Robert Brehm

publish or perish 🤷‍♀️

In rural America, scarce doctors battle misinformation as they practice medicine Conspiracy theories about health fill a vacuum created by the lack of doctors in many rural communities. Meanwhile, doctors in these areas say patients have become increasingly distrustful and sometimes hostile.

Conspiracy theories about health fill a vacuum created by the lack of doctors in many rural communities. Meanwhile, doctors in these areas say patients have become increasingly distrustful and sometimes hostile. n.pr/4nRqsdT

Ouch @sammonson.com - tough beat flipping from the Pats to Cowboys in the Survivor pool

new polls website just dropped fiftyplusone.news

Kennedy reups unproven Tylenol-autism link during Cabinet meeting Health Secretary Robert F

"We're doing the studies to make the proof."

This is the first lesson you learn in Pseudoscience 101. Followed by "well actually, correlation *is* causation."

abcnews.go.com/Politics/wir...

Demercado drops the ball ahead of the goal line. Make it make sense @sammonson.com

Cumulative measles cases reported in the U.S. in 2025

publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/resourc...

When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900 The world is in a “wave of autocratization.” Yet, recent events in Brazil, the Maldives, and Zambia demonstrate that autocratization can be halted and reversed. This article introduces “U-Turn” as ...

“52% of all autocratization episodes become U-Turns, which increases to 73% when focusing on the last 30 years. The vast majority of U-Turns (90%) lead to restored or even improved levels of democracy”

V-Dem data

Monarez: "Kennedy demanded 2 things of me that were were inconsistent w/ my oath of office. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause"

Participating The Evaluation of Publication in Political Research study is open to serious producers and consumers of political research, including faculty in institutions of higher education, doctoral students,…

colleagues in political science. the formal update to the Garand and Giles journal ranking survey is now live. many of you will receive an email momentarily inviting you to participate. in the event you do NOT receive an invitation, please see this website to self-enroll. thanks! sharing = caring!

The worst takes from a bad week The Free Press, about to take over CBS News, blames universities for American political violence

New, from me:
It was a terrible week, one that inspired some truly awful takes. The worst was the effort by Bari Weiss and The Free Press to smear universities as "the biggest culprits" to blame American political violence, with faculty training "jihadis."
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

Viewpoint: Four tips for understanding this week’s ACIP meeting

The Vaccine Integrity Project thought it would be good to provide 4 helpful reminders, such as VAERS data do not prove causation

www.cidrap.umn.edu/v...

Parental support for school vaccine mandates remains high in US

Earlier this month, Kennedy told the media that he does not believe the federal government should mandate any vaccine.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/m...

I never want shootings on campus to happen and I never want to see them on social media.

Incredible parallels in this Berinsky &
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism

gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...

Figure 2 from https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMsb2506929

FDA is authorizing anybody with a risk factor from this list to receive the vaccines, as well as anybody 65+.

If you guys didnt find the crazy Jags v Giants preseason ending yet to get the players names

www.instagram.com/reel/DND5JGM...

Then and now in color.
Minor Threat in 1981 and 2018

#punk #punks #punkrock #punklegends #hardcorepunk #minorthreat #history #punkrockhistory

Dan, I wanted to thank you for an excellent event, and for graciously sticking around to shake hands / briefly chat with us. Thank you for all the amazing podcasts over the years (going back to when I actually had them on a device with pod in the name).

Can't wait for Alexander part 3!

Screening in emergency departments could help boost vaccine coverage, survey suggests

The survey of adults in 10 US EDs found 86% were not up to date with recommended vaccines, but nearly half said they would be willing to get a missing shot if offered.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/a...

RESULT: Democrats have defended a state Senate seat in Rhode Island by a margin of 82% to 16%. So that's a victory by 66 percentage points.

Harris had carried this district by 11 percentage points in November. This is the 2nd biggest overperformance for Democrats so far this year.

Horrific. mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives and could save millions more.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a UMN expert on infectious diseases & pandemic preparations.
www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-va...

HHS further constrains certain vaccine advisers to the CDC, limiting their input in evidence reviews | CNN In a further jolt to the process of reviewing and recommending vaccines at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another group of outside advisers to the agency was abruptly sidelined thi...

They really won’t stop until every expert has been removed from any aspect of vaccination in America.

www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/h...

The Texas redistricting. No, the other one. All this has happened before, and it all will happen again

New at Tusk: Texas Republicans did the exact same thing in 2003 and paid no price for it. So here we are again.

One of the more interesting questions about the new Texas maps is whether Ds can mount serious campaigns in these newly competitive districts and begin to revive the Dem Party in Texas. Long term we have to learn how to make FL or TX competitive. This overreach could jumpstart that process in TX.

Looking forward to the Raleigh event!

At its core, science is about methodically and rigorously determining what is true. Authoritarians rely on destroying anyone’s ability to readily know the truth. They confuse facts and opinions on purpose. Scientists are trained to identify the difference.

Youngkin ran the best statewide campaign of any Republican in the decade I’ve lived in Virginia. Sears is running the worst. She’s completely MIA. Spanberger is going to win by double digits. Republicans are in trouble in the General Assembly, too.

Those South Park guys just showed us how politics is downstream of culture

🚨 New publication! 🚨

With Kirill Zhirkov, we test whether using term “illegal” vs. “undocumented” shifts immigration opinion.

In Research & Politics, we find no causal effect -- but preferred terms still reflect underlying ideology.

📖 Open access: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...