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Amy Maxmen, PhD

@amymaxmen.bsky.social
37K followers 2.8K following 802 posts

Award-winning public health reporter at KFF Health News. Bylines at Nature, New York Times, National Geographic & more. AmyM@kff.org Signal: AmyMaxmen.25 www.amymaxmen.com & kffhealthnews.org/news/author/amy-m…

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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 4h
The Ebola outbreak in Congo is now exploding in North Kivu, where 34% of Ebola patients are being treated in bare-bones health facilities instead of Ebola Treatment Units, according to @msf.org 3,982 confirmed deaths 😔 www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/ebola...
doctorswithoutborders.org
Ebola outbreak spreading like “wildfire” across North Kivu
The province is bearing an increasing share of the Ebola burden in DR Congo, while access to specialized care remains insufficient.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Absolutely stunning/horrifying to see a 5th measles death in PA. This means the outbreak is probably far higher than numbers count, seeing as roughly 1-3 people die per 1,000. Many people aren't being tested. Also: I'm going to states now for info, not the CDC* app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrI...
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Do you want to be a science writer? Or just learn more about science writing? This is a fantastic *paid* opportunity to sharpen your skills. @theopennotebook.bsky.social @siricarpenter.bsky.social www.theopennotebook.com/early-career...
theopennotebook.com
Early-Career Fellowship Program - The Open Notebook
Every year, The Open Notebook offers a paid, part-time fellowship program for early-career science journalists. This ten-month program offers fellows the opportunity to explore their career interests and passions and to sharpen their skills as part of a talented, supportive, diverse community of past and present fellows and mentors. This fellowship is made possible through the generous support of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Why don't women report rape? Police dismissed the horrific assault at Cornell because she was conscious. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/n...
Another likely complication was that New York law defines rape narrowly, Ms. Manning said, excluding a person who is subjected to unwanted sex while voluntarily intoxicated unless they are fully unconscious at the time of the assault. The law is one both prosecutors, including Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and advocates have called to be amended.

The woman in this case was conscious during much of the assault, finally blacking out at around 5:45 a.m., her lawsuit states.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
While the news & white papers breathlessly cover the idea of a threat of a future AI bioweapon, an Ebola outbreak is escalating, having killed nearly 4,000 people so far. The Trump admin has diminished US support to control it w/travel bans, an eroded CDC & a hobbled WHO www.who.int/emergencies/...
who.int
Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus - Democratic Republic of the Congo
Since the last Disease Outbreak News was published on 11 September 2026, the Bundibugyo virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has expanded further, with two additional health zones af...
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Six babies born w/measles in PA, a potentially deadly condition. www.nbcnews.com/video/doctor... I spoke with a pediatrician in Utah who pleaded w/parents to give their newborn antibodies - mom had measles. He pushed & pushed & may have spared that baby's life. kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...
kffhealthnews.org
Anguished Parents. Doctors in Tears. Utah’s Long Measles Outbreak Takes a Toll. - KFF Health News
Measles has been spreading in Utah for nearly a year, straining hospitals, schools, and parents. The state’s outbreak provides a glimpse into a new era in America’s health, in which vaccine-preventabl...
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
CDC is reporting one US measles death in 2026, but won't say when or where. Pennsylvania clearly reports that four people have died with measles in their state. The obstruction of public health data serves no one (except for an administration hellbent on saving face).
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wellbillyboy @wellbillyboy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"The Ebola outbreak in the DRC is a stunning indictment of the state of global health security. It should have been containable, yet the outbreak that has killed over 3,500 people since early this year is already the fastest spreading in history. And it is nowhere near being contained."
foreignaffairs.com
Ebola Is Only the Beginning
Congo’s warning for the global health system.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
RFK Jr's HHS is essentially withholding Covid vaccines from children from poorer backgrounds, amid a Covid wave. Important story from @melodyschreiber.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Delays in Covid shots for kids is latest bid by Trump officials to restrict vaccines
Administration is holding back Covid vaccines for all children in at least 11 states and one US territory
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Drones could cloud DC's airspace and um, also, this is a hallmark of an authoritarian leader who uses the military to keep the people in check. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
washingtonpost.com
Trump’s plan to militarize proposed arch raises new legal, safety concerns
Aviation safety experts worry about the prospect of drones stored so close to National Airport, while preservationists say a review process can't go forward now.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.
apnews.com
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...
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Peter Maybarduk @maybarduk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Trump claims lower GLP-1 prices from his deals. But Lilly’s deal contains a loophole that insulates it from providing a true MFN price point for its GLP-1 drugs. If the loophole is applied to all GLP-1 drugs, it could cost Medicaid $1.7 billion in savings. Analysis: www.citizen.org/article/publ...
citizen.org
Public Citizen FOIA Reveals That Pharma, Not Patients Are Favored In Trump’s Drug Pricing Deals - Public Citizen
Key Takeaways Copies of Pfizer and Eli Lilly’s “most-favored nation” (MFN) agreements obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of…
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The lawyer for the Venezuelan man shot by ICE yesterday says he was discharged from the hospital and transferred to ICE detention while the bullet was still inside of him, and that in Pearsall he's not received any pain meds and was forced to sleep on the floor.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Another unvaccinated person has likely died of measles. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/w...
nytimes.com
Unvaccinated Woman Likely Died of Measles Complications, Pa. County Coroner Says
The case is the third reported death linked to a rapidly expanding outbreak that has sickened more than 670 people in the state.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
RFK Jr. rallies Republicans with rhetoric against vaccines & other public health measures. "The party of my body, my choice," he says of Dems, "silenced the voices of 10s of 1000s of mothers who believe their children had suffered vaccine injuries." www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKMe...
youtube.com
FULL: RFK Jr. speech at 2026 RNC Midterm Convention
YouTube video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth
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Aleksandra Vaca @transiticsnews.com · 10/09/2026
I’m a Texan trans kid who almost died because of Ken Paxton. The world should know what he’s done. This was very difficult for me to write, but given what's at stake, I cannot bear to stay silent about what I went through at Paxton's hands. He must not be rewarded for what he's done to trans kids.
transiticsnews.com
I’m a Texan Trans Kid Who Almost Died Because of Ken Paxton. The World Should Know What He’s Done.
Regardless of Talarico’s recent statements on trans people, Paxton cannot be rewarded for the extreme suffering he’s inflicted on me and tens of thousands of Texan trans kids.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This is awful. Scammers are using AI to impersonate journalists. www.linkedin.com/posts/caroli...
linkedin.com
EDITORS: THIS IS NOT ME!!! Thanks to Brendan Maher at Nature I now have evidence someone is impersonating me to flog bad stories, using the email address: carwillsa@outlook.com. I was furious… | Car...
EDITORS: THIS IS NOT ME!!! Thanks to Brendan Maher at Nature I now have evidence someone is impersonating me to flog bad stories, using the email address: carwillsa@outlook.com. I was furious before...
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"It took almost 3 years to get these records and we had to file a lawsuit...There are so many FOIA’s that reporters like us are waiting on that can shed light on powerful people and how they operate and their record and the actions of government officials that may never see the light of day."
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The Open Notebook @theopennotebook.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Here’s another look at the annotations in our new book, The Best Science Stories and How They Work! This is commentary from @amymaxmen.bsky.social on @edyong209.bsky.social’s “Fatigue Can Shatter A Person,” first in @theatlantic.com. Out now: www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...
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Médecins Sans Frontières @msf.org · 08/09/2026
🚨 As aid organisations are pulling out of Sudan, people are enduring longer, more dangerous journeys to reach open clinics.
msf.org
Aid cuts force mass clinic closures across Sudan | MSF
As aid organisations pull out of Sudan, local clinics are left without the funds or medicines they need to provide people with lifesaving care.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
NEW: The NIH is quietly restricting funding for research that evaluates how public policy impacts human health. According to internal documents I obtained, the agency no longer considers policymakers "mission relevant" — a massive shift for the biomedical funder. My latest for @nature.com:
nature.com
NIH limits funding for research on the health effects of public policy
US biomedical agency no longer considers policymakers as ‘mission relevant’, leaving dozens of grants in limbo.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Gloria Steinem, on her life and our times, in her own beautiful words. 💔https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/everything-we-do-matters/688514/?gift=iAUUzU4FFGQU_gadwPiEPtPNYVsQijBOJR7PWbidB1w
Then American women were earning, on average, 59 cents on each dollar earned by men. Now they typically earn about 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. At the going rate, it will be 50 years before women reach parity, and 75 years before African American women do so. For Indigenous women in the United States, the numbers are even worse. I once had a man approach me on the street and tell me that he paid the “30 girls” in his office half of what he paid the men. He said, “If I had to pay them more, I’d fire them all.” I asked for his name to report him.

My role as an older person is to remind people how far we have come. Among the many things I have learned is that there is no one right way to achieve peace, equality, or justice. Everything we do matters—how we behave in an elevator, how we raise our children, how we treat our partners, how we participate in our government.

But with age also comes the responsibility to keep learning. As Robert Browning wrote: “The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made.”
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
We knew that RFK Jr. exacerbated Samoa's measles crisis. But I'm struck by the letter he sent to Samoa's prime minister. It foreshadows what he's doing at HHS: Promoting conspiracies in the guise of research. SMH.
Letter from RFK to Samoa.
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KFF @kff.org · 26/08/2026
KFF’s Drishti Pillai explains how the new DHS proposed rule establishing a $103,265 fee for H-1B visa petitions could lead to reductions in U.S. health care workforce, increasing barriers to care. on.kff.org/4qzKk7q
Quote from Drishti Pillai, Associate Director, Racial Equity and Health Policy Program; Director, Immigrant Health Policy, KFF. It says, “A decline in H-1B workers would disproportionately impact states that employ the largest shares of H-1B workers (NY, MA, CA, and PA), lower income and rural areas where H-1B health care workers often are employed, and smaller employers, who would face greater challenges paying the fee.”
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
PA's vax rates have dropped bc of exemptions for personal & religious reasons. The state is also less able to contain measles outbreaks because of public health spending is among the lowest in the country. Just $79 per capita compared to $124 as the US average. publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/resourc...
publichealth.jhu.edu
Status of Childhood Immunization in Pennsylvania | International Vaccine Access Center
Illustrating the current status of childhood immunization in Pennsylvania to inform state-level policy decisions and priorities.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Two deaths among unvaccinated people with measles in Pennsylvania www.pa.gov/agencies/hea...
pa.gov
Pennsylvania Department of Health Confirms Two Measles-Associated Deaths
Pennsylvania Department of Health Confirms Two Measles-Associated Deaths
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Roxanne Khamsi @roxannekhamsi.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Excited to announce that I've got a few videos on a startup YouTube channel. 🎬📣 Here's the latest one. 👇 Subscribe if you dig 🙂 youtu.be/R50kUpYRmak?...
youtu.be
Epigenetic Editing Finally Got Precise
YouTube video by Roxanne Khamsi
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 17/08/2026
A 19-year-old in Texas has spent nearly a year raising her 13-year-old sister after their parents were detained by ICE and deported to Honduras. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
nbcnews.com
U.S. citizen teens left behind when ICE deported their parents
After their mom and dad were deported, two Fort Worth teens went nearly a year before seeing their parents.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
CDC's latest media statement says 2025-26 vaccination rates "remained high." Notable that the statement doesn't say that vaccination coverage among kindergartners has dropped for all vaccines, down to 92% for vaccines agst diphtheria, tetanus & pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella & polio.
static.klipy.com
The Simpsons: Homer Driving with Hostages
ALT: The Simpsons: Homer Driving with Hostages
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Corporate media struggle wildly to find a way to suggest that New Yorkers don't like Mamdani, as polling uniformly shows him getting approval ratings no NYC mayor as seen in three decades. abcnews4.com/news/nation-...
abcnews4.com
Almost half of New Yorkers aren't supportive of Democratic Socialists of America: poll
A good chunk of New Yorkers are opposed to the Democratic Socialists of America, according to a recent poll.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
🫠 An AI outlet scooped Wired at a cybersecurity conference. This might foreshadow where AI replaces journalists: scoops from online reports & datasets, and blogging about live events, like an Apple product launch. www.wired.com/story/ai-new...
RuntimeWire has been operating since May, publishing nearly 2,000 stories that it sources by crawling the internet, including court databases, web forums, traditional and new media, company filings, social feeds, and more. It focuses on granular tech news; recent stories include coverage of biotech startup funding rounds, Microsoft's Copilot upgrade, and backlash over Claude Code's watermark policy. Right now, quantity and speed trump quality. The OpenAI agents piece has a typo in the subhead and focuses, strangely, on the fact that agents rebuilt a message board rather than the fact that they created one in the first place. Overall, the stories are flatly written and tend to have an info-dump quality. (The RuntimeWire backend has a number of tonal modes the AI can write in, including “Bloomberg” and “contrarian.”) But overhead is minimal. The project costs about $100 a day to run, Merket says, and he’s able to operate it while on the go, even when he’s out camping. “I was in Big Bend National Park and I didn't have any internet except for my phone, and I managed the whole site through iMessage,” he says. “I put out over 80 articles that week.”Pete Pachal, the founder of a newsletter and podcast about generative AI and the media, has doubts that an AI newsroom could yield certain types of reporting that relies on old-fashioned sourcing. “I just don’t see that happening,” he says. “Cultivating the trust of a source, I do think that’s going to be human-only.” But for certain types of journalism, particularly sourcing scoops from large datasets or even blogging about a live event like an Apple product launch, he sees these projects as a “natural evolution” in how these tools are used. “Honestly, it feels a bit inevitable,” he says.

Is it actually journalism, though? “I am trying to follow journalistic ethics and standards,” Merket says. He says he contacts companies and individuals referenced in the stories for comment prior to publication, links out to sources when he aggregates news, and issues corrections if he gets the facts wrong. (So far, there have been three.) Sometimes he speaks like a reporter, too: “This weekend, I got two scoops up I was really excited about.” Other times, though, he’s more clearly in Silicon Valley mode. He told me a story about how his AI agents had found a few actual scoops about startups by trawling company websites and that he’d retracted the stories after the companies named asked him to do so—not because they were inaccurate, but as a favor. “Founder to founder, it’s like, I get it,” Merket says.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
If you are a causal watcher and you hear people saying this, and no pushback, you assume its true. No wonder people are mad. But in reality, this is what the actual evidence, still on the CDC website, says: www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccin...
More than a million pregnant women around the world have received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, before and during pregnancy. Studies have shown no increased risk for complications like miscarriage, preterm delivery, stillbirth, or birth defects.678910111213
mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy reduce the risk of severe illness and other health effects from COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccination might help prevent stillbirths and preterm delivery.67141511
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
“Thanks to Trump, misogyny and extremism among Republicans has become what journalists sometimes call a dog-bites-man story, something so ordinary and predictable that it breaks through only when it reaches an absurdly high threshold.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | He Says Obscene Things About Mothers and Children. Mike Johnson Is Raising Money for Him.
Thanks to Trump, G.O.P. extremism has become so ordinary that it breaks through only when it reaches an absurdly high level.
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Jack Mirkinson @jackmirkinson.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Today in @thenation.com: a harrowing piece written from inside the Dilley ICE detention center by Maryam Tahmasebi, a green card holder who's been locked up along with her husband and son for months despite none of them committing any crime. www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention
My husband, son, and I have been locked up for months—despite being permanent residents with no criminal record. It is an unendurable, unending nightmare.
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Again, it is an *exceptionally* strange situation where the president of the US gets to literally invent preposterous things out of thin air every day and no one can do anything about it
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Trump's response to the worst year for measles in 35 years: Make next year worse. Delaying vaccines has consequences: kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...
Trahern W. Jones, a pediatric infectious disease specialist based in Salt Lake City: So I’m coming into a room and just hearing the most awful barking cough, just a cough and a high-pitch stridor as the child is trying to breathe. And he’s just coughing so hard it just makes you feel short of breath. He looks like he’s been beaten down for days, but he can’t rest, because the cough keeps him awake.

The parents tell me they’re not anti-vaccine, but in the past, somebody they know had a reaction to a vaccine — or something they thought was a reaction to a vaccine — and so they paused vaccines when the child was a baby. They were planning to catch up later.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Nauseating investigation into a man who shot dogs at his award-winning "no-kill" rescue. The distain of some of animal rescues for city shelters has always seemed off to me.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
1. A new Popular Information investigation reveals that Senate Republicans have recently launched at least six fake news sites in key states.
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Katheryn Houghton @k-hought.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The fed's list of exemptions for Medicaid work requirements is shorter than many expected. One group left out: people without housing. Tywon has seizures that make it hard to work and has been homeless since his wife's death last year. Read (or listen to) his story: @npr.org, @kffhealthnews.org
kffhealthnews.org
Medicaid Work Rule Leaves Homeless People in the Cold - KFF Health News
Conservatives who have long pushed for Medicaid work requirements often said vulnerable people would get a pass. But the federal government’s list of exemptions left off homeless people.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
It's depressing to have spent so much time documenting what went wrong in Covid & end up here. To add to the 🧵 below, my 2020 article comparing the US to countries that took SARS1 seriously & strengthened defenses instead of exploiting a crisis for political gain. web.archive.org/web/20200808...
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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Join us for another Freedom From Science lecture at NIH! Today Carole Hooven is attempting to give transphobia a veneer of scientific credibility so we are coming correct
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Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
It's been almost 2 months since police killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley outside a Mississippi Walmart and while local leaders are silent, community members are not. New from me on what's happening in Senatobia, MS for @theintercept.com:
theintercept.com
Black Residents Warned of Abusive Cops for Years. Then Police Shot and Killed a Toddler.
In Senatobia, Mississippi, where police killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, community members had urged leaders to rein in the police. Are they listening now?
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
If lettuce from Taco Bell hasn't gotten you, jalepeños from Chipotle might. Salmonella outbreak linked to jalepeños has sickened >345 people. Hospitalized 36. AL, AR, CA, CO, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY www.fda.gov/food/outbrea...
fda.gov
Outbreak Investigation of Salmonella: Jalapeño (August 2026)
Do not eat, serve, or sell recalled fresh jalapeños from Sinaloa, Mexico distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors. FDA’s investigation is ongoing.
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Miles W. Griffis @mileswgriffis.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
NEW: People with Long COVID have started a petition to pause a clinical trial at Canada's McMaster University that aims to test a controversial, branded behavioral intervention, that has been accused of exploitation. www.change.org/p/long-covid...
change.org
Sign the Petition
Long COVID Patients Deserve Better: Pause McMaster’s FALCON Lightning Process Trial
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
An analysis finds that New Mexico's measles outbreak cost $5.4 million last year. NM had 100 cases. AZ outbreak is more than 3x larger; Utah's is more than 7x larger. TX and SC are each 10x larger. Welcoming back measles is going to be very expensive. www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...
acpjournals.org
Economic Impact of the 2025 New Mexico Measles Outbreak: Highlighting the Cost of Efforts to Prevent Future Outbreaks | Annals of Internal Medicine
Background: In 2025, the United States experienced its highest measles case count since 1992. In New Mexico, 100 confirmed measles cases (99 outbreak-related cases), including 1 death, occurred across...
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Oh my god the dietician who is telling everyone in the White House to only eat steak and sauerkraut doesn't wipe his ass.
To O’Mara, the diet is not just a temporary means of losing weight but a way to eat for good. He has been doing it for 10 years, and credits it with turning his life around. At one point in our conversation he pulled up the Bristol Stool Chart, which ranges from Type 1 (“separate, hard pellets”) to Type 7 (“watery, no solid pieces”). O’Mara is consistently delivering Type 4 (“smooth, soft, like a snake”), with pointed ends, indicative of healthy rectal function, he told me. “When you start eating healthy, you don’t need toilet paper,” he claimed. “Animals in the wild have no residual stool on their anus.” He described a proper bowel movement to me this way: odorless, wipe-free, over in three to seven seconds and “nearly orgasmic.”

“I could have a bowel movement behind a sheet at a dinner party in the corner of the room,” he said, “and nobody would know.”
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 02/08/2026
New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo
wapo.st
She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.
Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
In the wake of Covid, a wave of research assessed masks, school closures, trust & more. Critical work for future emergencies. Sad to see much of it being ignored or, worse, twisted to suit a narrative. @tombollyky.bsky.social corrects the record on his own research: www.statnews.com/2026/07/31/l...
Most concerning, Lipsitch and Cody mischaracterized the stated conclusion of our Lancet study, which was that NPIs were effective. We found states that imposed more protective mandates, such as mask use and mobility restrictions, maintained them for longer, and also those that had better compliance with those policies had lower infection rates. We share the concerns over Covid revisionism and the blanket denigration of NPIs for future emergency response. Partisans and opportunists have magnified and mischaracterized the inconsistencies and inequities in the U.S. Covid-19 response to sow polarization and doubt about public health programs generally. Misrepresentation of the literature, specifically our work in this instance, only contributes to this failed dialogue. The appropriate counter to Covid revisionism is careful, rigorous, and honest assessment and reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. response that builds on the best available evidence of where and how we can do better. Only that will ensure better outcomes in the future.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
And how many "AI agents" for every PR person?
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