iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Melanie Matheu, PhD

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

USAID’s website has been deleted, all that is left is a note saying all personnel are now on administrative leave and personnel outside the US are to be brought home. Completely illegal, no act of congress or even executive order was signed to dismantle the agency

“On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Agency leadership by Thursday, February 6, at 3:00pm (EST).

For USAID personnel currently posted outside the United States, the Agency, in coordination with missions and the Department of State, is currently preparing a plan, in accordance with all applicable requirements and laws, under which the Agency would arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days and provide for the termination of PSC and ISC contracts that are not determined to be essential. The Agency will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship, mobility or safety concerns, or other reasons. For example, the Agency will consider exceptions based on the timing of dependents’ school term, personal or familial medical needs, pregnancy, and other reasons. Further guidance on how to request an exception will be forthcoming.

Thank you for your service”

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

What happens when scientists are censored? People die. New Substack post on the status of censorship of United States Scientists "February 1st Has Come and Gone, US Science Remains Censored"

lilscience.substack.com

February 1st Has Come and Gone, US Science Remains Censored

Remember what happened last time we tried to ignore Scientists? The problems don't disappear, they kill Americans.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

The results will only be as good as the quality of the data. Given that we don't seem to believe in fact checking anymore I'm not sure this will be a useful tool for anyone doing serious research. Data quality matters.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Infectious Disease Roundup: 2/2/2025. Probable human case of H5N1 in Delaware. Egg prices high forever? More deadly, highly contageous Clade Ib MPOX continues to spread (14% pediatric patients in recent outbreak), and more fun topics.

open.substack.com

Infectious Disease Roundup: 2/2/2025

Second Largest US Egg producer hit with H5N1, Probable Human H5N1 case in Delaware, Clade Ib MPOX spreading in DRC and a new case in the UK, Polio Detected in wastewater of several EU countries...

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

"California attorney Mark Lemley dropped Meta Platforms Inc. as a client in a high-profile copyright case because of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness,” the Stanford University professor said on LinkedIn."

news.bloomberglaw.com

Meta Lawyer Lemley Quits AI Case Citing Zuckerberg 'Descent' (1)

California attorney Mark Lemley dropped Meta Platforms Inc. as a client in a high-profile copyright case because of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness,” the Sta...

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

It was obviously a ridiculous number and lie from the WH Press Secretary the second she said it.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

As an Immunologist who has studied Influenza I was worried about H5N1, I am horrified re: H5N9. Our population has no pre-existing immunity. I repeat, we have NO PRE-EXISTING immunity to H5N9. (we have a little with H5N1 via H1N1 vaccines & infections) www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influe...

cidrap.umn.edu

Tests identify H5N9 avian flu at California duck farm

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Vaccines are life saving. The individual & public health benefit outweighs the risk more than nearly any other approved drug/med procedure. Example: Tylenol is responsible for more deaths & hospitalizations than all vaccines combined. #RFKJr made $Ms off of telling people otherwise.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Vaccines are life saving. Side effects in vaccines are minimal. The individual & public health benefit outweighs the risk more than nearly any other approved drug or medical procedure. Example: Tylenol is responsible for more deaths and hospitalizations than all vaccines combined ever have been.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

...was wildly unfounded. The human population has NEVER developed herd immunity to ANY coronavirus. This put millions of Americans who listened to him at risk. You didn't need a PhD or MD to know this at the time, a simple google search would have sufficed. He should stay in surgery.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Makary will always be synonymous with Malarkey for me. I've spent decades in this field, I taught med students like him who thought surgery rules all and couldn't remember the basics of Immunology. His incredibly dangerous claim in 2021 that you could develop herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2...

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Don't forget Elon didn't invent any of the tech in his companies which were built with the government grants he's trying to get canceled. Without homegrown competition, Americans will keep waking up to DeepSeek events. Fund our #science, fund our #research, and fund our #smallbusiness

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

I left Twitter years ago. I don't think much of it will exist by this time next year. Reminder No one in history has blown $44B faster than Elon Musk while seemingly trying not to. Trump put him in charge of US Gov Efficiency. 😅

reuters.com

EU medicines agency quits X, moves to Bluesky

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Monday it would no longer post on X and would use rival Bluesky instead, becoming the latest organisation to quit a social media platform that some have criticised for its content.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Has anyone ever blown $44B faster than Elon Musk? (while ostensibly trying not to) Probably not. Good, now let's let him try to make our government more efficient.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

It's farcical that #RFKJr was nominated at all. Someone who has directly profited for decades attacking sound science with pseudoscience and is directly linked causing a deadly measles outbreak should never be in charge of HHS, this is a waste of everyone's time.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Please call and write to your senators and remind them that it doesn't matter what #RFKJr says in his hearings. Relying on "his word" against a multi-decade track record of attacking life-saving vaccines among other atrocities is utter nonsense. You don't take people like that "at their word"

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I am so sorry. I have written those.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

About 90 Million Americans are on Medicaid

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Identity politics was turned against Science and Scientists which resulted in millions of Americans dying or being permanently disabled, and significantly disrupting our economy. I'd be happy to pen a rebuttal since all of the American Scientists that work under the umbrella of HHS can not.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Meanwhile the National Cancer Institute remains shut down and all of it's grants from funding student researchers in cancer to large clinical trials are in limbo and may not be funded.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Would someone in the #Biotech or #Medtech community like to explain to Alexa Lardieri and the Daily Mail that this would not be the "Worlds First Cancer Vaccine" and perhaps remind them that the current nominee to oversee HHS has made millions being radically against all vaccines?

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I am currently working on a piece about #MarburgVirus in the US in 10 years. If our CDC remains kneecapped and the WHO withdraw is completed I may have to move my timeline up.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

This is correct. Infectious disease is just a plane flight away. Stopping widespread destruction to human life (and yes economies if that's your number one) is now a global team effort. The #WHO is the organization that contains, isolates, and identifies pathogens.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

The UK has reported it's first human case of H5N1. The person had extensive contact with a large number of infected birds on a farm. Threat to the general public remains low. www.gov.uk/government/n...

gov.uk

Human case of avian flu detected in England

UKHSA confirms rare case of bird flu (H5N1) in the West Midlands region.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

The United States Health and Human Services remains in a communications embargo. We are in the middle of a 'quad-demic'. There have been intermittent instances of highly pathogenic H5N1 infecting people (gaining mutations that would enable person to person spread). I will keep posting updates here:

lilscience.substack.com

Infectious Disease Roundup: 1/26/2025

An overview of infectious disease outbreaks in the United States and globally. January 26th, 2025: Tuberculosis, Norovirus, Chronic Wasting Disease, H5N1, Marburg Virus, et al.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

The real pioneers and industry leaders in this generation and the next will run the math (we're good at that) and realize that not one of the people laying claim to these disgusting ideologies or quickly 'getting in line' invented the technology that made them famous, and reject them as failures.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

This was a culture of builders & revolutionaries in technology always asking the questions: How can we do it better, make it better, be more efficient. It was never a culture that embraced the abject weakness of fascist ideologies, they outright rejected the inherent weakness of it.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

I grew up around entrepreneurs and dreamers. #Engineers, #Scientists, some of the OG investors in 'The Valley' coached my middle school soccer team, lecturing us on team work and exceptionalism. I used to ride my bike to high school down Sand Hill Road when much of it was just an empty field.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

While I deeply appreciate the concern & agree with the authors, the entire US Health & Human Services, which includes the agencies that would spearhead the effort is currently shutdown. Please write more about the devastating consequences of that @financialtimes.com

ft.com

‘Grossly irresponsible’: health experts urge US to control bird flu

Call for stronger action comes on warning of growing risk the virus will evolve to spread more easily between humans

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Glad to find you here. Thank you for your work keeping science honest.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

He makes me embarrassed to be a #UCSF alumni

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

I am not alone in having family stories of extra ordinary bravery and sacrifice in the face of threats, evil, and when saying nothing is far easier. If you have made it this far, I encourage you to share your family's story. #weseeyou

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Both brothers survived. As a child I heard stories of the ingenuity of German explosives and the ability of people to turn a blind eye when convenient. They both went on to build businesses and beautiful lives here in California. Their uniforms locked away, looking towards a brighter future.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

His younger brother, a Stanford trained Engineer was in the same class as Bill Hewlett. Despite graduating with the best grades in his class, he also volunteered. He spent months crawling through mud alone, often hiding, ahead of battalions of US troops in France finding and disabling explosives.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

My grandfather dropped the hyphenated Asturias-Matheu for Matheu to angelize is name in the 1920s. At the start of WWII he voluntarily joined the 82nd Airborne as a medic. He was a dentist and oral surgeon. He left his new wife and 3 year old son for Europe.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

My grandfather's father was murdered for refusing to stop his newspapers from printing stories criticizing a new dictatorship. The family fled to Northern California. If you would like to know more, read "El Señor Presidente", written by his cousin Nobel Laurate Miguel Angel Asturias.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Lest anyone question where I stand. There's a Nazi with an office in the White House. He was just moved him across the street after speaking to far right Nazi-sypathetic party in Germany called the AfD. Thread⬇️: A Real Silicon Valley story from someone born here. www.adl.org/resources/ba...

adl.org

Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party: What You Need To Know

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Thank you so much for your concern! I indeed did work hard to protect my identity on TikTok for years due to the vitriol of people without exposure to science education. Unfortunately my identity was posted and distributed across the platform and so I have decided to share as myself going forward.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Thanks for stepping in to fill this role.

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Today I started to build a library of interesting and brilliant accounts to follow. I would like to direct my followers to one of the most important and perhaps underrated people I have found on BlueSky: @sherifink.bsky.social

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Melanie Matheu, PhD @lilscience.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Yes I'm on both. Please check the linktree on my TikTok page for all of the places to find me.

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