nearly all of these MAHA influencers are being compensated by tobacco companies, and very few disclose it. in many cases, they are marketing to children. nicotine pouches harm child brain development.

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

CDC delays publishing report showing covid vaccine benefits The acting CDC director cited concerns with the methodology, but the design has long been used to test vaccine effectiveness.

The leadership at HHS has an agenda, and that is to deprive the United States of vaccines, most especially COVID19 vaccines.

These people have no problem making claims about their belief that COVID19 vaccines are harmful without any data at all.

Now they are hiding data showing the benefits.

tl;dr: NIH is running at about 60% of pre-Trump levels and NSF is running at about 20% of pre-Trump levels of funding-outlays (some directorates far below even that). Utterly catastrophic. An unforced disaster for U.S. society, and the world

This is the definition of the Merchants of Doubt strategy: Amplifying 3% of experts with fringe opinions to make it look like the debate is a 50/50 proposition.

This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts WebinarTV hosts 200,000 “webinars.” A Zoom call you may thought was private might be one of them.

Well, this is awful.
www.404media.co/this-company...
via @404media.co
It relies on the "books.google.com" Author's Guild case as to why it can scrape & play other's presentations w/o consent [theoretically 'opt-out'].
Further article here: cyberalberta.ca/zooming-out-...

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case

Big legal/public health news. Punitive damages judgment still to come. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/t...

How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues The health secretary is spreading doubts about vaccine safety and considering changes that could prompt manufacturers to flee the U.S. market. History has shown how plagues from the past can roar back...

"It could take 20 years before birth defects from rubella become common again. Unvaccinated children have to grow old enough to become pregnant. The long lag time can give a false sense of security."

www.propublica.org/article/rfk-...

In Defense of Good Writing "Knowledge is Good"

I got irritated with reading another assertion that AI can outperform social scientists at our jobs. I find these arguments reveal both an intellectual laziness and a lack of appreciation for good writing, which is the heart of our work. I had thoughts.
mirandayaver.substack.com/p/in-defense...

State of Florida's new mandate for public college Intro Sociology curriculum:

"The following should not be included in any course content...

"Discussions arguing a causal association between institutional sexism and unequal outcomes between men and women"

Indoctrination, not education nor science

Yes, all this and more, including the wonton destruction of CDC's Office of Smoking and Health.

Kennedy Allies Target States to Overturn Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren

I fear this is being treated as background noise rather than the 5 alarm emergency it is. Absolutely terrifying.

Kennedy Allies Target States to Overturn Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/h...

💯

I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. My five-month quest to monitor the weather, track inflation, and inspect milk for harmful microorganisms

Spot on, from @petridishes.bsky.social: "For a while...we, as a nation, thought to ourselves: Life is too short for everyone to inspect their own food. Let the government handle this. But then along came the Trump administration to wonder: What if we didn’t?"

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Nearly half of CDC surveillance databases have stopped updating ‘The consequences will be dire,’ former NIAID director Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo warns

ICE observers recording with phones are heroes, and are the reason we know the truth about the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

In public health, we make observations by collecting and analyzing data. But RFK Jr. is taking the equivalent of our “phone”. Without data, he can lie with abandon.

So sad that Bill Foege saw the US formally withdraw from the WHO in his final days.

The Fears of the Rich, The Needs of the Poor My Years at the CDC

As relevant as ever —

www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

William H. Foege, Key Figure in the Eradication of Smallpox, Dies at 89

A public health icon and a national hero.

William H. Foege, Key Figure in the Eradication of Smallpox, Dies at 89 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...

This is, quite literally, our collective duty.

📣 Join us for our next #TobaccoEndgame CRE #Webinar on FDA regulation and nicotine reduction! Prof Micah Berman will present 'Taking the Nicotine Out of Cigarettes: Lessons from the US FDA's Attempt'.
📆02 February
⏰1pm AEST
🔗 tobacco-endgame.centre.uq.edu.au/event/sessio...
@micahberman.bsky.social

Broken Promises to Our Children This year’s report finds, once again, that most states continue to shortchange programs that prevent kids from using tobacco products and help people quit…

New annual tobacco prevention spending report from @tobaccofreekids.bsky.social. www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/u...

#Ohio now ranked 43rd, spending $6 million on tobacco prevention & cessation annually. This is less than the tobacco industry spends on marketing in Ohio in a WEEK.

Scoop: The leaked protocol of the CDC-funded Hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau. “This is another Tuskegee.” The protocol reveals that the trial will withhold the Hepatitis B birth dose from thousands—without placebos, without universal maternal screening, and with endpoints critics call indefensible.

Read the details here. RFK’s Hep B vax “trial” in Guinea-Bissau is not just a Tuskegee-level ethical travesty. It’s also skewed to make the vax (which has been proven to save lives) look unsafe and ineffective. And it funnels money to RFK cronies.

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

👇🎯💯

US to slash routine vaccine recommendations for children in major change experts say creates doubt Jabs to prevent influenza, rotavirus, RSV and other vaccines are no longer fully recommended

“The goal of this administration is to basically make vaccines optional,” said @pauloffit.bsky.social. “And we’re paying the price.” www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

For her part Machado said on X that the guy who actually won the election — Edmundo González Urrutia — should be the leader

Oh wow — an article about where my family tree overlaps with @stevevladeck.bsky.social’s.

Director of NIH neurological disorders institute is ousted, adding to leadership churn Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, will soon be leaving his role, STAT has learned. His departure

More on the continuing purges at #NIH. Now 13 out of 27 institute directors have been gotten rid of. This is not normal. @jonathanwosen.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/12/27/n...

ugh

It was all so obvious & uninteresting in its clear bad faith & bad intentions, & the willingness of so many senior folks in academia & society to tolerate the clear bad faith & bad intentions over the last 25 years has been incredibly depressing.