bad news for fans of children www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/h...

Kennedy Scales Back the Number of Vaccines Recommended for Children

nytimes.com

1). The US is in the middle of the worst flu season in a decade. 2). Pertussis cases are the highest they have been in 20 years. 3). Measles has rebounded and elimination status has been lost. RFK.Jr. has not recommended vaccination, instead he is aggressively rolling back vaccine policy.

No matter how some undermine and pervert and obscure the truth, it *remains*. The tragedy to mourn isn't *just* the loss of our anchor to reality, it's the entirely preventable suffering that will now be *promoted* because of it. www.nytimes.com/.../vaccine-....

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

Acting with all the precision of a dull ax dissecting an earthworm...🙄 And what will the consequence be? My prediction: poorer outbreak response, poorer support for local health departments, poorer public health for Americans. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h... www.wired.com/story/cdc-te...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

nytimes.com

The Trump administration on Saturday scrambled to rescind layoffs of hundreds of CDC scientists who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

nytimes.com

Worth remembering in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder (when many of my *Catholic* HS classmates were eager to suspend the legal rights of "leftists"), that we've covered this ground before...& St. Thomas More was pretty clear about the illogic ~500 years ago... www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBi...

A Man for All Seasons - The Devil Speech

YouTube video by dniete97

youtube.com

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

What’s that about waste,fraud, and abuse? THIS IS ABUSE

CDC Inaction Stalls COVID Shots for Low-Income Kids

Meanwhile, vaccines for insured kids are already available

medpagetoday.com

Part III: There's still something missing; the *value* of truth-seeking motivates *how* we do good science...but what about *why*? There's a cultural *rot* prizing selfishness & control over other people, mixed with ignorance & pride, that we have to reckon with, too. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/o...

Opinion | Why Young Men Are Losing Faith in Science

nytimes.com

Part II: more to be said about how academics often miss the point, following Bloom's piece... {https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-arent-professors-braver} But I think there's a lot more going on than what another academic (a sociologist) notes here: *values*... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

Opinion | What 20 Years of Listening to Vaccine-Hesitant Parents Has Taught Me

nytimes.com

Part I: *All* academics should read this & reflect, as I will. What's the role of academic culture in stifling healthy & necessary confrontation...and how do we shift it? #AcademicSky #MedSky www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Why Aren’t Professors Braver?

Fear and self-censorship in academe.

chronicle.com

What is Pam Bondi actually doing in today’s “ending political violence against ICE” memo? I take you through it, tonight at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/a-rather-b...

If they can do it under far worse conditions than we have here, so can you. apnews.com/article/mold...  Moldova’s pro-EU party wins clear parliamentary majority, defeating pro-Russian groups

Moldova’s pro-EU party wins clear parliamentary majority, defeating pro-Russian groups

Moldova’s pro-Western governing party has won a clear parliamentary majority, defeating pro-Russian groups in an election that was widely viewed as a stark choice between East and West.

apnews.com

WATCH: “They’re not strong. If you’re strong you don’t feel the need to do this level of suppression of dissent. When you’re confident in what you’re presenting you don’t need to do this stuff.” Hasan & @timheidecker.bsky.social on the Trump regime’s authoritarian crackdown

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...

Are Childhood Vaccines ‘Overloading’ the Immune System? No.

nytimes.com

There's a lot to say about the scientific illiteracy, hucksterism, & plain ol' predatory populism here...but before we can better educate the ill-informed, we have to have people who *want* to understand the science (& then, who are *capable* of understanding it). 🤷🏾‍♂️🙁 www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Trump Ignores Science by Linking Autism to Vaccines and a Common Painkiller

nytimes.com

Withdrawing from the War on Cancer: an extraordinarily successful scientific research system that took decades to build, saved millions of lives and generated billions of dollars in profits is being dismantled in short order. @jonathanmahler.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/m...

Trump Is Shutting Down the War On Cancer

nytimes.com

Kinda hilarious anyone wants to pretend these people are motivated by anything other than barbarous cruelty & violence. It's *grotesque*. America empowered the worst of its own in electing Trump, and in turn, he has empowered the worst of America. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

He should never have been confirmed by the Senate in the first place...& he's unlikely to resign or be fired...but that doesn't mean scientists shouldn't continue stating the facts & calling out this cult of disinformation & death. Thank you, @idsainfo.bsky.social www.idsociety.org/news--public...

Whether Americans find the warnings persuasive or not, it doesn't change the terrible *reality* that we all face, or the knowledge, expertise, & credibility of these authors. It's important for scientists to keep speaking truth to power, if only to avoid complicity. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

nytimes.com

The newly ousted director of the CDC refused to fire top agency leaders or approve changes to vaccines from RFK Jr.’s hand-picked panel of advisers.

Monarez refused to fire top CDC leaders, ‘rubber-stamp’ vaccine changes, confidante says

The former CDC director was ousted late Wednesday after refusing to resign despite pressure from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

politico.com

Gupta: Here’s why this matters: 1. Because the FDA indications have changed, if I prescribe it to you, I’m opening myself up to a lawsuit. He directly signals that… 2. A pharmacist is no longer able to prescribe and administer a COVID-19 booster that doesn’t meet indications.

New, from me: America is no longer a functioning democracy. It is a competitive authoritarian system, hurtling rapidly toward authoritarianism. This was a hard piece to write but we can't move forward if we don’t acknowledge where we are. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...

The authoritarian checklist

It is time to admit that America is no longer a functioning democracy

donmoynihan.substack.com

This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions.

Opinion | Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force

nytimes.com

To get a sense of how scientists/public health officials feel, think about what you felt when you saw Notre Dame burn. The collective history, heritage, & culture- the work of *generations*- being destroyed in the blink of an eye. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/h... www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/r...

C.D.C. Standoff: Kennedy’s Push to Fire Director Devolves Into Chaos

nytimes.com

Even if many of us are still relatively insulated from the chaos...do we realize how far gone our society is? Whether you've noticed, the continued degradation of the rule of law here is no trivial thing... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/u...

Governor Pritzker Challenges Trump’s Threat to Send Troops to Chicago

nytimes.com

Larry Summers: "This is way beyond anything Nixon ever did ... this is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism. Firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers, launching assaults on universities, launching assaults on law firms. This is really scary stuff."

A #DailyShow interview worth a watch & reflection: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5kX... Reputable organizations if you wish to donate: donate.wck.org/give/525879/... www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-r... Call your Representative/Senators & tell them what you think: www.congress.gov/contact-us

Peter Beinart - "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning" | The Daily Show

YouTube video by The Daily Show

youtube.com

This is also why those who say *science* mustn't be "political" miss the point. Science itself isn't political. But its *implications* & the actions it informs or indicts *are*...because politics are how free societies act (or don't). www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/o...

Opinion | We Will Regret Not Standing Up to This Venomous Cruelty

nytimes.com