Jessica Briggs

A remarkably disheartening thing is you get the sense there are a handful of genuine historic fork in the road moments of what kind of country we want in our lifetime, and I still can’t shake how much during the height of Covid we had a decision of what lessons we’d all take from it and what…

This is the key point - it's not about Moderna's flu vaccine, it's about sending a signal to the rest of the industry that vaccine development isn't viable in the US. It's all part of the larger anti-vaccine agenda.

"The authoritarian violence happening now is occurring in conjunction with a totalizing project from the far right and its corporate allies that, among other things, seeks to destroy public health and healthcare in the US and leave the carcass of what is left to the private sector to devour."

Until Miller’s gone these are just gestural purges to sanitize and consolidate his reign of terror.

Every time a Trumpist or Right-wing shitbird yawps about free speech, remember they are lying trash who would use state force to suppress your speech in a heartbeat if it suited their ideology or mood.
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In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.

The existence of this agency, staffed the way it is today, is just completely incompatible with a democratic society.

this sickness must be eradicated from public life

This is, in my opinion, not only the correct moral/ethical/legal position but also the correct political framing. Everyone can see the agency is out of control; everyone can see that it is constantly violating human rights. "Scrap it and start over" is the moderate position.

there's no answer to the question 'what's it gonna take?' but that doesn't stop it from popping into my head every goddamn time I look at the news

Blame them and everyone who elevated them.

Multi-year funding is a dirty trick by #RussellVought. This way the #Trump administration can say they're spending what Congress appropriated for research, BUT they'll only fund 1/5 the number of grants. Call your Senators/Reps now. Science hangs in the balance. H/T @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social

Demand Restoration of Essential Addiction and Mental Health Funding ⭑ 5 Calls Around midnight on January 13, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) sent grant terminations for as many as 2,800 …

URGENT! Call your Senators and Representatives. #Trump and #RFKJr just slashed two billion dollars in funding for addiction and mental health services. Thanks to @5calls.org and @defendpublichealth.bsky.social for taking the lead on this. 5calls.org/issue/samhsa...

conservatives: remote learning is the worst thing that ever happened

also conservatives: we will invade an american city and send armed goons to its campuses to the point that they are forced to reinstitute remote learning

10000% this

This approach, of course, is quite familiar to communities that have been dealing with police abuses for as long as there have been professional police forces. In 2000, then–New York City Mayor and future Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani justified the killing of the Haitian American Patrick Dorismond by police by quipping that he was “no altar boy.” Embarrassingly for Giuliani, whose capacity for shame was overestimated even then, it turned out that Dorismond had literally been an altar boy. Dorismond’s mother responded to the campaign to justify her son’s killing with an observation that continues to haunt me decades later. “They kill,” Dorismond said, “and after that, they kill him the other way—with the mouth.” Taking Good’s life wasn’t enough. The moment she died, it became imperative for the administration to also destroy her memory.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

ice agents simply aren't trained well enough to be on the street. they are a genuine danger to citizens

Global health discourse has spent 2025 treating the U.S. as withdrawing from the world. But that's not quite true: we're blackmailing countries for 25-year deals to own their data, and running unethical experiments on children in Africa. We cannot move forward as though the only problem is absence

The anti-Semitic mass shooting in Australia will cause a national conversation and policy change. We know this because the 1996 Port Arthur massacre led to significant restrictions on guns.
The shooting at Brown will do nothing. We know this because it occurred on the anniversary of Sandy Hook.

Statement on the Brown University shooting.

As a liver doctor who has treated patients with hepatitis B for decades, this change to the vaccine schedule is a mistake. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective. The birth dose is a recommendation, NOT a mandate. Bill Cassidy on X Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20. Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker. Acting CDC Director O’Neill should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence-based approach.

Voted yes on RFK Jr when he could have voted no.

Continues to hedge, when he could act.

Not just a tragedy for America, but, given the central place the US occupies in the research ecosystem, a tragedy for the world.

Interactive AIDS Quilt The National AIDS Memorial, through a partnership with the AIDS Quilt Touch team, presents all 48,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interactive experience People around the world can experie...

“The National AIDS Memorial, through a partnership with the AIDS Quilt Touch team, presents all 50,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interactive experience so people around the world can experience the beauty of the Quilt and witness the love and stories stitched into each panel.”

I can't read this as anything other than a direct assault on the vaccine industry. Full stop. They are laying the groundwork to prevent all vaccine R&D. Not directly, but by requiring study designs for approval that are scientifically unnecessary and financially inviable.

i deeply enjoy the legal news these days since it's the one place where competence still seems to matter and these bozos get their comeuppance regularly

As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings. Hundreds of N.I.H. grants and clinical trials were cancelled, affecting thousands of patients. I worried about funding for leukemia and bone-marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I worried about the trials that were my only shot at remission. Early in my illness, when I

Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

The extent of the damage done to public health, biomedical science, and healthcare in the US in less than a year will take a generation or more to repair. This is the scale of the destruction. Let that sink in. A new president, Congress won't be enough to reverse things fully. It's that bad.

no more paylines anymore, just vibes
grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

Remind us @nytimes.com, who is it that is ruining the workplace?

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Look, I know this weaponization of male academic interest is the oldest story in the book, but it’s just so, so pernicious. It’s awful to the women directly involved, but it’s also awful to *all* women in the academy, who have to live in its shadow all the time.