This is a problem. NPR reported yesterday that the Louisiana Department of Health has told staff "advertising or otherwise promoting" influenza, mpox, and COVID vaccines is no longer allowed. Promoting and increasing access to vaccinations is one of the central functions of health departments across the country. According
immunology
The 'Make America Healthy Again' movement is tapping into the commonly held belief that children in our modern era are less healthy than they used to be. Fueling this sentiment is the 'Hygiene Hypothesis' – an idea postulated in the 1980's that modern, overly sterile
When I started this newsletter over four years ago as a PhD student, I remember naively thinking "the pandemic is only going to last a few months... I'll do this blog for a little while, but there probably won't be much to write about after
On Tuesday, H5N1, the influenza virus that causes bird flu, made headlines – fragments of the virus were detected in the commercial milk supply in the United States. Here’s a quick update on what’s going on and how we got here. Bird flu is spreading in mammals, which is
CDC.gov is not the answer to all vaccine questions.
Excited to share my new op-ed in MedPage Today, addressing the tragic NIH decision to cancel investment into improving health communication. If there was one bipartisan sentiment that came out of the pandemic, it was this: the communication was terrible. We have a chance to fix it. A new initiative
You may have heard rumblings in the news, but COVID wastewater levels are starting to pick back up again. COVID tests aren’t the greatest metric (especially now), and more and more we’re relying on levels of COVID circulating in wastewater to track how it’s spreading in the
Live debate rewards charm, not data.
You may recall Florida’s vaccine analysis released last October which claimed that mRNA vaccines are associated with increased risk of cardiac death in young men. This week, the Tampa Bay Times shared earlier, unpublished drafts of that analysis. Those earlier drafts tell a dramatically different story… The Tampa Bay
A blog about science in a world of untrue facts.
If I had a nickel for every time someone has accusingly asked me “who funds you??”, I wouldn’t have enough money to buy a box of pipette tips, because research is expensive and requires funding to do much of anything. With the confusion and distrust circulating around science and
You may have heard the shocking headline this week that 250,000 people die every year in the US due to misdiagnosis in the ER. You may be even more shocked to know that this statistic is extrapolated from the death of… just one man. In a Canadian ER. Over
Yesterday, the Florida State Surgeon General issued new guidance around the COVID vaccines based on an analysis they performed. They say the results show “an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men 18-39” for the mRNA vaccines, and recommend this group not receive these vaccines. This is a bold recommendation.
I am a data visualization nerd. Even as a kid I was stealing my dad’s graph paper and finding random things to chart. When my mom was recently asked what each of her kids were into when they were young, her answer for me was “data.” (Also kittens.) Graphs
BA.5 is now the dominant COVID variant circulating in the U.S., bringing a wave of reinfections with it. Why are so many people sounding the alarm over BA.5? What makes BA.5 different from previous variants? First, an explanation of COVID terminology: Omicron is a COVID variant
BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, BA.5… while we’re all getting lost in an alphanumeric soup, it’s important to understand why we continue to see new variants. Some have speculated this is evidence of engineering — that “someone” keeps putting these new variants out. Others blame
Although COVID is primarily thought of as a respiratory disease, we’re learning that COVID’s impact extends well beyond the lungs. COVID infection can damage the heart, intestines, kidneys, and —perhaps most alarmingly— the brain. By causing blood to clot more easily, COVID can trigger major clotting events like
This is part 2 in a series covering the story of the COVID vaccines in the US, looking back at how well they have worked and why the communication around them has been confusing. Read part 1 here. It was late November 2020, and we were just about to start
Guest post by Sana Zekri, MD, a board-certified physician in Family Medicine with Obstetrics. Rumors about COVID vaccination and alleged impacts on fertility have been circulating since before the vaccines were even available. Because the initial vaccine trials did not study pregnant women specifically, when the vaccines were first authorized,
The COVID vaccines are undoubtedly among the most impressive medical feats in history. One model estimated they have saved millions of lives in the United States alone. As a physician-scientist, watching the scientific world come together to produce not one but multiple vaccines in a matter of months in the
Guest post by Sana Zekri, MD, a board-certified physician in Family Medicine with Obstetrics. Child-bearing is an aspiration of great importance to many people. Many find the idea of child-bearing to be critical to their personal philosophy of success in life, and there is no doubt that the drive to
While COVID cases are thankfully falling in the US, omicron, despite being “milder,” continues to kill more people per day in the US than the worst day of the delta surge. Why is this happening? Omicron is "milder" than delta, but that doesn't mean it'
