Asha Hassan, PhD MPH

Deriding kindness as "virtue signaling" foreshadowed a desire to punish virtue itself.
* Do good science, lose your grant
* Practice civic engagement in school, get abducted
* Express yourself with peaceful protest, get run over
* Serve the public as a government employee, get fired/threatened

What we are seeing now— ICE abductions of Muslim/Muslim-perceived grad students— is what you get when there is a convergence of imperialism, anti-intellectualism, and Xenophobia. Academia’s silence on these abductions is disappointing

Incredibly powerful

Hearing more and more PhD programs are pausing admissions (including my alma mater). Absolutely terrible

They do all look alike! Very hard to remember who is who!

As a Minneapolis resident, it’s definitely impossible to live here and not have an opinion!

This Minneapolis season of love is blind ending with two women saying no at the alter because of wishy-washy conservative politics from their fiancés…. Is very telling of the times and the deep gender divide

This is a critical detail I haven’t seen reported elsewhere. The physician will likely be protected by NY’s shield law—but the mother of the person who had an abortion is also being charged.

To my knowledge, this is the first instance of criminalizing self-managed abortion since Roe was overturned.

I'm not sure how much people outside the science world understand what this means.

NSF grants and fellowships are *extremely* competitive. These were already funded. It's not just new stuff being put on pause; awards already made have been frozen.

FYI, this is straight-up eugenics. There were lots of programs like this proposed in the 1930s that offered incentives and rewards to “good” (i.e. white and economically advantaged) communities to promote population growth among those groups and suppress it in others deemed less desirable.

Pronatalism and the eugenic policies that promote it are inextricably tied to white supremacy and preserving a white racial majority

Normalizing spelling out what people actually mean when they cite DEI rather than letting them hide behind the safe cover of a euphemism that's been sapped of meaning

The slurification of “dei”

remember stuff like this when they tell you that diversity means a lowering of standards

The stories coming out of Africa over the next few months without PEPFAR are going to be gruesome. People will get sick; people will die. Someone has to tell their stories.

A very smart colleague just pointed out the grim truth that the U.S. leaving the WHO may ultimately be a win for the rest of the world. Why? Because without a vote, “the US can't block WHO actions like vaccine programs, disease surveillance, contraception, etc”. Man, that is daaaark, but accurate.

got my book’s page proofs and she looks soooo good

I was so lucky to have received this funding to support my PhD. Absolutely devastated for junior scientists who won’t have the same opportunity. BUT the real losers in all of this is the American public who will now be deprived of the innovative science that comes with diverse perspectives

The “assistant” part of assistant professor is really throwing my mom off— “who are you assisting??” Girl, great question idk

Cats in the U.S. Are Contracting Bird Flu: What Pet Parents Need to Know Cases in domesticated cats have risen dramatically over the past year.

PSA for cat owners in the US: cats have been contracting H5N1 (bird flu). They are very susceptible to it and the fatality rate for cats is 67%. To avoid it:

-keep your cats indoors. They can catch it from infected birds and mice.

-do not feed them raw dairy

-do not feed them raw meat

Real

I hate to say it but my resolution this year is just: manuscripts 😭

And mentioning the new love interest as the next tr*mp in the first episode!!!

Rewatching ‘sex and the city’ in your 30s… scary. Why am I doing the math and realizing Carrie and my mom are the same age 🫠

New York Times Breaking News push alert that reads: A former Marine who choked a homeless man on a New York City subway train last year was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

A New York Times Breaking News push alert that says: A man is being held for questioning in Pennsylvania in last week’s killing of a health insurance C.E.O., officials briefed on the case said.

The operative principle is not that political violence is not allowed. It is that it is allowed only by some actors, for some ends, and forbidden to others.

Person-centered, reproductive autonomy-promoting National Recommendations for Providing Quality Family Planning Services just dropped 🔥
www.qfpguide.org

Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths In a letter, the state’s public health commissioner said the action was taken because “confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outs...

NEW: Georgia officials have dismissed all members of a state committee charged with investigating deaths of pregnant women. The move came in response to ProPublica having obtained internal reports detailing two deaths.

between anti-abortion extremists and rfk the trump administration seems to be a targeted effort to increase maternal and early childhood mortality

In DC for the next few days—catch me and many brilliant colleagues talking methods tomorrow virtually or in person :) www.nationalacademies.org/event/43944_...