John Ross

Cartman about to crash out because he got Ants in the Pants for his birthday, and not the Red Mega-man

Same energy

Timely: Did Americans vote in 2024 for major changes to vaccine policy? No.

Only 3% picked vaccines as a top 3 issue in the election.

Our just-published research letter in @jamahealthforum.com

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Exactly. Zero presentations from career scientists. It used to be only CDC staff who would present. People who had worked on these issues for most, or their entire, career.

#ACIP #CDC #Medsky #IDsky

He’ll be doing peer-to-peers for UnitedHealthcare when he gets out

That would be an ecumenical matter

TL;DR: Open positions in an awesome, academically rigorous yet lifestyle-focused ID program in Boston!

I hope everyone matched where they wanted to go! However, if anyone did not match (or did not apply) & is interested in Infectious Diseases fellowship, we have open spots at Tufts Medical Center!

OPEN SPOT ALERT! There is an ID fellowship spot available at Boston Medical Center. Incredible team, sane workload (including consult caps and non-teaching service). Highly recommended if you're interested in TB/global health, HIV, SUD, or AMR/stewardship. Message me if interested! #IDsky #MedSky

When Did Syphilis Enter Europe? The Origins Debate For a family of pathogens that has likely been with humanity since the dawn of agriculture, Treponema has a funny way of keeping its secrets.

The debate on the origins of syphilis has been raging for centuries. Ancient DNA has us closer than ever to an answer but not everything is totally clear yet. Here I go over the debate and current state of the evidence.
#History #EpiSky #IDSky
open.substack.com/pub/theedgeo...

Pete Hegseth with a misspelled nametag reading "SSECRETARY OF WAR"

*nervous laughter* This "SS" thing is a typo, right?

For the vAcCiNes kiLLeD pEoPLe crowd, will note for the umpteenth time that vaccine access and uptake were associated with lower all-cause mortality during COVID

Hits harder when you realize Paul Offit is actually one of the nicest people on earth (pediatric infectious disease physician).

Healthcare Workers vs Hunger Healthcare workers vs Hunger is an annual friendly competition between teams of healthcare workers to help relieve food insecurity.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that #mealioidosis is getting crushed this year in #HCWvsHunger. Not even in the top 5, and yet, we practically invented #MedSky! C'mon #IDsky you know what to do. hcwvshunger.org

Is the Venn diagram of anti-vaxxers and sex pests a perfect circle? Angie Rasmussen investigates

Whenever I see “return to ALF” in a progress note now, it takes me a minute to remember that this also means “assisted living facility”

Team ID #meal-iodosis says they’ll take anyone who believes in vaccines so if that’s you, donate and log at HCWvsHunger.org

#HCWvsHunger

#IDSky

Florida last issued a Vaccine Preventable Disease Report on May 29, 2025, covering the month of April 2025. Screenshot from https://www.floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/vaccine-preventable-disease/vaccine-preventable-disease-report-archive.html

Florida has stopped tracking vaccine-preventable diseases. Last monthly report appeared on May 29, 2025.

This. Political reporters as a group (honorable exceptions, etc.) know nothing about science—how it's done and especially, how to read such results.

They are thus patsies for RFK Jr. & anti-vax grifters more generally.

Used to treating quotes as facts, they become conduits for unexamined bullshit.

Strep throat card

Hand of antibiotic cards

Do you have money you need to spend for CME?

Think about grabbing a copy of Empiric. Active editions:
-inpatient peds
-outpatient peds
-veterinary

In France, a 10-year policy cut antibiotic use in animals by 88% (fluoroquinolones) and 94% (3GC-4GC). Resistance in E. coli dropped significantly within 1-2 years post-policy. 📉🐾

#idsky

Let's see who you really are meme: Fred discovers that private equity is responsible for the haunted amusement park, and everything else going wrong in the US of A

So, private equity has been quietly buying up nursing homes/rehabs, spinning off the real estate into a trust, cutting costs and running them into the ground while milking the Medicare income, and then redeveloping the real estate for profit when the facilities inevitably go bankrupt 2/2

Monetizing Nursing Home Real Estate (from https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PESP_Report_NursingHomes_April2025.pdf) Within the nursing home industry, it is common for real estate to be held separately from operations through the use of two separate companies. These companies may share an owner or have different owners, such as a private equity-owned operations holding company and a real estate investment trust (REIT) property holding company. This strategy has been encouraged to help shield assets in the event of lawsuits or bankruptcies. It also provides an avenue to siphon money out of the nursing home to investors.

It's harder to discharge hospital patients now because rehab quality is declining, and families are reluctant to send patients to nursing facilities who are too weak to go home safely. "Golden Acres used to be great, but they cut staffing, and Mom almost died the last time she went there." 1/2

Going no contact with my government for the holidays

We are thrilled to now be on BlueSky!

We prioritize studies addressing critical health challenges—from major diseases to health equity—that bridge scientific rigor with real-world impact, connecting researchers, clinicians, and policymakers to advance global health 🧬🧪

#OpenScience #MedSky

Non-paywalled

Opinion: How a single measles case became 5,000 – and the lessons not learned It’s important not to lay blame, but to understand the virus’s epidemiology

The North America measles outbreak started at a Mennonite wedding in Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada (close to my rural conservative hometown). Patient Zero was an unvaxxed English teacher working in Thailand. Measles is incredibly contagious—every unvaxxed person at the wedding was infected!

Just in time for Mattel to roll out Iron Lung Barbie for Christmas

Not too long before the dotcom crash, Wired magazine published a list of the top 10 online ad buyers and sellers. I think seven firms were on both lists. I knew then that things were going to go badly wrong. Money is going round and round, but nobody's actually making a profit.

Richard Dawson being sick of the plague, and perceiving he must die at that time, arose out of his bed, and made his grave, and caused his nephew, John Dawson, to cast straw into the grave, which was not far from the house, and went and laid him down in the said grave, and caused clothes to be laid upon, and so departed out of this world. This he did, because he was a strong man, and heavier than his said nephew and another wench were able to bury ... [parish register of Malpas, Cheshire, 1625]

My nomination for the Most English Thing Ever: Richard Dawson caught bubonic plague in Cheshire in 1625. Realizing that he was about to die, and that his nephew and servant were not strong enough to carry his body, he dug his own grave, and laid down in it in a bed of straw, waiting to die. #IDSky

How ProPublica Investigated a Bird Flu Outbreak in America’s Heartland Early this year, bird flu ripped through 80 farms in Ohio and Indiana. Using genetic markers, wind simulations, satellite imagery, property records and more, we found that the virus could’ve been airb...

Is bird flu spreading between chicken farms on the wind? This is either a brilliant piece of amateur epidemiology, or an epic Pepe Silvia-style conspiracy theory (I’m not sure about the viability of flu virus over the distances involved)