It was a tough time: This spring summer I saw a deliberate anti-science disinformation campaign emerging from the White House, and how it was both targeting scientists (me) and decimating Hispanic and other low-income communities. To say nothing I felt was morally indefensible
I’m in a scary place, definitely out of my comfort zone, but having the support of my family and the scientific community (including many govt scientists who feel similarly threatened), gives me a lot courage to keep going.
Back in May in a paper published in @MicrobesInfect I predicted the attacks on science and scientists would escalate in the weeks prior to the 2020 US presidential election, and pretty much that’s what’s happening.
Also troubling is the accelerating globalization of anti-science and links to QAnon and neo-nazi political activities. I have a new paper out in @MicrobesInfect this coming week..
I took some comfort in the writings of Elie Wiesel, Abba Eban, others, and that helped. Here's what EW said in his @NobelPrize acceptance speech on Dec 10, 1986 in Oslo, Norway. L'Shana Tova
1/n Once again here are some key articles on how the SARS-2 virus (Covid-19) causes heart disease (it’s a thromboembolic virus) and evidence that vaccinating vs Covid protects your heart nature.com/articles/s4416…
Many thanks @KatyTurNBC for hosting me on @MSNOWNews as i explain the 6 vaccines that DHHS no longer recommends including the meningococcal vaccines, explaining what happens when a child gets meningococcal septicemia and meningitis…
Once Neisseria meningitidis gets into the bloodstream it causes purpura fulminans leading to limb gangrene and amputation, it causes renal failure, and meningitis with permanent neurological deficits, also high mortality. And this is the disease the chuckleheads at DHHS want to bring back
Or rotavirus causing 50,000-70,000 hospitalizations and 200,000+ ER visits annually, mostly in the winter, prevaccine. So if I looked disgusted, that’s because I’m disgusted…with DHHS and their MAHA pseudoscience
1/n The article says that they want to take away 6 vaccines by no longer "recommending them" but rather to give them through "shared decision making." This is total nonsense. In my pediatric residency in Boston in the 1980s, all vaccines were administered through shared decision making. Our training was all about explaining to parents the benefits of vaccines vs. the risks of the diseases they're designed to prevent.
2/n Here's what this is about: It's now almost a weekly ritual from DHHS to throw out some new public effort to undermine public confidence in the necessity, effectiveness, or safety of vaccines. One week it's saying MMR is "leaky," or declines in immunity, or contaminated, list goes on...
3/n I could go on, but now the latest is that they want to say that essential vaccines for rotavirus or perhaps bacterial meningitis are no longer essential. As a pediatrician-scientist who has admitted and taken care kids in the PICU with these illnesses, I can say with certainty they are essential
1/n Trump admin set to tie Tylenol to autism risk, officials say…but my view: the published evidence is not very compelling with largest study finding no association, and a systematic review showing some studies linking it other not. This needs reframing washingtonpost.com/health/2025/09…
2/n before I start, here’s a large study of 2 million Swedish kids done at the renowned @karolinskainst showing no association in @JAMA_current jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…
@karolinskainst @JAMA_current 3/n here’s my way of thinking about this, which I wrote about in a previous book after my in depth discussions with RFK Jr back in 2017
1/n Watching more Dept HHS wellness/influencer autism pseudoscience infiltrate RFK Jr’s public remarks + the recent tragic and fact-free White House press conference. Most of this I debunked in a previous book, written during/after a year of unproductive discussions with the guy
2/n the major points:
1. We have a good understanding of the neurodevelopmental basis of autism operating through dozens of autism genes (including Rachel’s) active in early pregnancy .sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
2. This doesn’t mean there is no environmental influence, on the contrary multiple environmental triggers have been identified all operating by interacting with autism genes in early pregnancy nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
1/n When you actually bother to read the HHSBARDA statement you realize how untethered from reality he has become, MAHA pseudoscience. For instance this statement below touting benefits of whole inactivated virus vaccines for serious respiratory infections hhs.gov/press-room/hhs…
2/n so instead of mRNA which can be quickly adapted to emerging pandemic threats he’s going to combine multiple whole inactivated viruses and load them up with TLR agonists as adjuvants. What will that do? Well first it’s unreliable bc you never know what viruses will grow in…
3/n will grow in eggs or cell lines. You need a high titer of virus. Second two of our nation’s most troubling adverse vaccine reactions occurred using this approach. In early 1960s with formalin inactivated RSV and later in 1976 with swine flu causing GBS.