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Mark Honigsbaum

@honigsbaum.bsky.social
257 followers 193 following 176 posts

Journalist & historian of medicine; humanist, wannabe surfer. www.markhonigsbaum.com open.substack.com/pub/markhonigsbaum

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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The latest warnings from AI bosses about the threat posed by superintelligent chatbots echo concerns about “gain-of-function” experiments involving pandemic pathogens. But are the prophecies of doom overblown and does AI need tighter regulation? markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/regulate-o...
markhonigsbaum.substack.com
Regulate or die!
The warnings about the existential threat posed by superintelligent chatbots echo concerns about “gain-of-function” experiments involving pandemic pathogens. But are the prophecies of doom overblown?
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
When my faithful companion of sixteen years died last summer, I never thought I’d love a dog the same way again. Then I heard about Guide Dogs for the Blinds’ puppy raiser scheme…. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/first-step...
markhonigsbaum.substack.com
First Steps: My Guide Dog Puppy Journey. Part 1.
Few volunteer roles are as rewarding as raising a guide dog puppy. The challenge comes with interactions with other dog lovers.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Just when you thought we’d reached “peak poop”…
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Here, I explore how, as with Ebola and Covid-19 today, the 1976 Philadelphia outbreak provided fertile territory for conspiracy theorists and what lessons we should draw from the phenomenon. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
Lessons from Legionnaires’ Disease.
Conspiracies have long attended mysterious outbreaks of infectious disease – and none more so than during the outbreak of “Legionnaires’ Disease” in Philadelphia 50 years ago.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Uncanny! Almost 50 years to the day of the first Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak in Philadelphia a new outbreak hits the Upper East Side of New York. And, just as in 1976, the outbreak coincides with US celebrations marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence 1/
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Gunnar Roland Tjomlid @tjomlid.com · 11/06/2025
English version of my review of Bratlies book: A book filled with contradictions, cherry-picking of data, conspiratorial arguments, and serious accusations that undermine trust in research and contribute to making the world less safe in the face of the next pandemic. tjomlid.com/a-critical-r...
tjomlid.com
A critical review of "The mystery of Wuhan - The hunt for the origin of the covid pandemic" by Sigrid Bratlie
A book filled with contradictions, cherry-picking of data, conspiratorial arguments, and serious accusations that undermine trust in research and contribute to making the world less safe in the face o...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Vaccines get a bad rap on social media. But studies of vaccines for diseases like shingles and influenza suggest they not only protect us from pathogens but increase our chances of living into old age free from conditions associated with senescence. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/why-its-sm...
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
I recommend Carl Zimmer's book Air-Borne for the deep history that led to this shocking mistake. It wasn't just a matter of "oh it was a new virus, we didn't know anything about it" - there's a far more profound lesson than that for how science happens. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
thelancet.com
The troubled birth of aerobiology
“FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne”, declared a tweet from WHO in March, 2020. WHO did not officially accept until almost 2 years later that infection by SARS-CoV-2 could after all be caused by long-rang...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
As the US National Institutes of Health prepares to host a lecture on the "lab-leak" theory and the origin of Covid-19, I review the long history of pandemics and describe how the the question of origins has long puzzled researchers. www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...
telegraph.co.uk
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
The meningitis outbreak sparking panic across southern England is a reminder that the infection can strike anyone, anywhere at any time. I should know - in 2012 it claimed the life of journalist friend shortly after his arrival in Paris. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/meningitis...
markhonigsbaum.substack.com
Meningitis on the Eurostar: a cautionary tale.
The outbreak of meningitis in Kent is a reminder of the risk the bacterium presents at universities and schools. But meningitis can strike anyone anywhere at any time, including on the Eurostar.
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Jay Rayner @jayrayner1.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Freelancers, small businesses and so on have a statutory right under uk law to charge interest on unpaid bills. But the calculation can be complex. So my old friend the brill actress and podcaster Laura Shavin, built a calculator. It’s clever. fvo1.com/late-payment...
fvo1.com
Free UK Late Payment Interest Calculator For Unpaid Invoices
Calculate statutory interest on overdue UK invoices instantly. Free calculator covering the Late Payment Act 1998, with optional court-ready PDF report £3.99.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Aerosol infection, “the elephant in the room”…
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Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Our understanding of the origin of COVID-19, while still incomplete, is one of the most well-supported scientific theories of any pandemic. When it comes to “Scientific Freedom”, it must be based in science and evidence - this is the opposite, platforming pseudoscience instead.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
New email to Director Bhattacharya about a new Scientific Freedom lecture to be given my Matt Ridley on The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. Ridley is a British scientist and journalist who published a book in 2022 on the subject. 1/5
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
As a new study calls into question one of the central planks of the "lab leak" hypothesis, I review the long history of pandemics and describe how researchers have long puzzled over their origins. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/opportunit...
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 09/03/2026
"Russian flu," the pandemic that hit in 1977, bears an evolutionary signature of having emerged from a lab, perhaps as part of a failed vaccine effort. Covid, mpox, Ebola, and other influenza pandemics don't. Here's my story on a new way to trace the origins of pandemics. Gift link: nyti.ms/46N0W33
nyti.ms
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/s...
nytimes.com
Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
As bombs rain down on Tehran, the world appears more than divided than ever. But was war in the Middle East inevitable? Or is the current conflagration further evidence of how Covid-19 destabilised our world, plunging us into permacrisis? open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
The Pandemic Permacrisis
As bombs rain down on the Middle East, plunging the world into yet another crisis, today we have a rare moment to pause and reflect on the way that Covid-19 changed our world.
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UK National Covid Memorial Wall @covidmemorialwall.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
On World Book Day, we're remembering powerful contributions about the Wall from our Chair, @franfd.bsky.social, and journalist @honigsbaum.bsky.social to "When This Is Over - Reflections on an Unequal Pandemic"... ❤️ #WorldBookDay
The red cover of the book. A white mask at the centre of the cover makes the shape of a heart.The title page of Fran Hall's section: A Wall of Pain and Love Black and white pictures of the wall in the book.The title page of Mark Honigsbaum's section, "Walking the wall: Covid-19 and the politics of memory"
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
medical historian @honigsbaum.bsky.social
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
In the last six weeks, Europe has seen Biblical levels of rain, exceeding the 40 days and nights described in the Book Genesis. When will the deluge end, many have been asking? But what if it has only just begun?And what are we going to do about it? substack.com/home/post/p-...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
When Peter Mandelson bought a house in my street, I wondered how he could afford it. Pity then that all it took was one call to my editor from the ‘Prince of Darkness’ to kill my story. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
The first Mandelson scandal
When Peter Mandelson bought a house in the street where I grew up, I suspected something didn’t add up. Pity then that my editor killed the story.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I think you’ll find Max gave a different version to Guardian, saying Mandy first rang him to complain about my questions in 1997, which is how I remember it. Robertson loan revelation was following year. www.theguardian.com/politics/200...
theguardian.com
Max Hastings: Never forget that they lie
Max Hastings: Hutton's charitable vision of our rulers flies in the face of experience.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Yes, I seem to recall our editor at that time accepting Mandy’s word as “an honourable man” that he’d financed the loan himself. He wouldn’t be the last to be taken in…
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
To Oxford to debate the Covid Lockdowns this evening with Sunetra Gupta, Hugh Montgomery & Toby Green. What did we get right and what did we get wrong? And what should we do differently next time? x.com/comacfreedom...
x.com
Committee for Academic Freedom on X: "Only a handful of tickets left for Wednesday’s Covid Lockdown panel at Worcester College, Oxford. Join us for a discussion on what Britain got right — and wrong — in its pandemic response. 📍 19 Nov, 5:30pm 🎟️ Free tickets (including drinks reception): https://t.co/6aV6xKfV5B" / X
Only a handful of tickets left for Wednesday’s Covid Lockdown panel at Worcester College, Oxford. Join us for a discussion on what Britain got right — and wrong — in its pandemic response. 📍 19 Nov, 5:30pm 🎟️ Free tickets (including drinks reception): https://t.co/6aV6xKfV5B
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
The new Netflix miniseries Death By Lightning based on the 1881 assassination of president James Garfield by a deranged office seeker is highly pertinent to our troubled times. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
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Ron Chusid @rchusid.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Study in JAMA Pediatrics estimates that vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19 prevented 7,000 hospitalizations in infants and 3,000 in pregnant women from January 2024 to May 2025.  #Medsky www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/cov...
cidrap.umn.edu
COVID vaccines may have averted thousands of hospital stays in infants, pregnant women over 18 months
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Some thoughts on the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and what the litany of campus shootings say about our violent, blood-soaked times. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/meridian-t...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
www.thefp.com/p/sam-harris... Sage advice from Sam Harris:- Get off social media. Read good books and real journalism. Find your friends. And enjoy your life.
thefp.com
Sam Harris: Log Off
Charlie Kirk’s assassination lit a fuse. Social media turned it into a bonfire, writes Sam Harris.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Charlie Kirk’s Killing and Our Poisonous Internet www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/o... “While the internet’s rot once felt safely bottled…within a digital realm, this act of political violence may have punctured whatever barrier once existed”.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Charlie Kirk’s Killing and Our Poisonous Internet
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
When my beloved goldendoodle of 15 years died this summer I was overwhelmed with grief. Then something extraordinary happened: I took a hiatus from social media and began engaging with people in real life. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/murphys-gift
markhonigsbaum.substack.com
Murphy’s Gift
What the death of my beloved goldendoodle taught me about empathy and the dangers of spending too much time online.
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
My worst nightmare is coming true. I am turning into Jay Bhattacharya. @reason.com is writing articles calling me a silenced and censored scientific dissident. What have I done to myself. 😅 reason.com/2025/09/03/f...
reason.com
FDA official pressures YouTube into removing a channel for posting his own vaccine comments
Whether you agree with the censored channel or not, it is wrong and hypocritical for Vinay Prasad to silence his critics in this way.
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Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
I am happy Gov. Kathy Hochul took action to defend COVID vaccine access in the face of the anti-science attacks from Robert Kennedy Jr. and his crank allies like Marty Makary and Jay Bhattacharya. But I note that it’s only for ages 3 and up. The CDC’s original guidance was 6 months and up.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Today, parakeets are a common sight in public parks. But in 1930 the birds sparked a worldwide panic when it was discovered their faeces contained a deadly bacterium. Click on my Substack to read my new post on the Great Parrot Fever Pandemic of 1930. markhonigsbaum.substack.com/p/the-green-...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Despite putting on her ‘happy face’ at the launch of Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS this morning, the British public are unlikely to forget Reeves’s visible anguish at PM’s questions in a hurry. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
When tears ran down her face...
We may never know what sparked Rachel Reeves's visible anguish in the House of Commons on Wednesday but the Chancellor's distress is likely to be remembered long after her tears have dried.
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Mike Jay @mikejay.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
www.gardenstates.org/conference-u...
gardenstates.org
Speaker: Mike Jay — EGA Garden States: Regeneration
𝗚𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Speaker: Mike Jay (UK) Mike Jay is an author and historian known for his extensive writing on the history of science and medicine, with a focus on the mind, consciousness...
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billkittle.bsky.social @billkittle.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Despite putting on her ‘happy face’ at the launch of Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS this morning, the British public are unlikely to forget Reeves’s visible anguish at PM’s questions in a hurry. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
When tears ran down her face...
We may never know what sparked Rachel Reeves's visible anguish in the House of Commons on Wednesday but the Chancellor's distress is likely to be remembered long after her tears have dried.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Sultan’s death is terrible but re: Vylan affair, two wrongs don’t make a right. #whataboutism open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
Hate and the dangers of empathy
Whether or not the British rapper Bobby Vylan's call for"death to the IDF" at Glastonbury constituted hate speech, the crowd's reflexive adoption of his chant is deeply worrying.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
@mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk To judge by James O’Brien’s call-in on LBC radio today, sympathy for the Chancellor as the architect of her own misery was in short supply. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
When tears ran down her face...
We may never know what sparked Rachel Reeves's visible anguish in the House of Commons on Wednesday but the Chancellor's distress is likely to be remembered long after her tears have dried.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
No one knows what sparked Rachel Reeves’s visible anguish on Wednesday, but for a moment at least she showed that she was human.That is something the public will likely remember long after her tears have dried. open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
When tears ran down her face...
We may never know what sparked Rachel Reeves's visible anguish in the House of Commons on Wednesday but the Chancellor's distress is likely to be remembered long after her tears have dried.
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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
The idea that you can debunk your way out of a conspiracy theory is disproven over and over again. Better imo to ask people with an alternative point of view what their single strongest piece of evidence is and discuss that in depth. For "lab leak" those conversations don't last long.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Thanks for that Zach - clearly, you have put in the work!
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Not exactly. I’m saying that it’s incumbent on scientists who are confident that it wasn’t a lab leak that they inform themselves about opposing points of view if only to debunk them from a position of authority
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
If you check you’ll see I posted a link to my Substack on the thread. I assumed that was what you were responding to. My mistake.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
2/ The point I was trying to make is how the enthusiastic way his chant was taken up by the crowd shows how empathy for one group can exclude empathy for another and skew our moral compass. Did you bother to read my Substack post? open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...
open.substack.com
Hate and the dangers of empathy
Whether or not the British rapper Bobby Vylan's call for"death to the IDF" at Glastonbury constituted hate speech, the crowd's reflexive adoption of his chant is deeply worrying.
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
1/ I agree with most of the points the author is making. Vylan's comments may not meet the threshold of hate speech as defined by law, particularly as it will be difficult to prove Vylan intended by them when he made them. But that does not make his words any less hateful or incendiary...
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
2/... This is concerning as lab-leak proponents cite DEFUSE as evidence that there was a “blueprint” for creating the virus... Scientists who purport to speak from a position of knowledge and expertise should make sure they put in the work, otherwise they risk providing fuel for their critics!
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Mark Honigsbaum @honigsbaum.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
1/ On average, respondents assigned a 77% probability to a zoonosis... However, only 22% of respondents said they were familiar with a 2018 research proposal known as DEFUSE, submitted by EcoHealth Alliance and partnering with the US labs and the Wuhan Institute of Virology...
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Andrew Tan @andrewtanyongyi.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
RFK Jr claims Ralph Baric developed a "seamless ligation" technique to hide the laboratory origins of a manipulated virus, as if its use were nefarious. But its scientific point is to enable mutations to be precisely introduced, including making sure that one can introduce no mutations at all.
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