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Daniel Westreich

@epidbydesign.bsky.social
5.1K followers 631 following 772 posts

Epidemiologist, writer, bon vivant. Professor @UNC (opinions my own); co-PI of STAR Cohort; "Morpheus of the Table 2 Fallacy.” He/him.

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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 16h
Hey scientists - has anyone else gotten email from purported headhunters trying to recruit you to a too-good-to-be-true job? (I've now gotten 2 for jobs that do not exist. Clearly genAI-produced content, clearly SOME kind of scam - but I can't figure out the angle.)
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Kate Manne @katemanne.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I wrote for @thecut.com about the Cornell case and what it says that, at my institution and many others like it, protesters are often punished more harshly than sexual assailants www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
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Abdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This is about one thing and one thing alone. Steering our research dollars for cancer, heart disease, and new infectious diseases to Trump’s political allies and friends.
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Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"Why epidemiology should not be automated: the case for slow epidemiology" Read my new letter with @haidonglu.bsky.social and @epidbydesign.bsky.social in @intjepidemiol.bsky.social explaining the limits of generative AI for epidemiological research! academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
"Bann et al. pose the question, ‘why can’t epidemiology be automated (yet)?’, as though the automation of epidemiology is both inevitable and desirable [1]. They describe a future of ‘1-click reviews’ and ‘end-to-end automation’ that will ‘[boost] the efficiency of current practice and … [create] new opportunities for’. But scientific discovery requires far more than increased efficiency. In epidemiology, new knowledge comes from critical reasoning about data, about context, and about the limits of our existing understanding. Such reasoning, in turn, demands deep thought, scholarship, and diligence. All are threatened by automation..."
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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Every new Fetterman pants-shitting is treated as evidence that he is now a bad person. But long before this & long before his stroke, he chased an unarmed Black jogger in his truck, detained him with a shotgun, and continued to insist he had done the right thing. That somehow wasn’t disqualifying.
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I went to see Morrissey as a 15 year old (circa 1991) and got punched in the ear by a very drunk woman in her 20s, much to the embarrassment of the people she was with.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 09/09/2026
Do you think all this is happening right before IPOs just by coincidence?
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Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Gender-affirming care saves lives, respects the rights of patients, and reflects that healthcare is supposed to be between providers and patients, not between providers and the Trump Administration. (1/3)
gothamist.com
Mount Sinai reaches deal with Trump DOJ to end gender-affirming care for minors
Mount Sinai is the latest in a string of U.S. hospitals to reach similar agreements with the Trump administration.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Federal minimum wage in: 2009: $7.25 2010: $7.25 2011: $7.25 2012: $7.25 2013: $7.25 2014: $7.25 2015: $7.25 2016: $7.25 2017: $7.25 2018: $7.25 2019: $7.25 2020: $7.25 2021: $7.25 2022: $7.25 2023: $7.25 2024: $7.25 2025: $7.25 2026: $7.25 Folks, it's time to raise the damn wage already.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🚨 The NIH is moving to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in infectious-disease research projects to the DOD under a secret 10-year pact. Here’s what’s happening inside “Operation Prevailing Edge” 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defense.
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Kent Lind @camasonian.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Blue state AGs should be warning postal officials that they will face felony prosecution for election interference for any legal ballots diverted and not delivered. Separate felony counts for every single ballot mishandled and not delivered. We would expect no less if private citizens stole ballots
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
What could possibly go wrong? For one, bias propagation, reflecting clinicians' habit of copying forward notes in EHR, which may contain stereotypes based on race, ethnicity, gender, etc
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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
You cannot say this and remain in office. He has to go. And Democrats have to make an enormous deal out of threats to exterminate an entire group of people.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
So many of the supposed divides in the Democratic caucus simply boil down to "this one will fight for all of us, this one will not" and for the past two years Team Fight is sweeping the board.
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Very very out of touch, apparently: 3.
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Anat Shenker-Osorio @anatosaurus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Perhaps it would be better morally & electorally to make the people you're running against, who are assaulting, abducting, murdering, stealing, putting kids into concentration camps, starting wars & destroying our lives, your opposition. Instead of some streamer dude voters have never heard of.
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Heather D Hill @hdhill.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
🚨 This is a huge deal: bad science used for an anti-democratic project in the name of our most reliable government statistical agency. Thanks @crampell.bsky.social for the reporting.
thebulwark.com
Trump’s War on Reality Comes for the Census
One of America’s most trusted institutions just put its name on a totally bogus voter-fraud report.
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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
When America is gone, remember NYT headlines like this and never again ask what role corporate media played in normalizing the most dangerous man on Earth
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ᴢᴇɴ sɪᴍᴍᴏɴs @killlthehype.blacksky.app · 23/08/2026
16 months ago: Never forget how it started.
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Reminder as fall semester is starting that teaching materials (including lectures + exercises etc.) for my textbook EPIDEMIOLOGY BY DESIGN are available FOR FREE at epidemiologybydesign.com as well as by request to me (including additional, non-public materials if you're a teacher!)
epidemiologybydesign.com
Epidemiology By Design
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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
So we know AI helped a negligible number of students. But how many did it harm? I've crunched the raw data provided by the lead researcher, and what I've found is that ~9,500 students using AI studied less than even the *least* studious, non-AI using student. This should shock the conscience.
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Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Zero new NSF grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US govt is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.
grants.nih.gov
NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review NOT-OD-26-088. NIH
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 11/08/2026
On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order that calls for reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccines. History has shown how plagues from the past can roar back when trust in shots — or access to them — falters. Revisit our March investigation:
propublica.org
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...
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John Collins @logicallyjc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Todd Blanche: “I am not sure of the uproar of having a Border Patrol or ICE agent at a polling location. What's the risk?” Uhm, maybe because it’s illegal? Federal statute 18 U.S.C. § 592 prohibits deploying “troops or armed men” to locations where elections are held. An AG should know this.
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...
carlsonlab.bio
The only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson Lab
Over the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our la...
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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 07/08/2026
The Trump Admin is harassing Fauci to scare scientists from speaking up against the administration's war on science, sowing public distrust in scientists and public health experts. We are standing up for Fauci. JOIN US by signing our petition at the link: zurl.co/RCYN8
The graphic displays a photo of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the red Stand Up for Science logo. The graphic reads: "BREAKING NEWS; Senate Republicans voted to hold 85-year old public health patriot Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. SIGN OUR PETITION TO CONGRESS IN SUPPORT OF DR. ANTHONY FAUCI AND AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH. LINK IN BIO!"
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💉Josh Rubin, MD @drsandman11.medsky.social · 04/08/2026
Call me crazy, but if a Democratic president had 350 accounts closed by their bank for money laundering it’d be more than a blip in the media
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
This is what I mean when I talk about the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic, where the virus was erased from the equation and mitigation measures were always portrayed as an avoidable choice. Headlines about what actually happened are never even acknowledged.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
An aircraft passenger oxygen mask: a drop down passenger mask with air bag and yellow plastic mouth and nose cover, oxygen tube has been cut; Demonstration model used by flight attendant crew for passenger instruction. Has text on the side indicating that it's non-functional.
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
It is *unquestionably* unconstitutional and anyone who disagrees is lying about the plain meaning of the constitution.
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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
For those of you who are still over there because of "the reach" or "the discourse" or whatever.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 23/07/2026
I'm old enough to remember when the US president loudly & explicitly vowing to commit war crimes would have generated some pushback, or at least a more-than-24-hour story.
bbc.com
Strait of Hormuz: Trump threatens to target Iran's bridges and power plants if attacks on ship persist
Donald Trump says the US will respond any time Iranian forces shoot at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
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Rachel Lerman @rachellerman.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
NEW: The number of Amazon workers on food stamps or Medicaid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025. The number of Uber, DoorDash, Lyft and other gig workers on these benefits also exploded. From @laurenkaorigurley.bsky.social and me Gift link: wapo.st/4gS59s1
wapo.st
Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows
Amazon workers on federal aid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, while ride-hailing and food delivery app drivers shot up on lists compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"Bolsonaro has begun a twenty-seven-year prison sentence for his role in January 8, while the instigator of January 6 sits in the Oval Office...Should we in the United States try a Brazilian strategy?" spoiler: I answer yes. me, for @bostonreview.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/articles/tru...
bostonreview.net
Truth Without Reconciliation
Why did Brazil’s democratic institutions hold firm while those in the United States so quickly wilted?
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 17/07/2026
Artists/writers/creators in NYC - please feel free to sign the @aimoratoriumnyc.bsky.social coalition's letter calling for a two year moratorium on "A.i." in the public schools! We're up to about 650 signatures - would love to get this over 1000! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Artists for an AI Moratorium in NYC Schools
NYC Artists, Writers, and Creatives Call for a Moratorium on AI in Public Schools CLICK HERE TO SIGN Dear Mayor Mamdani, As writers, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, photographers, actors, di...
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Trump doesn’t force people to do bad things. All he did was show people they could get away with being horrible if they really wanted to, and a lot of powerful people decided they didn’t need to pretend anymore. Especially those in influential positions who could push back but did not.
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capitolhunters @capitolhunters.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Journalists: please, please get ready for this in ADVANCE. We know Trump's going to claim "new evidence shows the 2020 election was stolen". You've got 3 days to write a story that confronts that lie head-on before he says it - pre-write this like an obit. America is begging you: plan ahead. 1/
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
PSA: Today is the last day to submit a comment on the OMB's proposed rule that would politicize scientific peer review, threaten international scientific collaboration, and turn all federal grantmaking into a cudgel in the culture wars. You can leave a comment here:
regulations.gov
Regulations.gov
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 13/07/2026
There is still time to submit your comment and tell the government that you don't want US research to be completely destroyed by politicians meddling in individual grants. You can submit your comments here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/OM...
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Reminder there is no evidence that any initial statements by ICE or DHS should be trusted — and reporters should state that in all coverage and stories. Every ICE shooting we’ve seen the agency lie about the circumstances.
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Alas, Culturefest! I knew them, Horatio: a podcast of parasocial jest, of most excellent fancy: they have borne me on their back a thousand times; and now, how beloved in my imagination it is! my tears rise at it. Here rang those voices that I have heard I know not how oft...
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 30/06/2026
Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito should be impeached www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
supremecourt.gov
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
CBS staff, you have one job and that is to incept Bari Weiss into believing she can win over Isaac Chotiner.
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Ryosuke Fujii (Ryo) @ryo-epi.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
@shuntarooo3.bsky.social, Prof. Kosuke Inoue (may not be here Bluesky), and I, translated "Epidemiology by Design" written by @epidbydesign.bsky.social into Japanese 🇯🇵 Hopefully, this book will contribute to studying epidemiology in Japan.
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Society for Epidemiologic Research @societyforepi.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
New for this year! @epidbydesign.bsky.social has been circulating some 'teeny tiny methods zines'! A limited supply were avaliable for a few minutes, before being snaffled up. Look out for more tomorrow! #SER2026
Daniel Westreich at the zine table
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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Thanks to @eunoiareview.bsky.social for publishing my short poem, "Next to the on-ramp." eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/n...
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Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Made a zine for #SER2026 with @epidbydesign.bsky.social and @haidonglu.bsky.social!
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
good to see this. Musk is clearly getting visibly angry at the rising awareness of how many hundreds of thousands of people his DOGE wilding spree has already killed, millions more if this stays in place into the future. Everyone can participate in spreading the word about all the blood on his hands
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