued AI for stealing their work? And WON? Well, the settlement money has been announced. Each WORK that got thefted will be compensated $3k (split 50/50 bw publisher + author). So authors will be compensated $1500 per WORK stolen. More here:

Here is my latest for @msnbc.com, on Trump's ill-advised concept of a plan for health care, which entails repealing the ACA, and redistributing private insurers' tax breaks to the people for what would essentially amount to an HSA, which is unhelpful if not wealthy. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

From @zeblarson.bsky.social. From Liberal Currents: "Propaganda, Rather than Pandemic Policies, Caused the War on Public Health--The backlash narrative ignores basic facts of the case." www.liberalcurrents.com/propaganda-r...

I was a doctor in pre-ACA North Philadelphia. Let me be clear: administrative violence like undoing the ACA *kills people.* Illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer & heart disease linger untreated for years. Then people get super sick and die preventable deaths. It’s devastating.

The sneering about "socially distanced" is the real tell here. As NYC was suffering through the worst of the pandemic, Silver was whining that he couldn't go out to bars and restaurants. People rightly called out his ghoulish self centered views at the time and he'll never let that go.

It’s a fucking joke

Canada has just lost measles elimination status. The U.S. will undoubtedly follow shortly. Elimination means that there is no continuous spreading of measles within the country for a year or longer. Canada and the U.S. have blown it, and it’s largely the fault of the anti-vaccination movement.

The least most politically engaged people I know are texting me before 8am to say, “we won’t forget.” So I don’t know man.

I heard from a bunch of federal employees last night and this morning. They aren't happy. "I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something. All this for a fucking meaningless vote."

“The goal had been to vaccinate about 90% of around 13 million eligible girls. Khurram Akram, technical director at Pakistan Federal Directorate of Immunization's, estimates that the actual percentage of girls vaccinated was around 70%. "Our biggest challenge was to counter misinformation”

They panic about fertility rates, say families need to be having more children, then they starve the kids and ensure health insurance is impossible to afford. Plus all the other things that would dissuade people from having kids: houses impossible to buy, diminishing middle class, ICE everywhere.

Aged like roadkill in RFK’s trunk.

Call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and they will connect you with your senator's office. If you're represented by one of the squishier centrists, be sure to make a call. Now.

Are you a healthcare professional interested in Continuing Education and Maintenance of Certifications? We offer free credit-earning webinars and MOC projects. Visit our website to learn more. vaccinateindiana.org

But why is my dog a cat.

And thou mayest aske thyself, 'How do Ich werke thys?' And thou mayest aske thyself, 'Wher ys that large destrier?' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my beautiful castle!' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my swift goshawk!'

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

For those asking for background - I was in Sudan twice this year and wrote about it www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

St. Louis, 1918. Red Cross photo during the great influenza. (Library of Congress)

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Every public health and healthcare worker's worst nightmare.

I can't even. Just a few months ago I saw my first unvaccinated baby with pertussis, and it was horrible.

The group’s CEO “said CHD plans to parlay that influence into permanent policy changes —upending the childhood vaccination schedule, reformulating the shots, & abolishing mandates to get them, among a host of goals — that will outlast Kennedy’s tenure at the Department of Health and Human Services”

This obit of Watson is *amazing*.

Flu shot acquired today! The CDC's flu tracker has not been updated since the shutdown (last update Sept 30) so it's no easy task to find what's happening nationally at the moment. If you haven't yet gotten your vaccine, now is a good time to do so, prior to any holiday gatherings and travel.

Now through Nov. 1: Rise of the Zombie Bugs is on sale at @hopkinspress.bsky.social. Get 100% more zombies for 30% off! Check out an excerpt: www.sciencefriday.com/articles/zom... And because I'm on my third cup of coffee and am avoiding my to-do list ... 1 like = 1 zombie fact 🧟‍♀️

If you have a James Watson story you'd like to share with me, DM me here or msg me on signal, dsamorod.25

I’m an ER doc who has responded to hundreds of events like this in the hospital & on planes and other public spaces. The right side of this photo is like exhibit A of normal human behavior in these circumstances. People rush to help so instinctively that part of the skill of a code is crowd control.

If I'm doing the math correctly, Musk's big pay packet yesterday could have made each of these now-dead people millionaires instead. He is among the sickest men the world has ever produced.

One of my old PIs told me how surreal it was to her that people saw Barres at a conference (after transition) and would say things like "He's such a better speaker than his sister" and just be completely oblivious.

One time Watson gave a talk where I was working. I don’t remember verbatim what he said, just that he talked about “girls in lab” and that I left the room furious

In 2008, a blogger named Curtis Yarvin called for a future president to kill foreign aid programs as part of a plan to replace democracy with dictatorship. Now 600,000 people are dead—and 14 million will die by 2030, according to the Lancet. This is the running death toll of tech fascism.

Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).

🧪 do eugenecists deserve to be lauded as “complicated,” as opposed to racist, sexist, ableist etc? do they deserve “balanced” obituaries after writing memoirs deriding women scientists also involved in those discoveries? where was the balance & fairness for Franklin & others he discriminated ag?

I mean, even Smithsonian Magazine even highlighted how horrible he was.

Hey folks, as news of Watson's demise spreads, please don't set aside his weighty legacy of misogyny and racism. He was truly among the worst of us. www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18...

I think we need to stop calling it empathy and go back to calling it decency. It isn't a favour you're doing someone else, it's you proving that you aren't a fucking ghoul

Ahhh my villain origin story

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

consistently depressed that i chose the wrong life, when i could've just chosen "get paid for being wrong all the time"

Abolish. Fire. Prosecute.

🧵

Nuremburg trials is the moderate position

It funded science too. Grand Rapids pertussis vaccine trials moved forward in the 1930s because of WPA funding for nurses and technicians.

Those of us who worked with USAID and in global health more broadly warned of this- shouting, screaming into the void. The administration- at every level- understood this would happen. It’s unconscionable.

It funded science too. Grand Rapids pertussis vaccine trials moved forward in the 1930s because of WPA funding for nurses and technicians.