Antigenic Drifting

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

It does however seem like the house and Senate are not going to go along with Trump's budget and reorg plans for CDC

EXCLUSIVE: A summary of possible CDC funding based on the President’s Budget, the House markup, and the Senate markup.

Red: programs Trump wants entirely slashed.
Yellow: programs Trump requested substantial cuts.
Blue: flat or increased funding.

What does all this mean? 🧵

#BREAKING: Judge Breyer has held that the Trump admin. *violated* the Posse Comitatus Act in its military deployments in and around Los Angeles, and has enjoined further use of those troops for law enforcement tasks. The order is stayed through 12 PDT on 9/12:

georgetown.app.box.com/file/1973361...

Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun. The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud. I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions' words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur. I reject his and his colleagues

When a top CDC scientist resigns citing eugenicist rhetoric from federal health agencies, everyone should absolutely be paying attention.

Screenshot of NYT article “A study published in the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology found that after just three months of using an A.I. tool designed to help spot precancerous growths during colonoscopies, doctors were significantly worse at finding the growths on their own. This is the first evidence that relying on A.I. tools might erode a doctor's ability to perform fundamental skills without the technology, a phenomenon known as "deskilling."”

There are no shortcuts in this life. Destroy all the robots.

Now we have a name for an increasingly common phenomenon for people who rely on AI: “deskilling”

Massive walkout underway at CDC.

RFK jr. must resign so that we can be safe.

There is a massive walk out at the CDC by staff unfolding right now. It is NECESSARY. I stand in solidarity with my CDC colleagues. standing up for science and public health. It is a moral imperative.

IDSA calls on insurers to cover COVID vaccines consistent with medical recommendations and evidence, and urges Congress to conduct strong oversight of the Administration’s decision restricting Americans’ freedom to choose vaccination.

Our statement: https://bit.ly/3JBFPb6

No, you're not ineligible for the vaccine. Let me introduce you to the concept of lying.

That COVID spike relative to other countries is especially insane. We produced the most effective vaccines in massive numbers and then let ourselves get into a ridiculous fight about whether to use them

COVID and cancer "reawakening" redux Don't panic...it really was just IN MICE

After hearing stories of breast cancer surviviors panicked by recent headlines, I decided to revisit my take on the recent “COVID rekindling dormant cancer” paper. After reflection, I was too generous in calling the human results even “suggestive.”

jenndowd.substack.com/p/covid-and-...

The administration is taking money from research and public health that protects Americans, and instead is spending it on using the military to enact violence against Americans and suppress our Constitutional rights.

If the former doesn’t bother you, the latter sure as hell should.

Commentary: Study finds removing school mask mandates contributed to 22,000 U.S. COVID deaths in a year Critics of anti-pandemic measures prompted schools to end mask mandates, but doing so exposed millions to COVID infection, contributing to nearly 22,000 deaths.

Commentary: Study finds removing school mask mandates contributed to 22,000 U.S. COVID deaths in a year www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Opinion | A genocide is happening in Gaza. We should say so. We can no longer hide the uncomfortable truths of Israel’s destruction of Gaza.

As another professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, Raz Segal, put it: “Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn’t think it’s genocide? No.

HHS cancels nearly $600 million Moderna contract on vaccines for flu pandemics HHS has notified Moderna that it is canceling a nearly $600 million contract for vaccines for flu strains that could trigger future pandemics.

BREAKING: In a serious blow to US pandemic flu preparedness, HHS has cancelled a contract with Moderna to test and license prototype vaccines for #H5N1 #birdflu and other potential pandemic viruses.
In a pandemic, mRNA is the fastest way to vaccine doses. www.statnews.com/2025/05/28/m...

Aside from the fact that anyone can get seriously ill from COVID, a key point they are deliberately hiding when removing access is that COVID vaccines reduce transmission. People choose to get vaccinated to protect other people. It is wrong and harmful to take that choice away.

the big lesson i've learned since the virus emerged is that economists are typically dumb as shit about epidemiology and public health.

This is a great thread response to HIV/AIDS denialism (which our Health Secretary also engages in) in 2025 that is somehow being used to bolster the baseless “lab leak” theory.

If you don’t “believe” HIV is the cause of AIDS you are a) stupid, b) a liar, or c) a very stupid liar.

Floored that the New Yorker would ever publish such an undeserving paean. Thanks @gregggonsalves.bsky.social for discussing it. RFK Jr as a persecuted heretic is overt propaganda. Invoking a revisionist history of the pandemic and HIV/AIDS denial in pursuit of that is all the more disgraceful.

Cardiovascular post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 in children and adolescents: cohort study using electronic health records - Nature Communications Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection affecting the cardiovascular system have been reported, but evidence in young people is limited. Here, the authors quantify the incidence of a range of outc...

The FDA’s Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad think children shouldn’t be protected from this: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Diseases are spreading. The CDC isn't warning the public like it was months ago Some of the CDC's main channels for communicating urgent health information to the public have gone silent.

Some of the CDC's main channels for communicating urgent health information to the public have gone silent.

New FDA framework on Covid vaccines leaves pediatricians confused and concerned A new FDA framework for Covid-19 vaccines created confusion among physicians about what it means for young children

“We shouldn’t make vaccine recommendations based on the opinion polls”.

Indeed.

www.statnews.com/2025/05/20/f...

This was an excellent episode

Mutual aid plays a critical role in reducing harm during times of government abandonment. However, when it comes to massive public health problems such as pandemics and the climate crisis, mutual aid alone is not enough. No matter how dark things get, we still need to fight for institutions.

FDA to cut Covid booster access, excluding in-home carers By restricting vaccinations, "the FDA creates a dangerous public health gap."

Caregivers to disabled people and aging adults (who do not have certain health conditions) will not be able to get the Covid booster in the future under new rules, putting people they care for at risk. New from me at @motherjones.com

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Contaminated milk from one plant in Illinois sickened thousands with ‘Salmonella’ in 1985 − as outbreaks rise in the US, lessons from this one remain true The legal, political and public health consequences of the largest Salmonella outbreak in the US underscore the importance of food safety inspections and disease surveillance.

Contaminated milk from one plant in Illinois sickened thousands with Salmonella in 1985 − as outbreaks rise in the US, lessons from this one remain true buff.ly/KRo6Olh

To be clear, though, stopping virology is exactly the purpose of the bill. Because of the targeting of science and widely believed conspiracy theories about how evil scientists cooked up SARS-CoV-2 to cause the pandemic and enrich themselves, science - virology in particular - must be destroyed.

If this bill is passed - and it very well might - that'll be the end of virological (and much other) research in the U.S., because institutions simply would not want to carry the risk - have one grant that might be flagged as GoF? There goes all federal funding to that research institution.

So what about, say, the spike protein that we use as antigens in the COVID-19 vaccines? Yeah, can't do that. What about optimized forms of HA and NA in flu vaccines? Yeah, can't do that either.

Deep mutational scanning? Nope, can't do that.

Want to develop a pan-flu virus? Yeah, can't do that.