“I will say it right now, that people — parents should get their children vaccinated for measles,” … “A measles vaccine is effective. It stops measles in about 97 percent of the cases. So people should get vaccinated,” Kennedy said. The rest of the interview was nuts but 👍 to the quote above.

RFK Jr. says parents should vaccinate children against measles

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday endorsed the measles vaccine while also pushing a string of false and debunked assertions about other vaccines, RSV and the ongoi…

thehill.com

“So let’s make it a kind of smell test for any Republican that Musk and his “America PAC” are supporting. A GOP candidate who stinks of Musk must be …against average working Americans. Keep your nose to the ground. If you get a whiff of Musk, alert your family, friends, neighbors, and associates.”

The Stink of Musk

It should cling to any candidate he's supporting

open.substack.com

Like the paper bully that picks on an even weaker kid after someone stands up to him, I worry that Trump is gonna start another war (Cuba?) to try to show he’s tough and that losing in Iran is fake news. I fear he’s too vain to let losing in Iran be the last statement on his military legacy.

How China Won the Iran War

Trump has shattered American power, and Beijing is picking up the pieces

open.substack.com

A spoiler: Donnie Jr. And their website comes complete with a “youth firearms” section. Get ‘em hooked young. 🙄

Rise and Resist@riseandresist.bsky.social · 2w ago

@lawyeroyer.com Trump’s DOJ is making it possible to buy a gun online and have it delivered directly to your doorstep. A company called GrabAGun stands to reap big profits. You’ll never guess who owns it.

🤔… 👍

John Herlig (@jherlig)

A million times… THIS 👇🏻

substack.com

We need Yale and other big endowment schools to stand together. The small endowment schools simply don’t have the $ to fight the federal government. Our faculty, students, and alums can fight w/ votes and protests, but that’s a different battleground. We should all care abt what’s going on there.

Gregg Gonsalves@gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 3d ago

Need to have some frank talk about #Yale President McInnis, General Counsel Alexander Dreier and the trustees. First, they keep saying that they are compelled to enter into a settlement with the #Trump administration. Untrue. 1/

It’s a sh**show of an interview but Dana Bash just had RFK jr say twice that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective and that parents should get their kids vaxed for measles.

Just 16 of our measles cases in the US were brought here by non-US residents. 16. I’ve heard numerous times in the last two years the slanderous trope that our increase in measles was occurring because of unchecked immigration from low income/ low vax countries. Nice to see the cdc debunk it.

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 5d ago

The confirmed #measles case count so far this year is now 2371, in only 7 months, compared to 2289 in all of 2025. Only 7 states haven't reported cases in 2026. Only 16 of these cases were imported, #CDC reports. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

Just to add on here, last year 89% of those pediatric flu deaths occurred in kids who didn’t receive their flu shots. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes...

Influenza-Associated Pediatric Deaths ...

This report describes pediatric deaths during the 2024–25 influenza season.

cdc.gov

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 5d ago

#CDC has been alerted to 2 more kids who died from #influenza last winter. They bring to 190 the number of confirmed pediatric #flu deaths in 2025-26. This in a year in which Health Sec. Kennedy told CDC to drop its recommendation that kids 6 months & older get flu shots. www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv...

As someone pro-union, this gives me pause. "...the introduction of collective bargaining rights [of police unions] significantly increases the number of civilians killed by police, particularly among non-White civilians, while having limited effects on officer safety." The magnitude is abt 14%.

Infantino and Trump, two grifting peas in a pod. “FIFA is working with multinational financial services firm J.P. Morgan while investors would include Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, whose brother Jared Kushner is a son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.”

UEFA blasts FIFA proposal to allow for $10B in World Cup private investment

UEFA has rejected a reported FIFA proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors as a "line that football's governing institutions should never cross" and that the World Cup is "not FIFA's to sell."

espn.com

Ugh! Cleveland dir of public health, Dr David Margolius just said on cnn that their current rate of measles vax is abt 75%. We’re already at the highest # of cases since early 90s in just 7 months. This is going to continue getting worse as measles will eventually find all the low vax populations.

Between the years 2000 and 2010 there were only 2 years with more than 100 measles cases across the entire US (2001 w/ 116 and 2008 w/140). This year, we already have 7 STATES with more than 100 cases.

“Putting all of this together, we can see the danger of the clustering of these non-medical vaccine exemptions, that the American Academy of Pediatrics has argued should be eliminated. “ 🧵

Troy Tassier@troytassier.bsky.social · 3w ago

Good article! Relatedly, you find even more clustering of unvaxed kids in individual schools and school districts (instead of counties). Importantly, the clustering nearly disappeared when CA did away with/ personal belief and religious exemptions. Some data a student of mine put together for CA.

Important article and thread on something I knew little about. “ERISA magnifies those barriers by limiting patients’ legal ability to hold health insurers accountable – instead giving them a free pass to keep denying coverage without facing real consequences.”

Miranda Yaver@mirandayaver.bsky.social · last mo.

In my latest piece for The Conversation, I wrote on how ERISA constitutes the legal underpinnings of so many health insurance barriers that occupy our attention, undercutting health insurer accountability. This is the subject of my next book, The Health Care Trap theconversation.com/how-health-i...

The antivax movement's penchant for confirmation bias has often resulted in embarrassment, but this is a new one. But when you're convinced that anything/everything about vaccines could be harmful, regardless of all the good sci out there, perhaps unsurprising they didn't care to scrutinize this. 🧭🛟

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · last mo.

On one hand, it seems astounding that RFK Jr.’s anti-vax organization didn’t vet her before including her in a lawsuit against AAP, in which she claimed that vaccines killed her twins. On the other, it shows the endless capacity of anti-vaxxers to take the word of a random person over facts.

Good overview of the new, concerning changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that advises the CDC on US vaccination policy. 🛟😷 health policy idsky polisky sociology

New Charter Unveiled for CDC's Influential Vaccine Committee

Changes to rules governing ACIP could inject more politicization, experts warn

medpagetoday.com

From KFF: "ACA Marketplace Enrollment Is Down By 3 Million After Big Jump in Premium Payments" ACA enrollments fell from 22 million to 19 million, a 13% decrease. Easiest way to kill the ACA is to make it too expensive - which, of course, is the Trump/ GOP goal here.

ACA Marketplace Enrollment Is Down By 3 Million After Big Jump in Premium Payments

New federal data released Friday, June 26 shows ACA Marketplace Enrollment dropped 13% following the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits at the beginning of this year.

open.substack.com

Which obviously tells us the ridiculous degree of corruption in this admin (as if we didn’t already know).

Olga Nesterova@onestpress.onestnetwork.com · last mo.

JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy." (via A. Rupar)

bsky.app/profile/stev...

@steve3797.bsky.social · last mo.

What was gained from DOGE? Does _anyone_ feel benefits of the cuts? Is the gov more efficient? Or are we just left with a lot of talented and valuable people unemployed bc of a political agenda, and, in the case of USAID, literally millions of people dead & billions worse off and at risk of death.

Yep.

And I suppose that original contractor is going to receive another few million to restore the pool to the perfect, just prefect, pre-vandalism state.

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · last mo.

This is just batshit crazy. You got to be pretty deep into the cult to buy this nonsense. bsky.app/profile/atru...

W/ so many of our social means of learning & communication corrupted by oligarchs, colleges & universities are going to become more important in the fight against inequality. Where else will people learn & gather info? However that’s a scary proposition when so many have rolled over for Trump et.al.

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The richest man owns X. The second and third richest men control Google. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. The seventh richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?

Excited to read this! “Health and medical care were not direct targets of the neoliberal revolution. Still, the broad impact of this revolution could not leave our health and medical care systems unaffected. The results are the distress and mess that we see all over US health and medicine today.”

About my upcoming book: America’s Wrong Turn: US Healthcare in the Neoliberal Era

A labor of love and truth

open.substack.com

Under appreciated point: “The point of trade is not to sell. The point of trade is to get stuff. You sell as a way to pay for things that you get from other countries.” Ex: You sell your time to an employer, not because you value selling it, but because of the “stuff” you get from your income.

Power and Geopolitics After Trump

A preview of a talk I'm giving

open.substack.com

Thrilled to be back working with Robin Coleman and @hopkinspress.bsky.social on my new project. Thanks to Kristina Perez and Isabel Lineberry at Perez Literary and Entertainment. Excited to get to work in a summer of writing!

Thrilled to be back working with Robin Coleman and @hopkinspress.bsky.social on my new project. Thanks to Kristina Perez and Isabel Lineberry at Perez Literary and Entertainment. Excited to get to work in a summer of writing!

My story on America's regressive, new reality is now up @kffhealthnews.org (without a paywall) kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...

Anguished Parents. Doctors in Tears. Utah’s Long Measles Outbreak Takes a Toll. - KFF Health News

Measles has been spreading in Utah for nearly a year, straining hospitals, schools, and parents. The state’s outbreak provides a glimpse into a new era in America’s health, in which vaccine-preventabl...

kffhealthnews.org

Amy Maxmen, PhD@amymaxmen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I went to Utah to see what life is like in America's new reality, where vaccine-preventable diseases are common again. Utah's measles outbreak has lasted 10 months. Pediatricians teared up in interviews. Mothers were stressed. 🧵My latest @wired.com @kffhealthnews.org www.wired.com/story/anguis...