Prof Christina Pagel

Looks like Kennedy is continuing his campaign to cut vaccine access by stealth by targeting Aluminium salts- these are adjuvants which are added to some vaccines to stimulate the immune system-quick explainer 🧪 #ImmunoSky 🧵

UKRI award rate halves in seven years as grant applications double - Research Professional News Trends across research councils prompt warning that system is “overstretched or broken”

Feels about right

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Harvard “is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement.”

The university president said “the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is ‘false’”

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

Democratic lawmakers flee Texas to thwart Republican redistricting effort A vote in the state legislature on Monday is aimed at bolstering Trump’s House majority in midterm elections

Democratic lawmakers flee Texas to thwart Republican redistricting effort https://on.ft.com/4m1KYHX

I don't think enough good things can be said about the people who worked hard to build the political pressure for his and everyone else's release, including senator van hollen. otoh there is no bottom to my contempt for the people who were urging the opposite course of action

Donor List Suggests Scale of Trump’s Pay-for-Access Operation

The most corrupt White House in history. Here is an account of what people are paying, directly to a PAC called MAGA Inc, in order to meet the president, get pardons, change policy

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

This story is so important: US legal fees are so high that pro bono work provides one of the few ways for the non-wealthy to access justice. Now that’s being choked off as law firms bow to Trump.

📌

I honestly have no problem with this as long as family given final edit approval.

Aid group says worker killed by Israeli military in attack on Gaza HQ The Palestine Red Crescent has accused Israel of a "deliberate" strike, but Israel said it has "no information" about it.

Aid group says worker killed by Israeli military in attack on Gaza HQ

Europe must show its trade alternatives are a better mode... European governments must think about modern economies, rather than romanticise the past

I make my Observer debut this morning, covering a fair amount of ground around Trump's trade deals, why they won't bring certainty or more investment to the UK or be good for the US, and what governments should be thinking about instead... observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

It’s been obvious for some time that Musk’s platform is deliberately & dangerously hideous. There is nothing to stop politicians, up to & including the government, removing themselves from it entirely. Their every utterance would still be reported, regardless of how it entered the public space.

Crime and the perception of crime: @jburnmurdoch.ft.com via @stephenkb.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/9623...

The replies to this post, even on here, even moreso on X, are so depressing to me. We live in a world where cities have never been safer and a minority of people are denying themselves a lot of delightful experiences because they’ve gone mad online.

An aerial view of what the Gaza City area looked like this week. Taken from a Jordanian military aircraft, by our colleague Heidi Levine.

The radicalisation spiral Why does it happen and can it be stopped?

New post:

"The Radicalisation Spiral"

Why are so many people becoming radicalised? Is there any way to stop it?

With an antivaxxer running the US health dept + extreme discourse dominating politics it's an increasingly pressing question.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

I'd really recommend actually reading Ian's substack before passing any comment. It's thoughtful, offers some excellent advice and is generally an antidote to the kind of crap peddled to young men from the charlatans and the radical right.

Commentary: The health crisis in the USSR: looking behind the facade My first visit to the USSR was in February 1981, by coincidence at exactly the same time that Nick Eberstadt published a commentary on ‘The health crisis i

In a strange circularity, it seems that all the work I was doing in the early 1990s on concealment/distortion of statistics by USSR & DDR is becoming very relevant now

academic.oup.com/ije/article-...

📌

Just peachy to have Justin Webb on #r4today insinuating that asylum seekers arriving by small boats are largely criminals and sex offenders.
Such an irresponsible, Daily Mail-style prejudice in his questions and assertions. This isn’t journalism. It’s scaremongering for the far right. Shameful.

This administration's attack on science & health will be irreparable. The path to be an NIH-funded scientist has always been extraordinarily hard. With these attacks, the # of scientists that survive these cuts will be miniscule & the future is bleak for those who are interested. Our future is dark.

'It makes me sad and angry': Bereaved mother urges parents to get their children vaccinated The recent death of a child with measles at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool put the focus on a surge of cases in a city with low levels of vaccination.

“The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died from complications of measles has urged parents to have their children vaccinated amid a surge of cases.”
news.sky.com/story/r...

Two posters are seen draped from barbed wire-covered concrete. The posters say 100,000,000 meals delivered with a flying US flag. In the background are people awaiting food aid and in the foreground is a soldier.

Mike Huckabee has actually posted this photo himself, apparently proud of the view.

Funding a genocide whilst claiming to be the victims’ saviour.

This photo will haunt the US in history books.

exactly this!

The debate around Musk and the Royal Society is just so frustrating. If those who think it is right to retain him as an FRS were to say "Here, despite his having been a direct accomplice to the dismantling of scientific institutions, destruction of scientific data, spreading of...

Former vaccine panel ousted by RFK Jr. says scientific rigor is "rapidly eroding" All 17 experts from the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices who were replaced last month by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the health secretary's new picks "inexperienced and biased."

The original ACIP members have come together to write a commentary on their concerns about how the process for unbiased scientific review of vaccines has been upended by RFk Jr 🧵🧪

Definitely something you do when you are planning to permanently leave office in 28 months.

#EverydaySexism hasn't gone away... not even in the @the-independent.com.

📌