I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.
Posts by Nethra Ankam, MD
Thank you!! I’ll try it.
The U.S. Senate is currently considering a budget reconciliation bill that quietly includes language that could devastate our public lands. It would:
- Make over 250 million acres of public land eligible for sale
- Mandate the sale of at least 2 million acres of Forest Service and BLM land
Ah, she has Medicare advantage, so this wouldn’t work
What’s the website?
They need the #Qbrexza so that their prosthetic leg doesn’t slide off. So they need this to walk. Next step is Administrative Law Judge hearing, but it wasn’t denied for medical necessity but rather @elilillyandcompany.bsky.social ‘s financial decision. What are my options? #medsky #physkyatry
My patient’s #Qbrexza was denied because @elilillyandcompany.bsky.social doesn’t participate in the Medicare coverage gap discount program. Where do I go from here? #medsky #disability
Christine Grady spent decades protecting patients’ rights and setting ethical standards at NIH.
Last week she was “reassigned” in a purge led by anti-science ideologues now running U.S. public health.
Science and ethical practice are under siege.
#bioethics #justice #standupforscience
US citizens.
"All these people are U.S. citizens who were detained, deported or otherwise swept up in immigration enforcement actions under the Trump administration’s intensifying crackdown..."
www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
here’s a curse word free version of “look it up” as requested by countless teachers and librarians 🥰😘
Dept. of HHS mass firings included people who fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests for the CDC, NIH, and FDA, which result in the release of records about government handling of infectious diseases, medical products, and safety problems in health facilities. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Do not normalize children dying from measles. Measles was previously eliminated in the US, thanks to vaccines.
When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.
John Barron introduced them 👉 www.cnbc.com/2018/04/20/t...
The Constitution says NO PERSON, not “citizen.”
rfk released a video when the hhs job cuts were announced that aired frustration that govt officials wouldn’t let hhs into a key database that sounded like vaers. this story seems to suggest that’s the case.
1/ Trump has gutted the Admin. for Community Living (ACL), a lifeline for 2,500+ orgs. Its grants supported local Independent Living Centers, dev. disabilities councils, respite care & more—helping people with disabilities & older adults live independently.
www.disabilityscoop.com/2025/04/03/h...
When you think of the core of American politics as a large collection of individuals who have enough social, political, and financial capital to speak up against despotism but don't wanna spend that capital because they're hoping someone else will, it all really starts to make sense.
Just a legal historian here reminding everyone that “high crimes and misdemeanors” do not need to be felonies.
They can include political abuses and stupidity, like, hypothetically, destroying the economy and wiping out people’s savings in 3 days.
In medical school I saw a case of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. This is a terrifying disease because the patient has measles, and then develops SSPE years later. The child progressively loses all neurological function until they become a shell of their former selves and die. Vaccines work.
Well this seems like a fantastic plan.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/h...
On Elon Musk and RFKjr's devastation of NIOSH:
"It’s a small thing, but it’s massive in terms of its impact and its importance,” said John McDonough, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “And they’ve just wiped it off the face of the Earth.” @megtirrell.bsky.social
🚨 We need to talk about DOGE & the IRS
This article covers actions that could be more damaging than the tariffs.
This hackathon has the very real potential to deliver the personal and financial information of everyone to the dark web. 🧵
www.wired.com/story/doge-h...
Measles likely came from cows (via rinderpest) around the 6th century BCE.
For 2,500 years, we didn’t evolve superhuman resistance—children just died. Real protection only came in the 1960s, with vaccines.
Our superpower isn’t evolving into superhumans. It’s outthinking pathogens.
Another federal agency gone. This one tracks patient outcomes in hospitals. medical mistakes, and patient safety. RIP
“Data gathered by AHRQ provides much of what is known about hospitalizations for motor accidents, measles, and thousands of other medical issues."
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to attend the funeral of a child who died a preventable death in a measles outbreak fueled by vaccine hesitancy.
The last time his beliefs fueled a measles outbreak, they ran out of infant-sized coffins in Samoa. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
Tim Walz: "It's not a 'woke policy' to provide food for children to get breakfast and lunch, and we get better outcomes from that. They defined things on their terms that weren't true ... we got timid."
New measles death in TX - a child. C/w last week:
CURRENT CASE COUNT: 569
Texas: 481 (+59)
New Mexico: 54 (+6)
Oklahoma: 10
Kansas: 24 (+1)
HOSPITALIZATIONS: 58 (+14)
Texas: 56 (+14) have been hospitalized, 11.6%.
New Mexico: 2 (No change). This is 4.5% of NM cases.
DEATHS: 3 (+1)