Emily Somers, PhD ScM 💚🌻

We will never get more than what we celebrate Why allowing the Trump administration to reset our expectations will harm US science

Here @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social explains that the budget bill looks good primarily because we allowed our expectations to be reset.

Cancer and dementia research and other science have enormous power. The public cares.
Did AAAS fully use that power?

A bright spot amidst all the public health doom and gloom: we're getting closer to a Guinea worm-free world

Our very beloved President Carter was a key leader in the fight against Guinea worm

1986: ~3.5 MILLION cases
2025: 10 cases 🤯

bsky.app/profile/cidr...

*Drank raw milk in pregnancy*

Good lord. You have MAHA demonizing vaccines and Tylenol when they love them some raw milk, and this is the shit that's actually dangerous.

So, I was finally granted access to perform oversight of the Whipple detention facility in Minneapolis this weekend, and what I saw was not what I would expect in the United States of America. My office has been flooded with reports of the cruel, unsafe, unlawful conditions inside of Whipple. And as a doctor, I was especially concerned about the reports of inadequate medical care. So, during my visit yesterday, I got confirmation that the facility has no specific medical policy and no real medical care on site. There was not a nurse present yesterday at all. There are no beds, no real blankets, minimal food, extremely cold temperatures. People are in locked cells and leg shackles. The agents there couldn't or wouldn't answer the most basic questions. Like how many people were currently being held? How many people had to be sent to the hospital over the last week? How many 911 calls been made in the last week?

And when I asked if any calls to 911 had been made that day, they confirmed that in fact 911 had been called at least earlier once that morning. Everything I saw showed me this operation is chaotic, disorganized, ineffective, and dangerous. I was also able to speak with two of the women who were being held there, and both of them shared harrowing experiences. The first was a woman who had been brought in the night before. She and the other women in her cell had to sleep on the hard concrete floor because there are no beds. She told me they were freezing cold, shivering the entire night. They begged agents for blankets and never got any. She told me the agents were cruel and that the women were treated like they weren't human beings. The second was a woman who'd been brought in earlier that morning. I asked to speak with her because she was in a cell alone, shackled, and she looked deeply distressed. She told me that she and her husband were both being held at Whipple and had been taken away from their 7-year-old daughter. She'd been there for hours, but had not been able to make a phone call yet, so she hadn't been able to contact her daughter, who was left with a friend and is now separated from both of her parents. She was sobbing. She asked when and if she was going to be put on a flight to Texas, but the agents couldn't even give her an answer.

These just happened to be the two people that I spoke with while I was there and both exemplified how people are not being treated humanely. Families are being ripped apart and people aren't being treated with the dignity that every human being deserves. ICE is not going after the worst of the worst. This reckless operation is tearing communities apart and traumatizing our neighbors. My visit only underscored how urgently critical it is that members of Congress are able to conduct their legal right and duty to perform oversight unannounced without advanced notice as the law requires. And it is needed to protect our constituents during this time of extreme crisis. I am more resolved than ever to do what I can to end Operation Metro Surge and get ICE out of Minnesota. quick rough transcript by @clancyny.bsky.social.

Congresswoman who is an M.D. gained oversight access to Whipple dentention center, a Trump immigrant concentration camp in Minneapolis. She posted about it on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SxPn8n2Bfg In pictures is a rough transcript of her […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

Anne Frank died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen

This new graphic from @thenerve.news could be so much bigger but we wanted to show 3 essential nodes in Peter Thiel’s sphere of influence: Silicon Valley, Washington & the UK.

In Britain, our govt is so naive about Thiel & what his company Palantir really is.
3/

Hundreds of people spelled out the distress signal "SOS" on Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis on Friday, Jan. 30.

📷️ Provided by Jeff Schad

Conflict of interest

Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!

The formal withdrawal of the WHO will have major consequences for both the United States & the WHO itself.

First, let’s think about the U.S.

The U.S. has shot itself in the foot—it has now made itself much more vulnerable to disaster and devastation when the next epidemic or pandemic hits.

A 🧵

‘Weapons of mass construction’: the US ‘craftivists’ using yarn to fight back against Trump Fiber artists across the US are using their craft to protest against everything from national guard deployments to rollbacks on abortion rights

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Wondering why there's such a fuss about pushing some #vaccine recommendations to "shared clinical decision making"? The term is being conflated with "informed consent," suggesting it's about empowering parents. This isn't that; good take here. yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/shared-dec...

It's why he's The Boss

My quote of the day

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

Frank Lautenberg

The Senate may choose to vote together on the DHS and LHHS bills. Thus, a filibuster on DHS may mean no funding for NIH. What my colleagues are saying:

“Shut it down, public health will understand. I’ll work without pay again.”
- anonymous NIHer

‘This is what fascism looks like’: terror in Minneapolis reminiscent of civil war Alex Pretti’s death could be a moment of reckoning for Democrats to call time on Trump waging war on his people

“
“It’s like Call of Duty,”

one could be heard saying via a TV mic, referring to a first-person shooter military video game.

“So cool, huh?”
“
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Local journalism matters.

Tomorrow's front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 24, 2026

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved by Limiting Air Pollution In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.

Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses.

Former University of Michigan law dean selected as next president, to replace Grasso Syverud has served as the 12th chancellor of Syracuse University since January 2014, according to his Syracuse University College of Law profile.

Absolute home run pick for new president of ⁦‪@UMich‬⁩ in Kent Syverud. He taught my very first law school class. Wonderful leader. Wonderful person.

www.mlive.com/news/ann-arb...

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

That'd be ANOTHER $500 BILLION on top of the already batshit insane $1 TRILLION.

Total cost of extending the enhanced #ACA tax credits, as is, for 10 years: $350 billion.

Jacob Frey: "To ICE -- get the fuck out of Minneapolis"

the front passenger's seat and glove compartment are filled with a little kid's stuffed animals. i am shaking with anger

Children will die with RFK Jr.'s new vaccine recommendations. We're NOT doing the "experts disagree" game. The US vaccine schedule was painstakingly constructed through a deep & thorough process by experts with unquestionable expertise. This is policy by fiat. It is pre-meditated murder. 1/

DTE is building a data center in the Detroit suburbs that will tie up resources. When asked to share contract details, DTE and it's clients broke the law and redacted most of the it.

Stop the Military Escalation with Venezuela (UPDATED 1/3) ⭑ 5 Calls Updates January 3, 2025: The Trump administration ordered military strikes on Venezuela. There is no congressional approval for this military action. …

Thanks to the @5calls.org team for updating this so quickly to address the military strikes on Venezuela. This is a very helpful resource for those of us who want to call our representatives and make our views known.

A Toni Morrison quote embedded in a yellow, black, and white graphic design reads: "I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.’”

As of today, I am a FULL professor. I do not care much for occupational status markers. Still, it is not lost on me that only 2% of full professors are Black women. This goes beyond personal accomplishment. It is a responsibility to do as much as I can for others. That is exactly what I aim to do.

South Park called it, and it’s hilarious.

One of the creators purchased the Trump Kennedy Center URL address before the name was even changed because they know Trump’s narcissism is in the driver’s seat.

Well, while Trump has been posting about scumbags and liberal sleazebags and starting a war in Nigeria — Obama went to a hospital — visiting patients, handing out gifts and thanking the staff for all they do every day. 🎅🏿 ❤️ 🐐