Tim Lahey

Breaking News: RIFs in reverse. Some CDC workers have been brought back, in latest whiplash. This is breaking news.

Chaotic governance

open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

The Trump admin is in the midst of laying off 1,100-1,200 HHS staff. The CDC's outbreak responders, gone. The office producing CDC's weekly journal MMWR is gone. CDC staff securing sensitive data, gone. Worker safety, gone. Immunization group, gone.

Instead, Congress watches RFK "make the proof"

We have breaking news in Inside Medicine.

We had heard rumors of RIFs to CDC.

But this is the first visual confirmation that it has occurred tonight, and at high levels in the agency.

Here is what we know...and then some well-sourced rumors (but rumors, nonetheless, not confirmed) 🧵...

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.

Trump Administration Lays Off Dozens of C.D.C. Officials

“Roughly 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — the so-called “disease detectives” who respond to outbreaks around the globe — received layoff notices, according to a person familiar with them. The service was spared during an earlier round of layoffs in February.”

How is this still happening?

www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

CDC Expands Access to COVID Shots for Pregnant Women Agency's vaccine advisors' recommendations about shared decision-making appear to apply

Such meager evidence of sense but, hey, we’ll take the win

www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

Trump Administration Live Updates: Federal Layoffs ‘Have Begun,’ White House Says

GOP-controlled White House, Senate and House of Representatives are simply forced -- by themselves -- to continue taking a wrecking ball to the federal government

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

The Cass Review Continues To Be Severely Flawed A new paper from an Australian team shines a light on the problems with the review

"The authors appeared to accept very bad evidence when it supported a specific set of beliefs, and discarded evidence of any quality when it did not support this"

gidmk.substack.com/p/the-cass-r...

Dalbavancin works for semi-complicated Staph bacteremia, if you can get it

Medicaid Expansion Linked to Better Cancer Survival at 5 Years Residents of rural, high-poverty areas derived greatest benefit versus non-expansion states

"Expanding Medicaid in the remaining 10 non-expansion states, which constitute the top six states with the highest uninsurance rates among adults 19 to 64 years of age ... may lead to improvements in cancer outcomes"

www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyon...

Updated 2025 fall vaccine guide Your guide, frequently asked questions, webinar recording and resources

This is excellent

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/updated-20...

grateful to hear him say this out loud — too few institutions have this decency and courage

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

“I lost my son because of the funding cuts,” he says. “And it is not only me — many more children in other camps have also died helplessly from hunger, malnutrition and no medical treatment.”

apnews.com/article/myan...

Banning “dangerous gain-of-function” pathogen research is actually just banning pathogen research. TB causes chronic disease, the supposed cornerstone of the MAHA movement. Hard to see ending TB research on treatments as anything but another targeted attack on science in service of destroying it.

Patients shouldn’t be pressured to ‘just check that box’ on informed consent forms Doctors should actually discuss informed-consent paperwork with their patients.

Having a signed form can make us feel like the informed consent box has been checked

This patient's story is a good example of how that's far from the truth

#bioethics

www.statnews.com/2025/10/08/i...

Opinion | Six surgeons general: It’s our duty to warn the nation about RFK Jr. We took an oath to declare dangers when we found them. We’re doing that again today.

"We have watched with increasing alarm as the foundations of our nation’s public health system have been undermined. Science and expertise have taken a back seat to ideology and misinformation."

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have made a HUGE breakthrough towards a UNIVERSAL antiviral. By targeting sugar molecules found on the surface of many viruses that SHARE structural similarities, they identified FOUR compounds that successfully BLOCKED infections from SEVEN different viruses.

Want to see the data that support immunization for this season’s flu, COVID-19 & RSV immunizations?

✅ Evidence review complete
✅ New searchable tool
✅ Easy-to-use infographic guide

Check them out here:

www.cidrap.umn.edu/v...

The Trump administration has stopped funding of PubMed, not considering a vital service.

Your doctor will not know the newest information that affects your health. This will cost lives.

Kennedy Fires N.I.H. Scientist Who Filed Whistle-Blower Complaint

Was it something she said, here in the Land of the Free?

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/h...

The Potential Impact of Ending the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program on HIV Incidence: A Simulation Study in 31 U.S. Cities | Annals of Internal Medicine Background: With antiretroviral therapy, people with HIV can live a normal lifespan and not transmit HIV. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program provides care for over half of people with HIV in the United S...

Ending Ryan White funding could result in a 49% increase in new HIV infections in the US by 2030

www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

Excellent article on sharpening diagnostic skills by surfacing equity

#MedEd

www-nejm-org.ezproxy.uvm.edu/doi/full/10....

what sort of quantum jar contains bubbles that do not align with each other?

Philanthropies Strike a Promising Deal to Turn Back H.I.V.

What we should be doing, instead of chtting funds to lifesaving care

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/h...

a man talking on a walkie talkie with the words " can you hear me " below him ALT: a man talking on a walkie talkie with the words " can you hear me " below him

4 vaccines associated with lower rates of dementia because ... viruses bad

www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...

Kennedy Says U.S. Rejects Global Health Goals

“The health secretary’s comments were disturbing, misleading and full of contradictions”

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/h...

Ahem.

Louder for the lawmakers in the back.

RFK Jr. has proven nothing but his unfitness. He must go. - The Boston Globe Kennedy is endangering America’s health.

Boston Globe says Kennedy must go!

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/24/o...

Cartoon where a woman watching TV says "there's so much stupidicity in this timeline it's giving me a headache" and the man says "take two tylenol"

With the amount of rubbish disinformation and quackery these days, we all need tylenol!