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Bénédicte C

@benecal.bsky.social

1.1K followers 2.5K following 6.1K posts

Biosciences & Tech policy Post about research, innovation, public health, politics & policy making, regulation, disinfo She/Her/Antifacist

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 4d

Defend Public Health's Whopper of the Week is about RFK's lies about vaccinating babies against Hepatitis B. Babies should be vaccinated as soon as possible after birth.

Let's make Americans immune from viral liver failure (again)!

www.defendpublichealth.org/opinion/whop...

Whopper of the Week: RFK Jr. is Dead Wrong Babies Won't Get Hepatitis B | Defend Public Health

RFK Jr does not want the CDC to recommend newborns be vaccinated against the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV infection early in life, especially as a baby, puts a person at a high risk of developing a ch...

www.defendpublichealth.org

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It's ME(Jaime) @exceedhergrasp1.bsky.social · 3h

The intent is to slash science and public health. There's no link to the shutdown, it'sjust fun to look like they're punishing that today. Tomorrow, they'll cut essential programs for some other, equally pretend reason.

www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Trump slashes mental health agency as shutdown drags on

Sources tell NPR that more than 100 employees have been laid off at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had some cuts reversed late Saturday.

www.npr.org

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Wil Wheaton @wilwheaton.net · 3h

"To be a Republican in 2025 represents a clear public confession that you either don't know the difference between good and evil and you're so morally empty that you can't be bothered to begin to try, or that you do know the difference, and you prefer evil." Great essay from @juliusgoat.bsky.social

The Crime of Human Virtue

Sometimes it really is as simple as good vs. evil. This is one of those times. Human virtue is our great crime against the fascist project; it's also our great weapon against it.

www.the-reframe.com

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 4h

There's a joke there somewhere about how gross WaPo has become... but really nothing about it dying germ ridden in darkness is funny.

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 5h

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 5h

Shooting with multiple victims at Wiregrass Commons Mall in Dothan, Alabama. (WDHN)

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 4h

So we’re on week two of admonishments from mainstream media that we should listen to, respect and be nice to their favorite MAGA villain.

Trump/MAGA is a criminal system which is destroying laws and social compacts & institutionalizing violence.

No propagandist is nice or deserving of respect.

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 5h

And every accusation is a confession w these guys.

I have been seeing an increase in MAHA adjacent, antivax posts in this site. And have been wondering if they were coordinated or bought…

Reposted by Bénédicte C

Liz Szabo @lizszabo.bsky.social · 10h

Trump cuts jobs at nation's mental health and substance abuse agency: Shots - Health News

www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Trump slashes mental health agency as shutdown drags on

Sources tell NPR that more than 100 employees have been laid off at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had some cuts reversed late Saturday.

www.npr.org

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 12h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 11h

Dunno, but there was a ton of damning info on RFK. None of what he is doing is out of line w his past and he ran his mouth all the time. He had just been a disastrous influence in Samoa, a speaker at Trumpie rallies, a litigant in cases against vax. Known entity. Rs chose him willingly.

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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 11h

🚨Our new study: Marketing of [BS] stem cell supplements www.cell.com/stem-cell-re... cc @stemcellnetwork.ca

"Marketing portrayed beneficial effect for over 60 diverse ailments..."

"All health claims were expressed with vague, noncausal verbs such as 'supports'..."

Needed: consumer protection!

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 11h

Was not part of the discussion. But Republicans wanted to do Trump's bidding. The vote split on party lines. www.senate.gov/legislative/...

U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 119th Congress - 1st Session

www.senate.gov

Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 11h

JD's main job seems to be barking like loyal bulldog anytime anyone lightly criticizes the administration for some outrageously awful thing they've done. He barks loudly and publicly on TV for a bit and then he's put back in his pen.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision

Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 12h

I fully agree, I just read about this story but I had not seen the video which is really much more damning because he comes off as cruel, bizarre, irresponsible... just ick.

Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 12h

I keep reading snippets from the lecture and it’s just too lunatic. H

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Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 12h

Our future is being shaped to a terrifying degree by people who have just … completely lost their marbles…

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 14h

Russell Vought embodies the radicalization of the conservative movement; his example captures how far removed from democratic politics the Trumpist Right is. Vought is convinced to be fighting a noble war against a vast leftist conspiracy that has supposedly taken over the country.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 14h

Vought is a key figure in the world of Trumpism, with a rare – and dangerous – combination of ideological zeal and operative competence, a fully committed extremist causing massive harm to millions of people.

But if you only listened to The Daily, you wouldn’t get any of that.

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 12h

I did not know there was actually video of this messed up story

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50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 14h

“CDC is over. It was killed. This administration only knows how to break things. They have made America at risk for outbreaks and attacks by nefarious players. People should be scared,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

"CDC is over": RFK Jr. lays off over 1,000 employees in Friday night massacre

Amid the ongoing shutdown, the HHS secretary wiped out entire offices that investigate disease outbreaks, manage infectious disease responses and collect data.

www.msnbc.com

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Charles Ghoul-ba ✡️ @charlesgaba.com · 13h

This version of the graph presents the data differently but makes the same point (and is actually more useful from a campaigning/messaging POV).

NJ is one of a handful of states providing state subsidies to help mitigate the damage, but it's still gonna be ugly.

acasignups.net/ira-subsidy-...

New Jersey: Examples of impact of expiring tax credits on ACA enrollee premiums

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Bénédicte C @benecal.bsky.social · 20h

Isn’t this the second time some of these people were “mistakenly” fired?

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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 22h

Our country is being run by evil men. But also very stupid and incompetent ones.

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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 2d

"After a few moments of laughter..."

The No Kings organizers with a fun, tidy response to Mike Johnson's shenanigans.

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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 20h

Trump take everything.

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 22h

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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