Benjamin

Every time one anti-vaxxer is quoted in the media, one million scientists and healthcare workers should also be quoted in support of vaccines.

False equivalence in the media is killing us.

We worked for months with USAID to build an $85,000,000 project to end TB in two regions of the Philippines.

The project is funded by private money, the Philippine government, and matching USAID funds.

It could provide a blueprint for eliminating TB worldwide--except it's...not happening.

They have an hbo movie version from 2018 lol

You do have some obligations to other people. This is a good and normal part of being human.

Trump says RFK Jr. will investigate the discredited link between vaccines and autism: ‘Somebody has to find out’ Researchers attribute a rise in autism diagnoses to increased screening and changing definitions of the condition. Hundreds of studies have found childhood vaccines to be safe.

Scientists have already investigated this. The result? The doctor pushing this junk science had his license revoked for spreading deadly lies about vaccines.

Chart showing millions of lives saved globally due to select vaccinations.

The number of deaths averted globally due to vaccination is absolutely staggering.

Japan’s audacious bid to become a semiconductor superpower The government is backing a start-up that aims to upend the economics and geography of the microchip industry. Does it have a chance of success?

Very worthwhile report on the promises and perils of Japan's Rapidus:

Spotify Wrapped

Almost 58 days of playback ahhh

To be clear:

The richest man on Earth wants you to think that our government overreacted to the worst public health crisis in a century—a pandemic that has killed 1.2 million Americans to date.

Billionaires like Musk wanted Americans to work through COVID despite the risk to make themselves richer

The media needs to STOP referring to RFK Jr. as a “vaccine skeptic”. He is anti-vaccine and anti-science, and would do incalculable damage to the health of Americans. The man wants to sue scientific journals for not publishing fraudulent work. No amount of facts or data will convince him.

The thing about Twitter versus Bluesky is that the right needs liberals on Twitter to make it feel worthwhile, whereas the left doesn’t need conservatives on Bluesky to make it feel worthwhile.

Vaccines work—thread:

Look at all the lives saved by vaccines (right column) — 97, 99, 100% decrease in all these preventable diseases. Yet RFK Jr anti vax nonsense threatens them all.

1-2 weeks

It's disturbing seeing some medical and public health professionals trying to normalize RFK by saying "we have to meet him halfway."

NOPE.

RFK is a charlatan who has deliberately spread disinformation that has killed people.

Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Story of how 2 accidental nursing errors led anti-vax RFK Jr to end up killing 80 people in Samoa.

Axelrod pushes for Rahm Emanuel as DNC chair Democratic strategist David Axelrod is pushing for U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to become the new chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). “If they said, ‘Well, what should we do?…

This isn't the Rahm Emmanuel who covered up a police black site, oversaw one of the largest US public school closures, shutdown half the city's mental health clinics & hid the police murder of Laquan McDonald, right?

They're talking about another Rahm Emmanuel...right?!
thehill.com/homenews/cam...

Once we've decarbonized, the vast majority, 90% of us, will be much better off, since electricity, heat, transportation, & health-care will be much less expensive, raising everyone's real income and quality of life.

2/2

Abstract The 2022 oil and gas crisis resulted in record fossil-fuel profits globally that rehabilitated the oil and gas industry, obstruct the energy transition and contributed to inflation. We analyse the size and the distribution of financial beneficiaries of these unprecedented profits across countries and across wealth groups within the United States, using company income statements and comprehensive ownership data, to construct a global network of shareholdings with 397,619 nodes. We estimate that globally, net income in publicly listed oil and gas companies reached US$916 billion in 2022. The United States was the biggest beneficiary receiving US$301 billion in fossil fuel profits both from domestic extraction and through global shareholding, more than U.S. investments of US$267 billion in the low carbon economy that year. Analyzing the U.S. distribution including privately held US companies, 51% of profits went to the wealthiest 1%, predominantly through direct shareholdings and private company ownership. In contrast the bottom 50% only received 1%. The incremental fossil-fuel profits in 2022 over those in 2021 were enough to increase the disposable income of the wealthiest Americans several percent and compensate a substantial part of their purchasing power loss from inflation that year, thereby exacerbating inflation inequality. Record fossil-fuel profits also reinforce existing racial and ethnic inequalities and inequalities between groups with different educational attainments. Our results also show that only a small share of overall profits benefits institutions that serve the wider public such as pension funds. We discuss how windfall profits taxes could be used to both lower inequality and accelerate the energy transition as increasing geopolitical tensions and climate impacts portend continued volatility in oil and gas markets.

The 1% earned 51% of fossil fuel (windfall) profits in 2022; the bottom 50% earned only 1% of them.

A good reminder that the economic hit of phasing out coal, oil, and methane gas will fall predominantly on the wealthy, who can well afford it.

And...

1/2

Consider the table:

Graphic shows dramatic reduction in polio, rubella, mumps, measles, and hepatitis A cases after the introduction of vaccines for each disease.

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction

Graphic from Edward Tufte
More graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d... 🧪

it is bizarre how much this pretty basic fact is just like overlooked in the climate finance discussions: private finance requires being paid back

Raw milk is STILL responsible for more hospitalizations than any other food-borne disease source.

Before standard/widespread pasteurization, (raw) milk was responsible for 1/4 of all infectious disease outbreaks in the US in the 1930s and caused 1/10 of tuberculosis deaths.

I’d like the Pacific Ocean to consume me but I bet they’d figure out how to make that expensive too lol