BC HEALTH
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

I think @SamAdlerBell in his quest to be the contrarian on Fauci gets several things wrong here. 1/

 First, the failure last year actually was driven by the White House, the #Trump inner circle. Watch what's happening now, the US' scientific and public health infrastructure is creaking back to life. 2/
I think Sam underestimates the decimation of many of our health agencies over the past four years and the establishment of ideological control over them during the pandemic. 3/
I also am puzzled why Tony gets the blame for not speaking up, etc. Robert Redfield, Brett Giroir, Deb Birx, Jerome Adams, Alex Azar all could have done the same. 4/
Several of these people Bob Redfield, Brett Giroir, Alex Azar were led by craven ambition, Jerome Adams by cowardice, but I do think Deb Birx and Tony tried as institutionalists, insiders to make a difference. 5/
I wrote to them privately and spoke publicly about the need to do more, but Sam misunderstands how long-time civil servants operate. The entire CDC staff could have resigned in protest, other agencies could have had everyone fall on their swords in protest as well. 6/
This isn't to excuse their behavior. It's just to say expecting people who have devoted their careers to places like CDC or NIH to resign in protest, speak out and get fired, is unrealistic. 7/
Lots can be said about the institutional failures--outside of Trump's influence--that happened last year. The testing debacle, the failure to real screen for new compounds against SARSCOV2 instead of just putting everything in the vaccine basket...8/
We were slow on masks. Yes. I agree. But there were also shortages of supplies even for healthcare settings in March. Remember the bandanas and panty-shields being worn by some on the wards, recycling N-95s? There was some worry about run on PPE by general public. 9/
Not an excuse, but context. The statement on herd immunity that Tony made. Dumb. Yeah. I get it. 10/
And Trump's obsession with loyalty twisted some of them to the breaking point. Redfield collapsed almost reflexively at the beginning. Birx thought she could control the situation. Tony though he could thread the needle, keep silent mostly, try to squeeze in some facts. 11/
No one came out of last year looking good and even if Fauci got accolades from some, those in public health saw what was happening. Shit was flying everywhere, everyone got soiled. 12/
But the biggest problem about @SamAdlerBell piece is not that it's slightly obsessive on Fauci (and I won't even start on the ACT UP sections, since I was there for many of these events), but gets the politics wrong in a big way. How so? 13/
At the end of the article Sam suggests that Tony should have resigned to lead the resistance. I mean, please. And then a bureaucrat arose to lead us. Really? The director of NIAID was going to be at the barricades? 14/
The big political question was NOT where was Dr. Fauci last year, but where were WE? Why didn't those not in government service rise up when the stakes were so much lower for resistance for us? Why didn't all the major non-governmental institutions mobilize on the pandemic? 15/
Many of us in public health were writing furiously about the failures of what was happening, as were others, but no one was doing the mobilization work to tip the scales from op-eds to direct action. 16/
Yes, those in government service do have to answer for their silence last year, but so do we. I am not holding up Fauci as a hero, but flipping him into the anti-hero of the story doesn't work either. 17/
I just posted a report from Brazil, about how Bolsanaro's policies drove the pandemic in Brazil. A fish rots from the head down. Trump and his circle hold the vast majority of blame for 2020 and our predicament today. It's just true. 18/
Bolsanaro's health ministers resigned and he just got other ones. This was also Trump's MO for 4 years, anyone who left, got replaced with people increasingly more loyal. The late arrival of Scott Atlas is a case in point here. 19/
So as a political history this piece fails. That's my main point. I've said terrible things about Fauci in the past in the press during the height of the AIDS epidemic, trashed Obama on global health/HIV in the 2000s. "Heroes" shouldn't be immune from criticism. 20/
Would it have been great if one by one federal scientists got to the mic and denounced Trump in 2020? Yeah, sure. And I want to be 35 again. Not gonna happen. 21/
The most startling thing to me and which no one has written about yet is why the rest of us were frozen like deer-in-the-headlights? 400,000 dead and "the resistance" to it all from outside the Administration was mostly in strongly worded op-eds. 22/
The press played the both sides game early on--kept saying "experts disagree" when Trump's policies were patently insane. This is the @NYTimes political desk's lingering shame, which they will never admit. 23/
Members of Congress sat on their hands. Mayors, governors just tried to keep their own cities and states from going under, but many aided and abetted the President. 24/
But political advocacy organizations, non-governmental actors could have mobilized. We did for the Women's March, after the Parkland shootings, for the March for Science. Yeah. big in-person events were a no-no, still are, but big not-in-person-events didn't happen either. 25/
In the aftermath of all of this, this is what's worry. Tony will retire soon. Take him off the playing field. Now what? We have to rebuild public health, not because of its failures last year, but because it was in shambles before 2020. 26/
We made our beds long before Trump. No national healthcare, a weak social safety net, a desperately under-funded and under-resourced public health infrastructure coast to coast under Republicans and Democrats. 27/
If Tony had spoken out all these structural issues would remain and frankly, it's the structures that outlast us, pave the way for crises out years into the future. 28/
And what are we going to do about that? end/

More from Gregg Gonsalves

Gregg Gonsalves
Gregg Gonsalves
@gregggonsalves
Important tweet from @jaketapper. One amendment: mainstream media will try to change the subject too. It's not a new criticism, the deferential spirit among the political press corps has been noted since Didion wrote about it in the 1990s.


"Those who talk to Mr. Woodward, in other words, can be confident that he will be civil (“I too was growing tired, and it seemed time to stand up and thank him”), that he will not feel impelled to make connections between..." 1/

"what he is told and what is already known that he will treat even the most patently self-serving account as if untainted by hindsight..." 2/

"In this business of running the story, in fact in the business of news itself, certain conventions are seen as beyond debate. “Opinion” will be so labeled, and confined to the op-ed page or the Sunday-morning shows." 3/

"'News analysis' will be so labeled, and will appear in a subordinate position to the 'news' story it accompanies. In the rest of the paper as on the evening news, the story will be reported “'impartially,' the story will be 'even-handed,' the story will be 'fair.'” 4/
FOR LATER READ
Gregg Gonsalves
Gregg Gonsalves
@gregggonsalves
One thing I will never understand. In 2020, we let ~340,000 Americans die, sometimes in the thousands per day. And we watched. There were no protests, no daily banner headlines befitting a national tragedy on this scale. It's as if we watched 9/11 in a loop for 300+ days. 1/

It was the non-chalance of all of it, the sangfroid. Yes, of course, there were stories in the media, some great ones, but we were shoving bodies into makeshift morgues in America in 2020, and it all became background noise. 2/

And no one rose up. Punctuated outrage from some. But no one on the streets in any substantial numbers asking for, demanding answers, action. 3/

If it weren't for the #BlackLivesMatter protests you'd think most of America was already dead. 4/

You don't have to ask what would I have done if I was present at one of history's great tragedies where people made choices to let barbarism flourish. We've done it now. 5/
SOCIETY
Advertisement
Gregg Gonsalves
Gregg Gonsalves
@gregggonsalves
Here @playbookplus goes again: ‘HOW MUCH IS BIPARTISANSHIP WORTH?’ I don't know @politico, how many more months would you like the pandemic to drag on for? How many more dead? How many more people, businesses ruined economically? I'm sorry but this is garbage framing in a crisis.

Oh but this is what powerful people are talking about in DC! Might that point itself be examined with more seriousness than taking this BS at face value? Don't you understand, we just reflect back what people are saying? We are mirrors on the world, we offer no commentary.

If "very serious people" are talking about what "nice number" would be $1.3T, 1.2T and not what we need to get out of this mess, might it be worth saying, perhaps, this conversation w/o reference to epidemiologic or economic reality is just a failure of leadership, governance?
ECONOMY
Gregg Gonsalves
Gregg Gonsalves
@gregggonsalves
OK. I may get slaughtered here, but there is a kind of pundit who doesn't know what he doesn't know. I'm not talking about ordinary people on @Twitter who shoot the shit on a variety of topics, but people with millions of followers, readers. 1/

These are usually men, who will assume expertise because they've always been told they were the smartest in the room, were given a platform because of who they are, and feel no sense of humility when they decide to ramble off and take down others. 2/

Here I am talking about @NateSilver538 @mattyglesias and @DouthatNYT who have decided they are the arbiters of truth in science and public health. 3/

It started with the #ACIP recommendations on the next phase of #COVID19 vaccination (which as far as I know is still pending). All three of them are suggesting that #ACIP doesn't know what it's doing because there are discussions happening about how to manage trade-offs. 3/

All three believe age-based allocation is the only way to triage vaccine delivery and they've been scornful of the deliberation of #ACIP for talking about things like equity, essential workers, etc. 4/
TWITTER
Gregg Gonsalves
Gregg Gonsalves
@gregggonsalves
And this pathetic move by @JDVance1 isn't what is so odious about him. He's just a phony, all ambition, no real interest in public service. He made a big show out of moving back to #Ohio to start a group to work on the #opioid epidemic. 1/


I work on the opioids, on research on the epidemic, its relationship with HIV/HCV, overdose. I work with data from Ohio, so care deeply about what is going on there. I was excited. Until I started digging. There's no there there. 2/

More here. 3/

You can even read their IRS-990-N filing. Sure looks like @JDVance1 tried real hard on combatting the opioid epidemic in his state. Um. Not. 4/

Now he's moved on to venture capital. Money is more interesting than the suffering of the people of #Ohio I guess. 5/
ALL

More from Health

Leandro Steinberg
Leandro Steinberg
@lean_stein
🧵 on Importance of correct indication of colonoscopic surveillance studies (English 🇺🇸🇬🇧)
@KM_Pawlak @KMonkemuller @drkeithsiau @JacquelineChuMD @PerelmansPearls @stevenbollipo @SWexner @DrBloodandGuts @ebtapper @DCharabaty @RashidLui @AdvaniRashmiMD @AtoosaRabiee @DrMohdZein

@GI_Guy @RodriguezParra_ @DrHarryThomas @TennysonMD @AustinChiangMD @KralJan @thomaskroner @alinkmd #GITwitter

1/ The implementation of screening and surveillance programs can reduce the incidence and mortality of

2 / But for these to be effective and to guarantee protection against CCR, they must meet a series of conditions. One of them is the correct indication for endoscopic studies for both screening and surveillance.

3 / According to a recent meta-analysis, the minority of patients who undergo colonoscopies have a correct indication, with less than 50% adherence to the surveillance intervals proposed by scientific
HEALTH
James Salazar
James Salazar
@JamesSalazarMD
In medicine, reckoning with racism includes reappraising the very syntax we use every day. Proud to add my voice w/ @J_Ikeme and @RWGrantMD in this @JAMAInternMed pub addressing:

Does race/ethnicity belong in the first line of the patient

Some background: I’ve struggled with this question since early in medical school

Medical syntax is designed to communicate information in a predictable sequence with key elements prioritized to facilitate efficient communication and formation of an assessment and plan

2/

From preclinical lectures to Qbank questions to clerkship rotations, race/ethnicity was often prioritized in the same sentence as age + gender.

I grew accustomed to reading/hearing: a 70-year-old Black man w/ history of x, a 50-year-old Hispanic woman presented w/ y.

3/

However, when it came time for me to use race/ethnicity, there was always tension. Race/ethnicity are self/socially-ascribed identities that in clinical practice are almost always assumed by providers based on appearance. I was also concerned about the potential for bias

4/

I wondered how my own care would be impacted or not impacted by my ethnicity (Hispanic) – I have light skin so I’m not sure if my doctors would even identify me as such – but how would my care be different if I was presented as a 30-year-old Hispanic male?

5/
HEALTH
Advertisement
Chris Hopson
Chris Hopson
@ChrisCEOHopson
1/23 We haven't had a lot to celebrate during this pandemic. But achieving the milestone of offering vaccine to the over 70s, health and care workers and the most clinically vulnerable just before target date is a huge cause for celebration, given the scale of the achievement.

2/23 When Margaret Keenan got her first jab in Coventry on December 8th last year, who’d have thought that, by Valentine’s Day, we’d have vaccinated over fourteen million people across the UK in just ten short weeks? Amazing, extraordinary and truly, really, world class!

3/23 I’ve been struck by how much joy and relief has been brought to those doing the vaccinations and those receiving them. A GP told me yesterday that nothing had given him greater pleasure in his long career. And that the patient's relief was sometimes overwhelming.

4/23 It's vital to recognise the extraordinary contribution of the staff and volunteers who have made this happen. One of my close family had their jab yesterday and was in awe of the volunteer standing outside in the freezing cold for a four hour shift meeting and greeting.

5/23 What I wanted to share in this thread was the slightly untold story of some of the extraordinary challenges the NHS has had to overcome to deliver this target. Requiring superhuman effort from NHS leaders and staff, way beyond the call of duty. Five challenges set out below.
HEALTH
Patrick Strudwick
Patrick Strudwick
@PatrickStrud
I’m deeply saddened to learn that Dr Joseph Sonnabend, one of the most important figures in the history of AIDS, died yesterday. I spent time with him in 2018 for one of the last interviews he ever gave. Let me tell you about this man and what he did:

Sonnabend was one of the first doctors to raise the alarm. In 1979, while running a sexual health clinic in Greenwich Village, he wrote to the NY Health Dept to warn them of the symptoms he was seeing: low white blood cell counts, enlarged lymph nodes. He didn’t get a reply. 2/

So he kept speaking out. When a patient of his developed a very rare cancer – Kaposi’s Sarcoma – he linked up with a dermatologist at NYU who said that over a dozen gay men had it. Sonnabend knew there was something very wrong. He started working at the lab at NYU — for free. 3/

It was soon after this in 1981 that the New York Times famously reported “Rare Cancer Found In 41 Homosexuals”. The next decade would kill most of Sonnabend’s patients and friends — and all of his lovers. What Sonnabend did was to fight for every single of them. 4/

Want to know who was the first to publish advice to wear a condom? That was Sonnabend. In 1983 he co-authored the first safe sex leaflet to fight AIDS: “How To Have Sex In An Epidemic”. 5/
HEALTH
matthew remski
matthew remski
@matthewremski
A staple of anti-lockdown conspiracism in yoga/wellness is that public health measures are oppressive, authoritarian, and stifling what it means to be human. Masks suppress identity and speech. Vaccines assault the sovereign body. Influencers must rise up against tyranny! /1

Ironically, pandemic management in economies where yoga/wellness is lucrative has been a neoliberal, choose-your-own-adventure mess in which centre-right governments barter with public health to enact a patchwork of half-measures that punish the poor and marginalized. /2

The goal is not universal health rights, or protecting medical systems, or saving as many lives as possible. The goal is to return to business-as-usual, using public health as a pit stop on a productivity race off a cliff. The ice caps aren’t melting fast enough, I guess. /3

Right-leaning governments, like influencers, have assessed the COVID threat with the magical bias of limitless optimism. Then they work to normalize COVID casualties as a new cost of doing business. *This* is what alt-healthers and Qamoms call “socialist”, or “communist”. /4

Centre-right governments and wellness influencers share a goal: get back to the optimism of making productivity heroic and consumption virtuous, without any reflection on structural issues of injustice, or what universal health care funding and standards would look like. /5
HEALTH

You May Also Like

STEALTH JEFF
STEALTH JEFF
@drawandstrike
So it's now October 10, 2018 and....Rod Rosenstein is STILL not fired.

He's STILL in charge of the Mueller investigation.

He's STILL refusing to hand over the McCabe memos.

He's STILL holding up the declassification of the #SpyGate documents & their release to the public.

I love a good cover story.......

The guy had a face-to-face with El Grande Trumpo himself on Air Force One just 2 days ago. Inside just about the most secure SCIF in the world.

And Trump came out of AF1 and gave ol' Rod a big thumbs up!

And so we're right back to 'that dirty rat Rosenstein!' 2 days later.

At this point it's clear some members of Congress are either in on this and helping the cover story or they haven't got a clue and are out in the cold.

Note the conflicting stories about 'Rosenstein cancelled meeting with Congress on Oct 11!"

First, rumors surfaced of a scheduled meeting on Oct. 11 between Rosenstein & members of Congress, and Rosenstein just cancelled it.
ALL
Conservative Trader
Conservative Trader
@AnandableAnand
How to get rich trading (without getting lucky)

Complete beginner’s guide to wealth of Rs 10 Cr in 10 years

Step 1: start trading live

1/n

Nothing can substitute experience of live trading

No amount of back-test, studies or indicators can substitute training your mind with screen time

As a beginner, In live trading, you will make losses almost everyday

2/n

So here are the conditions which you can’t violate in first year
If you can’t follow these rules, this document is not for you

Start with trading capital of Rs 1 lakhs

Max loss per trade 0.25%, i.e. 250 Rs

Max loss for the day, 1%, i.e. Rs 1000

Max 6 trades in a day

3/n

I know, these conditions will cripple you in terms of what all you can trade and how

But just like any start up, trading is also about making it through initial gruelling constraints of life

You will also learn, how to turn these adverse rules to your advantage

4/n

Btw, you can sell directional banknifty options, obviously you can buy options, can do cash stock trading and much more under these conditions

Think about it, you will be do all kinds of instruments, just that PNL will not be roller coaster ride or exciting like a casino

5/n
TRADING , ALL
Advertisement
The Troll Zoo
The Troll Zoo
@TrollZoo
1. This is "Hollie The Card".

She's a Doctor, Physician, PhD, MA, Clinical Psychologist, Hospital Consultant, PTSD consultant, Long Covid Consultant.

(Thread)


2. Although sometimes she’s also an AUTHOR and English Academic.


3. A Hospital Consultant and ex Gymnast.

(Pinterest public profile)


4. A Physician, Doctor, or hospital consultant.

A “Hospital Consultant”, would probably mean a senior doctor, in the UK at least.


5. Hollie changes her Twitter picture and bio so often, it’s hard to keep up with her qualifications.
TWITTER
:Billy-Don :I-AM
:Billy-Don :I-AM
@ValiantThor12
1) 💜 THE EVENT 2020 - THE 1221 MULTIDIMENSIONAL STARGATE 💜
PLEIADIAN LIGHT FORCES TRANSMISSIONS - 12182020
CHANNELED BY MICHAEL LOVE
A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE STARSEEDS OF NEW EARTH, FOR IMMEDIATE PLANETARY BROADCAST…
PRELUDE:
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS DERIVED FROM DIRECT,

2) DECODED ETHERIC TRANSMISSIONS FROM BENEVOLENT LIGHT FORCES DOCKED IN EARTH’S SOLAR SYSTEM AND SOME OF THE DATA COMES DIRECTLY FROM CERTAIN INSIDE EARTH ALLIANCE MEMBERS KNOWN AS THE WHITE HATS, AND THE GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD STRATEGICALLY PLACED IN KEY POSITIONS OF POWER BY

3) THE GALACTICS ON THE SURFACE OF PLANET EARTH!
THE DATA HEREIN IS RECEIVED AND TRANSMITTED FROM THE 5D LEVEL! THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE STARSEEDS OF EARTH!
GREAT ONES,
WE HAVE SPOKEN OF THE EVENT 2020 THIS ENTIRE EARTH YEAR AS ALL PLEIADIAN AND EARTH ALLIANCE INTEL

4) SHOWS INDEED THAT A MAJOR COSMIC EVENT IS GOING TO OCCUR IN ONLY 3 EARTH DAYS FROM NOW!
ON DECEMBER 21, 2020, A MAGNIFICENT CELESTIAL STARGATE WILL OPEN IN THE HEAVENS WHICH MARKS THE DAWN OF THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF AQUARIUS AND THE 1ST DAY OF THE SATYUGA OF CENTRAL SUNLIGHT!

5) IN THE MORNING HOURS OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE, THE LONG-AWAITED NEW ERA OF LIGHT WILL FINALLY DAWN AND THE NEW 5D EARTH WILL BE BORN!
THE COSMIC GATES WILL BE FULLY OPENED ON 12/21/20 ALLOWING POWERFUL STREAMS OF COSMIC LIGHT TO ENTER EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE, UPGRADING ALL SENTIENT
ECONOMY
Maurice Casey
Maurice Casey
@MauriceJCasey
I am reading through reams of late-1920s communist poetry and easily my favourite title so far is: "To a Lady who Rejected a Poem about Spring as a Petit-Bourgeois Deviation"

The last lines:
"So here's my hat into the air,
Three cheers for your amazing hair,
For coal mines, and for turbines, too,
For steel, the Comintern and you!"

A not exactly graceful (though possibly satirical) title: "Lines Disassociating Myself from Yessenin and Supporting the Otherwise Unfounded Legend that I am a Foremost Proletarian Writer"

An excerpt:
"Goodbye verses of Yessenin
Goodbye literary slop-
You are not the line of Lenin
You are not the line of WAPP

Never shall I moan a
simple lyric from the heart
I'll devote my new corona
to the proletarian art"

The poet was Joseph Freeman, who published much of his revolutionary verse in the New Masses, a stylish journal of the interwar American literary Left.
CULTURE