I grew up in Saudi Arabia, a country rightly condemned for deploying the death penalty as a ghoulish public spectacle. Pete Hegseth aligning America with a brutal theocracy is a new nadir from an already appalling human being..

It's bizarre how we seem to be ok with charlatans exploiting vulnerable patients - thanks to @theguardian.com for covering our concerns.. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

‘Self-healing’ coach who was banned from working in Australia to speak in UK

Barbara O’Neill has previously claimed that cancer is a fungus that can be treated with bicarbonate soda

theguardian.com

Self-described healer Barbara O'Neill is banned from giving health advice in her native Australia, but is booked for lucrative events in UK & Ireland next month. Health misinformation kills: we've written to venues elucidating why O'Neill's health fictions harm vulnerable patients ⏬

Gentle reminder: unless medically directed, you don't need supplements. They are foodstuffs, not medicines, and are cheap - a month's supply of collagen is ~1 euro wholesale. So how are some Irish doctors justifying charging €250 quid A MONTH for them? That's a good bloody question.. a short🧵..

As a misinformation researcher, I wish people understood this part better: Disinformation has outsized impact on low information voters with poor media literacy, disinformation is well-funded, social media companies complicit www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Iceland rejects EU accession talks after divisive referendum campaign

Well-funded no camp prevails, winning 52.8% of votes and gaining plaudits from Eurosceptic figures across Europe

theguardian.com

Dolly Parton has died at 80. An incredibly talented woman who didn't only give us music, but funded entire libraries and even vaccine research. Her empathy for her fellow humans is an incredible legacy - one conspicuously absent in tech billionaires.. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Dolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80

Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 also invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes

theguardian.com

The tragic death of Jason Arday is an awful story. There's been much (often nasty) commentary on Arday's scholarship, with UK redtops pretending now to be concerned bastions of research integrity. Utter nonsense: misconduct in academia is EXTREMELY common, and media rarely cares. Let's review 🧵

Saskia Mostert this year insinuated to US Senate COVID vaccine harms were being suppressed, citing her paper on excess deaths. That paper has just been retracted, over 2 years since Ariel Karlinsky, @gorskon.bsky.social , myself & others raised alarm it was bad retractionwatch.com/2026/08/11/b...

BMJ Group retracts paper on COVID-19 vaccines and mortality featured in Senate hearing

BMJ Public Health has retracted a paper some — including a witness at a recent U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing — have used to link COVID-19 vaccines to deaths. The action comes more than two years…

retractionwatch.com

That a dedicated public servant like Anthony Fauci is before a kangaroo court for doing his job is damning indictment of American politics. Lab leak remains a deeply stupid narrative, beloved of the worst people.. www.instagram.com/reel/DbnGj46...

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instagram.com

As someone who has been targeted both academically and personally by obsessive fringe groups for my academic work and also as someone who investigates scientific integrity concerns, the Jason Arday case is wild.. www.theguardian.com/education/ng...

Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor

Jason Arday was regarded as an academic superstar, but then questions about his work prompted scrutiny of his backstory and counterclaims of racism

theguardian.com

Anthony Fauci is a national hero. Rand Paul is an international embarrassment. It is bizarre to watch a halfwit kangaroo court in real time, do Republicans think history will look favourably on this pathetic fixation? www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07...

Trump Administration Live Updates: Fauci Pleads Fifth in Senate Hearing on Covid Origins (Gift Article)

nytimes.com

Very sad to hear about tragic death of Glen Hansard. Aside from undeniable musical talent, I've a nice story about his thoughtfulness. In 2017, an anti-fluoride activist got hosts of Irish artistists from Christy Moore to Mary Black to sign a letter demanding the government cease fluoridisation..

1️⃣ 🧵 Our written evidence “Misinformation about childhood vaccinations: evidence & interventions” for UK House of Lords Childhood Vaccinations Committee is now public—led by Sander van der Linden with Kai Ruggeri, @drg.bsky.social, Heidi Larson, Thom & Jon Roozenbeek and me 1/10

Donald Trump forcing medical scientists to pander to the half-thought out whims of one time UFC commentator Joe Rogan is a pretty damning indictment of where we are. When future historians write about this period of the idiocracy, the role of halfwit podcasters will be subject of many PhDs..

Academics, anyone else noticed a decline in basic editorial standards at major journals? Just had one reject an already accepted manuscript for "duplicated references", turned out to be an AI hallucination in their proofing software. Another asked me review a manuscript I'm author on..

Finally happened; bike nicked in Dublin 🤨 On Jervis St, under 2 CCTV cams. If anyone sees a suspicious Decathlon 500 folding bike offered for sale, let me know..

I didn't think much that RFK Jr does could shock me anymore, but it's difficult to overstate how unethical this is. This isn't a trial, it's a piece of antivaccine theatre that will cause severe harm, and everyone involved is contemptible. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Experts fear ‘unethical’ vaccine trial in Africa is ‘prototype’ for US studies under RFK Jr

Danish researchers whose work on effects of vaccines has been called into question are at center of US vaccine policy

theguardian.com

Uh oh. This appears to be an old moral panic reanimated by modern technology - I've written extensively on "satanic panic" and how leading questions led to false memories of abuse in suggestive populations that never happened. ChatGPT is that on steroids... www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

ChatGPT driving rise in reports of ‘satanic’ organised and ritual abuse, UK experts say

Exclusive: ‘Witchcraft, spirit possession and spiritual abuse’ offending typified by sexual abuse, violence and neglect

theguardian.com

Elon Musk's content indistinguishable from that of white supremists, surprising no one. Is there a fundamental law that requires those pathetic enough to assert ostensible racial superiority be the most underwhelming specimens imaginable? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January

Many social media posts by Tesla CEO on his platform are indiscernible from those of white supremacists, say experts

theguardian.com

Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna’s flu vaccine application www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m... via @statnews.com "Vaccine skepticism is emanating into FDA from the top, as health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a known vaccine critic [read: antivaxx zealot]."

Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna's flu vaccine application

The rejection is the latest instance of Vinay Prasad overruling career FDA scientists to place vaccines under harsher scrutiny.

statnews.com

Ivermectin is an article of faith in the MAHA gospel, and one of their defining characteristics is deep antipathy towards vaccination. The lauding of ivermectin began in part as an "alternative" to vaccination - this & Moderna rejection are sheer regulatory capture 😐

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 8mo ago

“I am shocked and appalled,” one NCI scientist said. “We are moving funds away from so much promising research in order to do a preclinical study based on nonscientific ideas. It’s absurd.”

The fact that this comes hours after approval of an "Ivermectin for cancer" trial is a damning indictment of the ideological capture the worst people from the pandemic now have over health in the USA...

Timothy Caulfield@caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Yet another bizarre and worrisome vaccine decision by RFK Jr's "health" gang... FDA refuses to review Moderna’s influenza vaccine www.statnews.com/2026/02/10/f... @matthewherper.bsky.social via @statnews.com

Whoever does Santa's logistics is the final boss of the Travelling Salesman Problem

This is pathetic by the University of Oklahoma; If you acquiesce like this to obvious hard-right grifters, they will be emboldened to erode things further. Popper's paradox of tolerance strikes again, institutions cannot make the mistake of trying to entertain those who exist to undermine them..

CNN@cnn.com · 10mo ago

The University of Oklahoma has removed an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and argued that promoting a “belief in multiple genders” was “demonic.” https://cnn.it/4b6g3rd

The FDA made this assertion without releasing an iota of data to support it or uttering a word about risk-benefit. This is what science by press release looks like, a damning indictment of the ideological capture RFK Jr has enforced www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/h...

F.D.A. Attributes 10 Children’s Deaths to Covid Vaccines

nytimes.com

Happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate. The perfect opportunity to remember the 1997 Macy's parade, when Barney the dinosaur committed public seppuku and the Cat in the Hat put someone into a Coma.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Ma...

Who the hell was stupid enough to think that giving Robert F Kennedy power over medical scientists would make him listen to them? No - mendacious idealouges like him always abuse that power to force their lies on everyone else. We fucking told you so www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Hard-right love "Ireland being overrun" narrative on immigration. But as @fotoole13.bsky.social notes, actual numbers small: here's log-plot of raw inward migration [2024-2025] in terms of Croke Park. As @csoireland.bsky.social explain, net immigration falling too.. t.co/lxq09kU7XU

"Make America Healthy Again" will make not only America but the entire world sicker. RJK Jr and the MAGA movement are modern Lysenkoists, and the consequences of their anti-science agenda will be severe, as I write in @emboreports.org www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

So @jamesheathers.bsky.social & I answer the burning question: does Cake cause Herpes? No, but one can torture the data to give that impression, and that's a problem. Promiscuous dichotomisation in biomedical science hugely increases spurious findings, best avoided link.springer.com/article/10.1...