TB, power, and the political economy of neglect The cure exists. The evidence exists. What is missing is the political commitment to treat TB as the development crisis it is.

The cure for TB exists. The will to deploy it universally does not, yet. That gap is not scientific. It is political.

globaldevpod.substack.com/p/tb-power-a...

I miss the days where I woke up and the President of the United States wasn’t threatening to bomb another country’s power plants and bridges.

I completely agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene is a sentence I never thought I would ever write.

I don't think people fully appreciate how apocalyptic things are for US science. I haven't had any new funding since 2024, but I'm still ok since typical grants are for three years. This means next year I will be completely out of funding and will have to fire everyone in the lab. It's not great.

Gerald's Game, read at age 12.

How many women have died with “fucking bitch” ringing in their ears? Don’t let the misogyny get erased here

Friendly reminder that these apps are also not bound by HIPAA meaning at any time, all of your otherwise PHI is now able to be bought.

Walz: "I couldn't help but think, and it scares me a bit -- 'The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most important directive.' It certainly feels like that in this moment."

JUST NOW: At end of press conference, Gov Tim Walz (D-MN) quotes George Orwell

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears"

(Some Congressional Democrats used same quote Tuesday, on 5-year mark of Jan 6)

The White House is opening is (no longer quite) "Daily" Briefing with RFK announcing new (quackery) health guidelines

According to work by @benjaminsnoble.bsky.social, @erinrossiter.bsky.social, and I, including this "special guest" should help the White House control the briefing agenda!

To learn more about our work examining how the struggle for agenda control in the briefing room plays out and its downstream consequences, check out this thread I created about it (paper linked there):

bsky.app/profile/davi...

it's time to play America's favorite new game, 'what the fuck am I waking up to now'

feels weird given everything but apparently I’ve retained the ability to be shocked

Some updates:

CNN: The Senate Armed Services Committee was not informed in advance of any potential US military action carried out tonight in Venezuela.

Nick Shirley thinks that daycares are unlocked and have "reception" areas 😆 😭

I’ve spent the past two days as pediatric ward attending and frankly we need both more and even better vaccines not fewer

If you're an academic using AI for your scholarly work, you deserve shame.

If you use AI for work that you submit, you should be banned from that forum. Whatever journal, conference, workshop series - banned.

Maybe you can appeal after a few years. Maybe.

Screenshot from project 2025 that says By statute or regulation, CDC guidance must be prohibited from taking on a prescriptive character. For example, never again should CDC officials be allowed to say in their official capacity that school children "should be" masked or vaccinated (through a schedule or otherwise) or prohibited from learning in a school building. Such decisions should be left to parents and medical providers. We have learned that when CDC says what people "should" do, it readily becomes a "must" backed by severe punishments, including criminal penalties. CDC should report on the risks and effectiveness of all infectious disease-mitigation measures dispassionately and leave the "should" and "must" policy calls to politically accountable parties. Conflicts of Interest. There was a time when the CDC could not take money

It is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. plans to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines.

It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States.

And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

A recent modeling study in JAMA showed that if MMR vaccine rates drop 10% (easy to see happen with this), we’re back to 400,000-500,000 cases a year. Our current outbreak is 2,000. This turns the clock back to 1950 🚨🚨🚨

Why Denmark's vaccine schedule works for Denmark — but not for the United States With its vaccine schedule, “Denmark has made a values choice to accept preventable hospitalizations and illnesses that other countries have chosen to prevent.”

This is a real disaster in the making. Babies are going to die. Full-stop.

"Why Denmark’s vaccine schedule works for Denmark — but not for the United States." www.statnews.com/2025/12/19/d... via @statnews.com

Here in this timeline we live in, I think about “binders full of women” at least weekly.

This piece stays at the right level of zoomed out and has the right take home messages imo! bsky.app/profile/josh...

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

This is beyond bad. All of our disease defenses are down now. We are sitting ducks. This is #RussellVought #DonaldTrump #RFKJr. They are endangering American lives with their insane crusade. These men are hazardous to your health and dangerous to the republic. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Full frontal attack on public health

Changes at NIH Give Political Appointees Greater Power To Fund or Block Research - KFF Health News The National Institutes of Health’s long-held standard of peer review for grantmaking has been subverted by President Donald Trump and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, who gave unprecedented power to po...

IMO this hasn't gotten enough attention: a recent memo at NIH announces that peer review will be devalued in determining which grants get funded, granting more power to political appointees to make decisions based on the admin's whims over scientific merit

kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

This ought to be engraved somewhere.

Trump said today that he heard rumors that people in Cuba are too poor to buy acetaminophen and autism doesn’t exist there. Both of these statements are incorrect.

Rumors is a great album by Fleetwood Mac but not a great basis for public health policy.

States rally to offset fracturing of federal healthcare agencies: ‘Diseases don’t see state lines’ Changes to regulatory or information environments will help states decouple from federal health recommendations

Eight states and New York City officially announced the Northeast Public Health Collaborative this week, while the West Coast Health Alliance released its first vaccination guidelines. My latest:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...