Alex Sundermann, DrPH

Beautiful & brilliant! Just bought one 👀🦠

😂

Such a wild story!

3 human cases of NDM-CRE likely acquired from their respective pets who likely acquired it from a veterinary hospital outbreak!

Big reason for animal and human cases to be compared

Paper: academic.oup.com/cid/advance-...

#IDSky

Reporting via @cvdall.bsky.social

#IDWeek2025: I always procrastinate registering/booking travel for conferences... I guess I should get on this now 😬

Who from #IDSky will be going?!

You've heard me talk about it.
You've seen me write about it.
And now it's your chance to pre-order my forthcoming book Coverage Denied!

Combining survey & administrative data with extensive interviews, my book highlights the harms caused by coverage barriers. Hope you'll read it!
cup.org/4nfM2IM

A fine balance between diagnostic stewardship & @dandiekema.bsky.social brings in great perspective at end:

"There are initiatives … which are driven by laudable aims and can be helpful to patients, but they can also go overboard and be harmful if they fail to detect infections when they ought to"

Hospitals get dinged for reporting too many infections. In some cases, the solution is not to test A STAT Investigation: To avoid fines for reporting excessive hospital-acquired infections, some facilities are discouraging testing.

STAT digging into HAIs, NHSN reporting, and avoidance

Great piece on the debacle of penalties driving undertesting and underreporting

Brings me back to my days as an IP, knowing that CDC NHSN manual like the back of my hand #IDSky

via @tarabannow.bsky.social ⤵️
www.statnews.com/2025/09/22/h...

And still not recognized by current political leadership 🫠

IDWeek Social Media Meet-Up October 19, 2025 7:30 PM-10:00 PM Lobby Bar at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta Georgia World Congress Center

Come join #IDSky at the unofficial @idweek.bsky.social Social Media Meet-Up!

All are welcome.

CDC has been ‘censored’ and ‘politicized’ under RFK Jr., former officials plan to say Two former top CDC officials plan to deliver fiery testimony about how RFK Jr. has undermined the agency.

NEW: CDC has been ‘censored’ and ‘politicized’ under RFK Jr., former officials plan to tell senators

www.statnews.com/2025/09/16/c...

In DC (for my first time) for a conference. Reached out to my Senator’s office and asked to share my personal concerns on science and public health. Had a great discussion!

Personal stories are often more impactful than data and numbers. That was my goal to share today

*tapping the sign*

VAERS own website (still) says ‘don’t this this with this dataset’

This is the best news I’ve heard all week

My colleague @sundermannaj.bsky.social and I discussed in The Hill why GOP attacks on AHRQ are both dangerous and misguided, and based on an incorrect claim that its functions are duplicative. Postdoctoral training programs will be cut. Health systems research will suffer thehill.com/opinion/heal...

@mirandayaver.bsky.social and I have an op-ed out today in The Hill on why cutting AHRQ is a dangerous move.

From its work in patient safety and HAIs to funding research grants and to its support of the USPSTF - AHRQ has repeatedly shown its value
thehill.com/opinion/heal...

Our new paper in @ichejournal.bsky.social: a cluster of healthcare-associated Burkholderia sola infections via WGS

➡️ B sola is a newly described BCC species
➡️ We detected 2 infxs via donor derived lung Tx + forward transmission

#IDSky
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Interesting concept to ‘start your own prepared meal company’ in 60-days by using the service.

Certain Metabolic Meals home delivery foods reported in ongoing Salmonella outbreak investigation Sixteen people in ten states have gotten sick from the same strain of <em>Salmonella</em>.

Curious point about this new Salmonella outbreak: the implicated company (Metabolic Meals) uses another company (HealthSpan Foods) which actually MAKES the meals

So is it the brand problem or the manufacturer problem or even the supplier problem?
www.cdc.gov/media/releas...

Thanks for this. I’ve never liked when people say “he was a heroin addict!” to be the rationale he’s unqualified whereas it’s the million of other reasons, and this line of thinking degrades so many trying to maintain the recovery process

Friday highlight: getting a new sticker in the mail today from @drrossanarosa.bsky.social to add to the new laptop 😎👏🏻

Clean the shared equipment!

👀Peek “not today MRSA” too!

#IDSky

Self portrait 😂 gotta frame it

Spurious Correlations Correlation is not causation: thousands of charts of real data showing actual correlations between ridiculous variables.

Via www.tylervigen.com/spurious-cor...

Correlation =\= Causation

Are cat memes responsible for air bag recalls? Hell no. 🐈‍⬛🚗

Spurious Correlations is one of my favorite websites for making this point

Chiropractors, probably!

Whistle-Blower Complaints Detail Tension Over Vaccines at N.I.H.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo is a brilliant physician scientist and her whistleblower report here is concerning as many other federal agencies are seeing these concerns arise of Trump appointees interfering with good science

#IDSky
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/h...

The House bill officially calls for the elimination of the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ), which my colleague @sundermannaj.bsky.social & I discuss in a forthcoming op-ed is based on a faulty claim that its function is duplicative. appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

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

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American."

It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

It’s the cooling towers - always the cooling towers!
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/n...

*all year round discounts

Subscription discounts for students, teachers, health care workers | STAT Get STAT's award-winning news and analysis of health, medicine, biotech, pharma, and the life sciences for up to 75% off.

And don’t have sticker shock! They have great discounts for students (75%), teachers (65%, any level), and healthcare workers (~50%, and includes public health workers)!

….no they didn’t pay me to say this either ☹️ but I love their reporting

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