Brandon Barba

Obstetrician and Gynecologist Practice Locations Before and After Dobbs Decision This cohort study examines changes in obstetrician and gynecologist practice locations before vs after the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization US Supreme Court decision.

They had 2 levels of severity and a 3rd category for protected. I only skimmed the findings, so I can’t attest to how detailed it is.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

I am curious if this is the case nationwide. I know in one of the JAMAs there was a report that didn’t see much change, which surprised me. I’ll never forget the conversation I had with one OB/GYN in Texas who was leaving. You could see the despair in her face.

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

B. Mexican, but I admit I am biased

Map of countries where the DHS was the only source of maternal mortality data

In February, the US gov shut down the Demographic & Health Surveys.

It was the only data source on maternal & child health, births, household structure in many countries – making it crucial for research.

In a new article I explain why it should be rescued.
ourworldindata.org/demographic-...

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It’s so frustrating that there is this illusion that we are all 49%/49% right now. Us versus them, good versus bad, and it’s all because of the BS that is the electoral system. It’s very likely 70% versus 30% and we’re just not seeing representative government.There’s just no common sense right now

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

It shouldn't get lost that just today, Senate Republicans have voted to close nursing homes, close rural hospitals, and cut food stamp benefits for children and veterans.

I Worked at U.S.A.I.D. for Over 8 Years. This Is Our Biggest Failure.

I worked for U.S.A.I.D. in East Africa over the past eight and a half years, selling the story of American foreign aid to people in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Our inability to tell this same story to Americans is our great failure. It is what put the agency into the Department of Government Efficiency’s wood chipper first. It’s what allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get away with insisting that lifesaving humanitarian aid would continue while the administration drastically slashed its funding. And it’s what I fear will let this presidency cast the deaths from the next preventable catastrophe as unstoppable or inevitable.

You hear this a lot on the left but it isn't true. USAID did not "fail to tell its story to Americans," the right targeted the agency with lies and misinformation.

Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...

YouTube video by Jimmy Kimmel Live Guest Host Diego Luna on Trump’s Immigration Policies & the Importance of Immigrants in the U.S.

Guest Host Diego Luna on Trump’s immigration policies and the importance of immigrants in the United States…

I was just talking to some friends of friends, and they brought up raw milk and parasite cleanses. It’s crazy how this stuff gets a foothold on people.

A question I ask myself every time I use them “Is this a question that ignorant people would have spent time writing a lot about?” If the answer is no, there is a decent chance I can get pointed in the right direction.

I knew there was a push from wellness influencers on using tallow in cooking, but I learned this weekend from a family gathering that a lot of people are using it as sort of a “cure-all” for skin conditions. Bruises, eczema, etc. It was peculiar.

The most consequential Speaker in state history.

It is very easy to argue any point if you only ever examine the evidence that supports your position.

Confirmation bias is one of the hardest intellectual problems to overcome.

*theirs was full

My mom runs a funeral home and our county’s medical examiner was calling around asking who had space in their freezers because me they were full. She later helped bury her aunt and uncle in a double funeral because they both died of Covid days apart. Those memories seem worse than wearing a mask.

Families and children will be the ones to pay the price for this decision -- AAP President Dr. Susan Kressly on mass firing of all 17 ACIP experts American Academy of Pediatrics DEDICATED TO THE HEALTH OF ALL CHILDREN® 📷 AAP Instagram

The AAFP is outraged by the HHS Secretary's decision to remove all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, undermining vaccine safety and public health. 📷 AAFP Instagram

"The independent experts who serve on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices-including the ob-gyns who have represented our community-play a critical role in guiding the U.S. approach to improving public health through vaccination. Unilaterally dismissing the world-class expertise of these dedicated clinicians and scientists is incredibly alarming and sends a chilling message to the doctors at the front lines about how scientific evidence is valued by the country's health agencies." -ACOG President Steven J. Fleischman, MD, FACOG SACOG 📷 ACOG Instagram

Today's action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives. With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses. 📷 AMA Instagram

AAP
AAFP
ACOG
AMA
…and others renounce today’s removal of all ACIP Committee members.

Listen to the doctors.

"We are speaking on behalf of hundreds of NIH staff who are standing up together to say: WE DISSENT.

I am so scared about doing this but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only gonna get harder to speak up."

Thank you to Dr. Jenna Norton and NIH scientists for your courage!

Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the extraordinary step of firing the expert panel that advises the CDC.

BREAKING: RFK Jr. fires ACIP, the panel responsible for advising on vaccines.

This breaks a promise to Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to advance Kennedy as HHS secretary on the condition that he would, among other things, keep ACIP in place.

www.statnews.com/2025/06/09/r...

Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen.

The opening of Judge Boasberg’s opinion:

Ardem Patapoutian's story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1986 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn Lebanon. He spent a year writing for an Armenian newspaper and delivering Domino's at night to become eligible for the University of California, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. He started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, discovered the way humans sense touch, and in 2021 won the Nobel Prize. But with the Trump administration slashing spending on science, Dr. Patapoutian's federal grant to develop new approaches to treating pain has been frozen. In late February, he posted on Bluesky that such cuts would damage biomedical research and prompt an exodus of talent from the United States. Within hours, he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to "any city, any university I want," he said, with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years.

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.

What are we doing?

Senator Ossoff speaking the truth. We need real action

As a grad student, I do feel that I get a lot of insight from following Epi/stats people here because I see different criticisms here than in academic settings.

I finally had a read of the MAHA report today, and aside from the obvious use of generative AI and false citations, what strikes me is how remarkably unprofessional and amateurish the document is.

It's just wild garbage 1/n

Agents zip-tie kids in new immigration crackdown in Texas At least three children were taken into custody and zip-tied at the San Antonio Immigration Court.

In San Antonio today, plainclothes ICE officers (not masked this time) arrested, handcuffed, and zip-tied a family of five (yes, ALL of them, including the little children) coming out of their immigration court hearing — which ICE had just had dismissed.

www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/a...

The MAHA Report Cites Studies That Don’t Exist The Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.

RFK Jr's "MAHA" report came out last week. It misinterpreted data, had broken links to some citations, and cited 7 articles that don't exist.

That last one is a hallmark of AI hallucinations.

How much of the MAHA report was AI generated? 🤔

www.notus.org/health-scien...

What a precise way to tear apart the logic of being anti-DEI.