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Steven Woolf

@shwoolf.bsky.social
297 followers 146 following 47 posts

Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University.

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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 1h
Policy research is at its heart population health research. Understanding the health consequences of policy is central to NIH’s mission and complements clinical research. Leading researchers in health policy research make the case in Health Affairs Forefront: www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore... 🧪
healthaffairs.org
Health Affairs Journal
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
US life expectancy (red line) continues to fall behind other countries. I examine the crisis in a new analysis appearing today in the Milbank Quarterly. share.google/p0Qhah0pFk73...
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
It was an honor to spend a day at Northwestern and IPAHM and meet some terrific faculty with a passion to do good work.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
My latest editorial, in the Lancet, on how the Trump administration is affecting health outcomes. Understanding the true impact requires a wide-angle lens. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
thelancet.com
Evaluating how the Trump administration will affect health outcomes
Discussions about how a government's policies affect health often focus on health ministries or agencies responsible for medical or public health services. This is certainly true in the USA, where con...
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Cuts by the Trump administration hurt the labs that are researching future cures to deadly diseases and the scientists keeping us on the cutting edge of innovation. Go to ProtectScienceAndInnovation.org and tell Congress to reject these funding cuts.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
www.nytimes.com/interactive/... My latest in the New York Times. An attempt to warn the public that their health is about to get much worse.
nytimes.com
Opinion | How to Wreck the Nation’s Health, by the Numbers
The administration's cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services are going to do irreparable harm to the nation’s health.
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Andrea Ducas @andreaducas.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
A must-read from Jill + @shwoolf.bsky.social 👇
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Word on the street is that big layoffs are occurring at HHS today (Friday afternoon), losing a large number at CDC, NIH, etc.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
This is ridiculous. These web pages are meant for data and scientific updates. This is not a platform for politicians to spew ideology. Take this elsewhere please and let us concentrate on treating our patients. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...
washingtonpost.com
Trump officials ask CDC, FDA to use gender notice on restored websites
The Trump administration had directed health agencies to place a notice condemning “gender ideology” on health webpages that had been earlier taken down.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
How sad. A serious agency with serious leaders now taken over by ideologues. The scientists at FDA must be demoralized.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
www.linkedin.com/posts/george...
linkedin.com
George Rust on LinkedIn: For those who are so opposed to DEI, I would ask this -- what are you for?… | 16 comments
For those who are so opposed to DEI, I would ask this -- what are you for? * If you are against inclusion, whom are you for excluding? * If you are against… | 16 comments on LinkedIn
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
washingtonpost.com
Judge orders CDC, FDA to restore websites taken down after Trump gender order
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates granted a restraining order temporarily reversing the Trump administration’s moves to remove scientific data.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Public Health Journal Won't Be Complicit in Trump Admin's Censorship www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...
medpagetoday.com
Public Health Journal Won't Be Complicit in Trump Admin's Censorship
'We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles'
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Now DOGE is going after our nation's best soirc of data on educational outcomes. I guess American schoolchildren are not a priority.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
The White House statement shows its ignorance about what indirects are for.
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
“A sane government would never do this.” — the former dean of Harvard Medical School Universities are reeling. Elon Musk’s allies are celebrating. Looking at the major cut to federal research funding — which many scientists predict will be devastating With @lenasun.bsky.social and Carolyn Johnson
washingtonpost.com
NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately
The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
It should not fall on a British journal to speak out about threats to science in the United States. Leading US medical journals, such as JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others should issue a joint statement in defense of scientific independence. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
thelancet.com
American chaos: standing up for health and medicine
Withdrawal from WHO and the Paris Agreements. USAID shuttered and aid halted, ceasing health programmes globally. A freeze on US$3 trillion worth of federal grants and loans, jeopardising the function...
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Jocalyn Clark @jocalynclark.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Censor CDC scientists and ask them to withdraw papers from medical journals? This is not how it works, Mr President. Our response @bmj.com on the Trump Executive Order and his "forbidden words" www.bmj.com/content/388/...
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APHA @apha.org · 05/02/2025
THIS ⬇️ "We at the American Journal of Public Health have no interest in following the president's prohibitions on language," APHA's Georges Benjamin tells Medpage Today. "We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles." www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo... 🔥
medpagetoday.com
Public Health Journal Won't Be Complicit in Trump Admin's Censorship
'We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles'
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Thank you @jocalynclark.bsky.social @kamranabbasi.bsky.social @bmj.com for standing up for science, evidence, and public health Note to other science and health journals: this is what it looks like to show a spine when science is under attack
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...
washingtonpost.com
CDC removes gender, equity references in public health material
Large sets of data are being scrubbed of references to transgender and LGBTQ+ people, among others, which could compromise their use in research.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Just published this morning in JAMA, on how medicine and public health should respond to the new administration. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
How Should Health Care and Public Health Respond to the New US Administration?
This Viewpoint discusses scientific, medical, and public health actions, including withdrawing from the World Health Organization, taken so far during the first week of the Trump administration.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
The CDC web pages for the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) has gone dark. It provided extensive data on the physical and mental youth, including LGBTQ+ youth. Alarming statistics on the poor mental health of trans youth. It's all gone, at least for now. See yrbs-explorer.services.cdc.gov
yrbs-explorer.services.cdc.gov
App Offline
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
RFK Jr, on 2nd day of testimony, again claims (inexplicably) that there was no treatment for chronic disease when John F Kennedy was present. This is absurd. Does he think doctors in 1960 weren't treating heart disease, cancer, etc? Someone this ignorant has no business being head of HHS. #STOPRFK
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Marquisha Johns @marquishajohns.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Literally, let's get anybody else.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Asked how he will make America healthier, RFK says the food supply is problem #1. It's important, but what about tobacco use, physical inactivity, guns, and other leading causes of death. This is environmental lawyer is preoccupied with toxins,l. HHS secy needs a broader understanding of the issue.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK incorrectly claims that NIH is preoccupied with infectious diseases (this will come as a surprise to NCI and NHLBI) and "does nothing" to address chronic diseases. This is blatantly false. Anyone who knows anything about NIH would know this. This man is not qualified to be HHS secy.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr just intimated that smokers don't have a right to health care. Health is a human right. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK testifies that the increase in diabetes is due to environmental toxins. This is not evidence based. A hammer thinks everything is a nail. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
At his confirmation, RFK correctly notes the high US mortality rate at the height of the COVID pandemic, but he blames chronic disease. This from the man who opposed COVID vaccination. It was the low vaccination rates in the US that fueled mortality. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
When asked his position on negotiating drug prices, RFK obfuscates by saying Trump asked him to end chronic diseases. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Under questioning at his confirmation hearing, says he doesn't know the EMTALA law (passed in 1986) or his powers over this at HHS.
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK testifies that it is "immoral" to not let patients report adverse events. It is false that patients cannot do this. The systems to do this have existed for decades. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
At the hearing, Republican senators applaud RFK for wanting to make NIH research the "gold standard." What precisely would he change in research methods to fulfill his vision of gold standard research? I suspect this is less about research integrity than ideology. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr implies that physicians are not reporting adverse events. Where has he been for the past few decades? He is either ignorant of the extensive longstanding federal, state, and private sector reporting systems...or obfuscating. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr just confused community health centers with "Indian" health centers. I guess he doesn't know what CHCs are. His testimony also shows ignorance about the freeze issued on Monday. This man is not qualified to run HHS. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Insurance companies love the profits they are making from Medicare Advantage. RFK Jr testifies that he wants more Americans to switch to MA. The research shows poorer outcomes with MA. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr claims, without evidence, that expanding Medicaid has shortchanged the poor. On what data does he base this claim? The evidence is extensive that Medicaid expansion has saved lives. His plan to shrink Medicaid would cost lives. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr testifies that a NIH study showed that COVID targets Black people and "spares Ashkenazi Jews." What is the journal citation for this study? This man peddles in junk science. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr testifies that Lyme disease is a militarily engineered bioweapon. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
He just called GME an HHS "program." The man is ignorant. He has no training in medicine or public health and it is showing at this hearing. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
RFK Jr is right when he warns about chronic diseases. But those of us who have spent our careers studying this issue understand the many causes. Food additives, his obsession, are unhealthy but not the major driver of the US chronic disease burden. An HHS secy should know better. #stoprfk
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Steven Woolf @shwoolf.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
I'm in the hearing room as RFK Jr testifies at his confirmation hearing. His policies are a threat to public health. I will try to fact check his statements and answers as he speaks. #stoprfk
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
One overlooked part of RFK Jr’s bid to be HHS secretary — what would he do with the agency’s *Human* services? RFK Jr derided Trump’s first immigration policy as cruel. But as a presidential candidate, he embraced some of Trump’s border ideas. And if confirmed, RFK Jr could help implement them.
washingtonpost.com
RFK Jr., once a Trump critic on immigration, now could help enforce it
Kennedy, who derided Trump’s family-separation policy as forcing “Sophie’s Choice” on migrants, seeks to lead the agency that takes custody of migrant children.
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Andrea Ducas @andreaducas.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
I’ll be at the Senate today sharing insights from the RFK Jr hearing. Follow along with me, @jillrose.bsky.social, and @marquishajohns.bsky.social.
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Marquisha Johns @marquishajohns.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
What does this mean for states? Researchers in every state and nearly every congressional district receive NIH funding. In FY24, this totaled almost $40 billion. Here’s how that nets out state-by-state:
Fiscal year 2024 NIH funding to states from highest to lowestFiscal year 2024 NIH funding to states from highest to lowestFiscal year 2024 NIH funding to states from highest to lowestFiscal year 2024 NIH funding to states from highest to lowest
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Marquisha Johns @marquishajohns.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
It’s been a week since Trump’s pause on HHS communications and, despite some clarifications, new NIH research funding is still at a standstill. With the freeze on external communications expected to last until Feb. 1, how might this impact funding? 🧵 ⬇️
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