Julie Sullivan 朧淺夫人

I wrote this about the decline of bipartisanship in disability policy back in 2017. It's much worse now. www.reuters.com/article/us-b...

Congratulations!

We’re finally reading the secrets of Herculaneum’s lost library A whole library’s worth of papyri owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law were turned to charcoal by the eruption of Vesuvius. Nearly 2000 years later, we can at last read these lost treasures

This is so cool! Science cheers me up these days

www.newscientist.com/article/2498...

The alarm bells are sounding for young men. Will we listen? “It's certainly clear that the issues of boys and men haven't gone away in the last few years. If anything, they're getting even more attention, which is good when it's the right kind of attention.”

bigthink.com/series/the-b...

I know someone who fought insurance companies over denials for obesity surgery (which then, in any case, was the only thing proven to work) and said that whenever they took them to court, the insurance companies just wouldn't show up. Because they'd lose.

But most people just take the denial.

The clerks that are the first to get hold of your health insurance claims

HAVE DAILY DENIAL QUOTAS.

Their bosses know few of us will come back at them and protest. So do.

How to Fight Your Health Insurance Denial with an External Appeal When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts sugges...

Few patients appeal a health insurance denial, but a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment.

Here’s what experts say you need to know.

In addition to this, I strongly encourage anyone who has been denied a claim to:

1) demand, on the phone and in writing, ther the name, license number, and specialty status of the physician who approved the denial be sent to you in writing.

I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but....

Book Review: A Call to Arms About the Threat of Anti-Science - Bucks County Beacon “Science Under Siege,” by Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez, is an impassioned manifesto against attacks on science.

Book Review: A Call to Arms About the Threat of Anti-Science |
“Science Under Siege,” by @michaelemann.bsky.social
and @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social, is an impassioned manifesto against attacks on science, writes @danfalk.bsky.social @undark.org.

Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing an Amulet That May Change the History of Christianity A 1.37-inch inscription could upend our understanding of the religion’s spread.

www.popularmechanics.com/science/arch...

« Notre bouclier de semi-conducteurs nous protège de l’invasion chinoise »

Dans son bureau, une Affiche du « Petit Journal », un fac-similé de la carte de « l’île de Formose et des Costes de Chine » établie par les Jésuites au XVIIe siècle, une copie de la fusée de Tintin d' « » Objectif Lune ». François Wu, ancien « ambassadeur » (techniquement chef de la représentatio...

"baby"

I don’t want to take any guidance at all from the secular society around us. And the reason I don’t is they killed 60 million babies. I don’t want to hear any more lectures from these people about slavery. You were better off being a Black person in Charleston, S.C., in 1850, when they had an operating slave market than being conceived as a Black baby in New York City or Baltimore today.

But you shouldn't be too surprised when they say stuff like this:

"You were better off being a Black person in Charleston, S.C., in 1850, when they had an operating slave market than being conceived as a Black baby in New York City or Baltimore today."

This wildly illegal action is also a betrayal that will, almost certainly, kill someone you love.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

It is difficult for me to express how disastrous this is.

RIFs can’t be done without agency leadership so this is RFK Jr extending his purge of CDC scientists to help Vought’s shutdown agenda. Genuine public health risks created by aggrieved men.

If I contrast and compare the 27 grievances against King George III charged in the Declaration of Independence and the actions of today’s president, does the Declaration of Independence suggest an extraordinary precedent for our response to the actions of the President?

If I contrast and compare the 27 grievances against King George III charged in the Declaration of Independence and the actions of today’s president, does the Declaration of Independence suggest an extraordinary precedent for our response to the actions of the President?

Found him for anyone interested in following him.

Presented without comment, the current scene outside Union Station in DC as I got off the train.

Sold-out Ta-Nehisi Coates speaker appearance in N.J. canceled over security reasons Organizers canceled a sold-out Ta-Nehisi Coates event in Montclair citing undisclosed security concerns.

Is it cancel culture when they threaten to kill you?

www.nj.com/news/2025/10...

States report shit to the CDC and the CDC synthesizes that into a heads-up report.

Firing a good chunk of the staff who put that together is essentially blinding the country on public health. Trump has hated it since 2020 because they published stuff (the truth) contrary to what he was saying

For some context the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report in addition to being just a good read, to quote wikipedia, "is the main vehicle for publishing public health information and recommendations that have been received by the CDC from state health departments. "

I actually read MMWR consistently for about a year (I worked with the CDC on COVID data for a while) and it is essential public health infrastructure.

If you wanted to know what scientists were saying, even as a layperson you could read it & get a solid picture of what was happening.

This rare but terrifying condition progresses rapidly, causes brain swelling, and can quickly lead to coma and death. We're going to increasingly be relying on medical providers, counties & states to help us understand what's happening, as CDC seems to be in the dark/unable to investigate normally.

Neurologic Complications of Flu in Kids May Be Up This Year Experts are talking about a potential small increase in a very rare condition

We appear to be seeing an uptick of devastating flu-associated Acute Necrotizing Encephalitis in children this season. We've had reports here in No. Cal. Others out of Boston. We're piecemealing things together because there's no active surveillance for ANE, and CDC can't communicate with partners.

There's a school of thought which suggests that the only way to disable the fascist movement is to stop shielding MAGA voters from the consequences of their actions.

Well, now that the GOP administration is disabling disease surveillance, response, and even basic research, there's no shield. 1/ 🧵

All of the enemies of democracy, the open society, and the United States of America benefit from the ongoing dismantling of the system which create American wealth, power, and influence.

The core of MAGA and Project 2025 is an end-times Christian Nationalist movement. 🧵

bsky.app/profile/arbi...

Screenshot of the Wikipedia entry for "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report," specifically the excerpted section called "Political pressure during the Trump administrations." It's too long for alt-text, but you can read it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_and_Mortality_Weekly_Report

Some backstory from Wikipedia:

You would not fire these people—including the staff of the hugely, HUGELY important 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report'—if you cared at all about public health, if you wanted people to live.

And you would not let your thuggish henchmen fire people like this if you were a responsible president.