It's official! Now I just need to find somewhere that values expertise in analyzing outbreaks and disease surveillance.
Seth Edmunds
@phealthy.bsky.social
Epidemiology PhD, MPH --- interested in infectious disease dynamics and novel surveillance systems
Don't search pubmed for recent ivermectin covid studies
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayRon Johnson: "Aaron Rodgers was smart enough to take ivermectin when he got covid ... unfortunately, more people didn't follow him. We wouldn't have had as many of athletes falling unconscious, sometimes dead on the field of play. You've seen the video reels of this happening in 2021."
I majored in med micro at Wyoming in college and was taught parasitology right alongside bacteriology. Aside from flotation/culture, what's all that different?
Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · yesterdayIt was run by classical bacteria-type microbiologists! Bless their hearts, they didn't know what they didn't know. Testing for parasites is a whole different ball game with wildly different equipment & skill sets needed. They thought reason the tests didn't work was because I was stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
WIP as I figure out how to parse all the different state county data. Anyone from Ohio or Kansas know of any secret little repos I can't find? Manual PDF data exports and private Tableau CSVs aren't fun. sethmund.github.io/cyclospora-e...
Cyclosporiasis — United States, state and county
sethmund.github.io
I will be advertising a funded PhD studentship shortly, for a project on adding psychological theory (social identity) to modelling of epidemics ( @leverhulme.ac.uk funded, with Marijn Stok). The studentship will start in January 2027. Get in touch now for informal enquiries.
Study suggests no link between MMR vaccination before age 2 and autism. The findings reinforce existing evidence of the safety of MMR vaccination, the authors say. Read more: https://bit.ly/3TEwYKQ
I know measles is starting to cook off again and cyclospora is well on fire. But let's not forget global health, something is brewing in India... timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedab...
Chandipura virus claims 22 children in Gujarat this monsoon; 35 cases confirmed
AHMEDABAD: As many as 22 children have died due to Chandipura virus (CHPV) in Gujarat this monsoon season, with 35 cases testing positive out of 184 suspected infections, state health minister Praful ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
My ELI5 comment on r/askscience describing various pathogenic causes of diarrhea: "Your small intestine is basically a low pile carpet, giardia and cyclospora are like putting Saran wrap on it and you make very stinky beer in your colon.
NPR@npr.org · 3d agoCyclospora, the parasite that has sickened thousands this summer in the U.S., requires time in the human digestive tract to reproduce. n.pr/4fHlFc8
So what's the word on the water plant "hacks"? Is it a widespread shutdown issue?
These sentiments are a real shame, there's always an inherent risk that most people never bother to think about. The Jack in the Box outbreak ushered in a new era of foodborne disease surveillance, our society just forgot to be diligent.
Greg Todd@1gregtodd.bsky.social · 6d agoFor the first time in my lengthy life I don’t trust the U.S. food supply.
TMZ founder defends Fauci, have to say I'm liking their direction these days. Just don't read the comment section. youtu.be/6zaOVjGyCNI?...
This Is Personal
YouTube video by TMZ
youtu.be
I'm excited to share a preprint that's been years in the making: the idea took shape during the COVID pandemic. Anecdotally, people would sometimes spread COVID at work but not at home, and vice versa. Why? One explanation would be if infectiousness is fleeting...
How bursty infectiousness shapes epidemic dynamics
An epidemic’s expected course is determined by the magnitude and timing of a typical person’s infectiousness — captured, in turn, by the basic reproduction number and the generation-time distribution....
medrxiv.org
Sen Scott rapid firing questions and now launches into slimeball attacks. Garbage human
I prefer pissed off Blumenthal but this is probably better for draining energy from the hearing
Dem Senators really need to use more pictures and charts, people don't care about rants that bounce around the headlines
Johnson just going full antivax VAERS just getting thrown around like it's hard data. "Experimental gene therapy"
Ugh Rand Paul just stating lab leak as a proven fact. I hope Fauci goes 5th Amendment for every question I love it
Sequencing is the eventual tool to connect cases but during the outbreak it will be shoe leather epi, microscopy, and PCR.
CIDRAP@cidrap.bsky.social · last wk.CIDRAP Op-Ed: The Cyclospora outbreak was, and still is, a communications failure The response to the current outbreak is a communications failure, not a failure of the investigation. Full Op-Ed by @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social's Jess Steier: https://bit.ly/3RkfD9n 📷: Water Alternatives/Flickr cc
Someone wanna teach Jay about proving a negative?
Alicia Ault@aliciaault.bsky.social · 2w agoCDC has updated its vaccine safety pages. Now says: "The claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism." Whoa #EpiSky #pediatrics #NeuroSky #PsychSky
I'm from Wyoming, I wonder if I could convince 100k to vote for me
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w agoSen. Cynthia Lummis dramatically says "I don't know" when asked by Fox News if Ossoff and Warnock were duty elected
Again total misunderstanding of public health surveillance. FoodNet monitors trends, cyclospora is still on NNDSS which with CDC budget cuts/stagnation especially regarding ELC directly impacts state capacity. And the same issue with FSIS. Congress really needs an epidemiologist.
Ossoff's Office@ossoff.senate.gov · 2w agoSen. Ossoff slams HHS Secretary RFK Jr. after he terminated the CDC's required surveillance of the parasite causing cyclosporiasis: "Your foolish and self-indulgent demolition of critical public health programs puts Americans at risk. The Trump Administration is actively undermining food safety."
The trouble with articles like these is that they never come close to the nuance required to understand the difficulty and bottlenecks. The Dr. Barratt interview was distilled to "staff cuts at lab". Okay, explain what DPDM lab does. What does FoodNet do? NORS? FSIS? DCIPHER? Multiplex panels?
Emily Mullin@emilymullin.bsky.social · 2w agoIf you're a current or former employee at CDC or FDA in a food safety role, I'm interested in speaking with you for a story for @wired.com. You can reach me securely at emullin.06 on Signal.
Definitely one of the better articles, someone should compare and contrast CDC budgets (ELC allocation if they can find it) proposed by presidents and what gets approved by Congress. IIRC, Trump proposed to cut the CDC in half but Congress eventually settled with a relatively slight decrease.
Melody Schreiber@melodyschreiber.com · 3w agoA lot of attention has gone to Kennedy making cyclosporiasis optional for FoodNet reporting. But cuts to state and local health departments -- and the loss of CDC expertise -- are a much bigger deal. My latest: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
I need to find out how to consult for these articles. No mention of the 2020 outbreak that likely pointed to agricultural water (I doubt we ever find the actual source). And a misunderstanding that Foodnet's whole deal is source attribution not early detection of cases.
Outbreak Investigation of Cyclospora (June 2020)
CDC announces the end of the outbreak; FDA continues its investigation.
fda.gov
Judy Stone@drjudystone.bsky.social · 3w agoMy latest: It’s The Water, Not Produce, Likely Driving Cyclospora Outbreaks via @forbes www.forbes.com/sites/judyst... #Cyclospora #FoodSafety #irrigation #WaterContamination #DOGE Special thanks to @migrantclinicians.bsky.social for their insights
He's not trying to dismantle it, he's trying to unscrupulously steal government funds
Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 3w agoRFK Jr. asked the National Institute of Health to dedicate $5 billion (!) to finding a link between vaccines and autism. "That would have dedicated more than a tenth of the NIH’s annual budget to investigating a hypothesis already refuted by scientists worldwide."
Lots of friends and family asking me about what's up with foodborne surveillance not doing it's job and I've been pointing back to this 2025 article:
The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses
As of July 1, a critical surveillance program is monitoring for only two pathogens instead of the usual eight.
nbcnews.com
