At parts of the Winter Olympics in Italy, COVID precautions remain, grounded in the reality that airborne infections are still circulating. When your body is your livelihood, prevention is part of performance.
#COVID #COVID19 #PublicHealth #InfectionPrevention #Olympics #LongCOVID #MaskUp #N95
We are not powerless! Last month, the administration reversed massive cuts to to SAMHSA and CDC after public and congressional outcry. We can do that again. Call your representatives!
4/4
Even below the state level, we see indicators of partisan targeting. Of the five Public Health Infrastucture Grants NOT terminated in these states, 3 are in Trump-voting counties, and one in big Republican donor Orange County. 3/
The administration circulated a list of "examples" of grants to be terminated. They pulled the most lurid "DEI" language from grant and program descriptions for these examples, and this language has been repeated in news stories for the past week.
Those programs make up about 5% of the cuts. The vast majority of the cuts are to basic public health infrastructure: things like recruitment, training, and IT systems for local health departments. 2/
The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list.
They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media.
https://grant-witness.us/posts/2026-02-10-cdc-terminations/
🧵 1/
This isn't about "gold standard" science. This is about having an antivax agenda. Can't wait to welcome polio back. 😕
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/fda-refuses-to-review-modernas-mrna-flu-vaccine/
#FDA #RFKjr #antivax #antiscience #Moderna #mRNA #PublicHealth #flu
This isn't about "gold standard" science. This is about having an antivax agenda. Can't wait to welcome polio back. 😕
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/fda-refuses-to-review-modernas-mrna-flu-vaccine/
#FDA #RFKjr #antivax #antiscience #Moderna #mRNA #PublicHealth #flu
"Lawmakers in both Maryland’s House of Delegates and Senate are set to discuss the bill, called HB0027 in the House and SB0392 in the Senate, next week, with hearings scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday."
If you live in Maryland, be sure to call your representatives and let them know you want them to support this bill!
https://thesicktimes.org/2026/02/06/maryland-considers-long-covid-innovation-bill/
#covid #LongCovid #USPol #maryland #health #PublicHealth #HB0027 #SB0392
Even below the state level, we see indicators of partisan targeting. Of the five Public Health Infrastucture Grants NOT terminated in these states, 3 are in Trump-voting counties, and one in big Republican donor Orange County. 3/
We are not powerless! Last month, the administration reversed massive cuts to to SAMHSA and CDC after public and congressional outcry. We can do that again. Call your representatives!
4/4
The administration circulated a list of "examples" of grants to be terminated. They pulled the most lurid "DEI" language from grant and program descriptions for these examples, and this language has been repeated in news stories for the past week.
Those programs make up about 5% of the cuts. The vast majority of the cuts are to basic public health infrastructure: things like recruitment, training, and IT systems for local health departments. 2/
Even below the state level, we see indicators of partisan targeting. Of the five Public Health Infrastucture Grants NOT terminated in these states, 3 are in Trump-voting counties, and one in big Republican donor Orange County. 3/
The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list.
They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media.
https://grant-witness.us/posts/2026-02-10-cdc-terminations/
🧵 1/
The administration circulated a list of "examples" of grants to be terminated. They pulled the most lurid "DEI" language from grant and program descriptions for these examples, and this language has been repeated in news stories for the past week.
Those programs make up about 5% of the cuts. The vast majority of the cuts are to basic public health infrastructure: things like recruitment, training, and IT systems for local health departments. 2/
The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list.
They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media.
https://grant-witness.us/posts/2026-02-10-cdc-terminations/
🧵 1/
"There's nothing humans can do. Only a dictator would use science and medicine to save lives."
#abpoli #COVID #COVID19 #covisIsNotOver #publichealth #healthcare #health
"Two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of COVID-19 were recently identified at a massive immigration detention center in El Paso, according to city officials and a Democratic congresswoman.
El Paso’s U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar disclosed the infections after her Friday visit to Camp East Montana, the 5,000-bed tent facility the federal government hastily built last year on the Fort Bliss Army base."
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/07/ice-facility-el-paso-tuberculosis/
#PublicHealth #immigration #ICE #detention #tuberculosis #covid #texas
"Two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of COVID-19 were recently identified at a massive immigration detention center in El Paso, according to city officials and a Democratic congresswoman.
El Paso’s U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar disclosed the infections after her Friday visit to Camp East Montana, the 5,000-bed tent facility the federal government hastily built last year on the Fort Bliss Army base."
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/07/ice-facility-el-paso-tuberculosis/
#PublicHealth #immigration #ICE #detention #tuberculosis #covid #texas
At parts of the Winter Olympics in Italy, COVID precautions remain, grounded in the reality that airborne infections are still circulating. When your body is your livelihood, prevention is part of performance.
#COVID #COVID19 #PublicHealth #InfectionPrevention #Olympics #LongCOVID #MaskUp #N95
The AI Con authors Emily M. Bender (Professor of Linguistics, University of Washington) and Alex Hanna (Director of Research, Distributed AI Research Institute) break down a #NYT opinion piece that exemplifies hype laundering: how AI industry narratives get legitimized through respected voices in prestigious outlets.
The article is "Stop Worrying, and Let A.I. Help Save Your Life" by Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at #UCSF, published in the New York Times on January 19, 2026.
Dr. Wachter admits he's replacing professional medical consultations with colleagues—what physicians call "curbside consults"- with ChatGPT queries. He claims AI's input is "virtually always useful," though he admits it's sometimes "just plain wrong." Emily responds: "People who really should know better have fallen for this." Alex notes the absurdity: "This seems like really a weird kind of approach to medical practice... Maybe someone who is concerned about their different medical conditions and had no place to turn, but someone at UCSF. I've been to UCSF. That's very alarming."
Wachter provides zero peer-reviewed studies, no outcome data, no comparative metrics. Just personal anecdotes claiming the tools work. Emily points out he's demonstrating "no evidence-based practice of checking like how well does this work and also how does it impact the work of physicians when they're using it."
The accountability problem is central. Alex observes that with a human colleague, "you would actually know it's coming from them and there's some accountability if they give you some just wild advice." With LLMs? No one is responsible when the answer is wrong. Emily: "The point isn't that the answers are unreliable. Is that there's no accountability for the answers."
She also raises automation bias concerns: "If you review the output, are you also reviewing the things that you didn't get to because it didn't come out as output?" The system's omissions may be as dangerous as its errors.
Wachter is against "overly restrict[ing] A.I. tools" by "setting an impossibly high bar." Classic regulatory capture language. Emily: "I want all medical devices to be tightly regulated."
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2687163982 (just the video stream https://d2vi6trrdongqn.cloudfront.net/bc9948ab01f26c79a170_dair_institute_317110603102_1770049612/720p60/index-dvr.m3u8)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/ai-health-medical-care.html
#ChatGPT ( #OpenAI) is #Trump's biggest donor, and #ICE uses ChatGPT. It's time to quit. http://quitgpt.org/
Twitch
