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J. Offir, PhD

@joffirphd.bsky.social

13K followers 1.1K following 13K posts

Ph.D. in social psychology. Former researcher in pandemic behavioral risk reduction (non-pharma intervention). Only here to keep up. @[email protected]

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J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · Aug 23

Updated 📌 list of my essays on the psychology of public health (inc. topics like covid, HIV & reproductive health). As of 8/22/25, there are *31* long-form pieces in this 🧵.

The list starts in reverse chrono. order, but in Oct. 2024 starts rolling forward, so oldest posts are in the middle. Doh.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · Oct 21

In The Bad Place, I have a pinned thread of my covid essays & threads, w/ short descriptions of ea. Here's one for This Place, though w/o descriptions, b/c I'm tired. As is true there, I've put them in reverse chrono order, but anything new will post at the end. I flagged ones people liked best:

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 9m

Wth is even going on here? Was he drunk when he signed it? Has he moved on from alcohol to acid? Just *what*?

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 11h

Nothing says “America First” like letting another country put an Air Force base in Idaho

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 24m

5/ to professional medical associations (in this case, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, or ACOG) instead of the CDC, re: vaccination.

If you're pregnant and due for a booster, go grab it - safer for you, your pregnancy, and your child-to-be.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 24m

4/ pregnancy as a high risk condition, too.)

Or maybe they knew vax-hesitent folks had already heard RFK & weren't likely to notice yet another change (let alone visit the CDC site to check). But now they can't be blamed for bad outcomes.

Either way, this is a good example of why you should listen

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 24m

3/ shared decision-making w/ providers, they may not have remembered RFK had told pregnant people to abstain.

The article says: "It's not clear if the committee abstained from creating a separate guidance on purpose, or if members simply were unaware of the contradiction." (The CDC still lists...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 24m

2/ pregnant folks to get a covid vax.

Then they went to a grey box ("no guidance - N/A").

Now, the CDC's posted covid rec. is for shared clinical decision-making for pregnant folks, just as it is for other people.

But this may have been an accident: when the ACIP voted last month for universal...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 24m

Pregnancy, covid shots & the CDC (not that you should get your vax guidance there, anyway; listen to professional medical associations):

"The CDC appears to have quietly expanded access to COVID shots for pregnant women."

In May, they dropped the rec. for...

www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

CDC Expands Access to COVID Shots for Pregnant Women

Agency's vaccine advisors' recommendations about shared decision-making appear to apply

www.medpagetoday.com

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 6h

3/ illegal. In an extreme case...wastewater testing could help identify a particular street or home where the pills were used, though such measures would be legally fraught and extremely costly."

This is from the "bodily autonomy" folks. Maybe they’ll use the $ from throwing folks off healthcare.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 6h

2/ members of Congress to [the EPA admin], asking the agency to investigate how the abortion drug mifepristone might be contaminating the water supply."

EPA officials said "the general technology they had developed for testing wastewater could be used for surveillance in states where abortion is...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 6h

Checking wastewater for mifepristone: So much for Repubs railing against a surveillance state; they might as well get t-shirts that read, "It's fine when we're the ones doing it."

The "request appears to have originated from a letter sent from 25 Republican...

1/3

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

The E.P.A. Followed Up on an Unusual Request About Abortion Pills

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by J. Offir, PhD

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 9h

Our latest paper in @jamanetworkopen.com where we asked: Following the #COVID pandemic, has SARSCoV2 circulation been associated with health-related absences from work and labor force exits? @yaleemd.bsky.social @princetonecon.bsky.social @brookings.edu 1/ jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Enduring Outcomes of COVID-19 Work Absences on the US Labor Market

This cohort study examines the extent to which COVID-19 continues to generate work absences and decrease labor force participation beyond the pandemic period in the US.

jamanetwork.com

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 8h

She is completely out there - she'll pitch for anyone who pays her.

It's incredibly frustrating that smart people would be so blind to the grift, & to the damage she's causing even among people who don't buy the products.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 20h

gifts, abilities, and perceptions that can come with neurodivergence. Apologies in advance for sentence structure that was unintentionally ableist.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 20h

P.S. When I referred, at the top of this 🧵, to negative health outcomes & then gave examples that included autism, I meant that the admin talks about autism as a neg. health outcome. Obviously, a great many people don't see most autism as negative at all, instead appreciating the unique...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

It's very, very bad, Linda. Call your Senators - demand an assurance that they will vote against confirming her.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

🚨 You can do something to prevent this disaster. Call your Senators - Republican ones as well as the Democrats; we need them - and tell them you only want a Surgeon General who respects & promotes evidence-based medical science, & you need them to vote NO on the confirmation of grifter Casey Means.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

Mini essay 🧵: I've posted about this grifter nominee for Surgeon General before, & about *why* this admin. gravitates to such awful people: Means, like Dr. Oz & RFK himself, doesn't just hawk products; she sells both the idea that people are to blame...

1/20

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

She left the medical mainstream and rose to be RFK Jr.’s surgeon general pick

Casey Means, the surgeon general nominee, has criticized the medical establishment. She could be put in position to change it.

www.washingtonpost.com

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

Bonus post: Here are some "elixers" and sundry "wellness products" from the 19th c. apothecary section of Vermont's tremendous Shelbourne museum, which I visited in 2019. This is what Casey Means intends to take us back to.

Elixer: Petit's Blood Purifier

Shelf of elixers: Coxe's Hive Syrup, etc. Lavender syrup, too.

Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound: Vitamin B1, and also 15% alcohol, plus various stuff like true & false unicorn plant

Up on a shelf: "To Cure A Cold in One Day" pills. Contains Laxative, Bromo & Quinine.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

20/ research. They haven’t all been doctors — nurses and a veterinarian have temporarily filled the post — but typically come from the medical establishment."

Trump's first SG, Jerome Adams, was a syncophant when he had the job - but he wasn't this. Call your Senators & tell them vote NO on Means.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

19/ the brand."

🔹️And finally, what is a Surgeon General *supposed* to do? "Surgeons general have traditionally helped fight HIV, smoking, obesity, addiction and more. They oversee more than 6,000 uniformed public health personnel and are charged with issuing seminal reports with the latest medical

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

18/ for $20,000 and listed as a partner of her book launch on her website. She did not expressly disclose that connection in the video, but did note viewers could get 10 percent off in the description. She also did not disclose the partnership in a May 2024 newsletter when she promoted

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

17/ products, legal and advertising experts told The Post." She "did a YouTube video titled 'Unbox My Genova Metabolomix+ Nutrition Test With Me! 🧪' about a test that can cost hundreds of dollars. Genova Diagnostics is a sponsor of her book tour and newsletter, according to her financial disclosures

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

16/ vaccine. That echoes Kennedy, who founded a prominent anti-vaccine group and has reshaped U.S. vaccine policy, prompting an outcry from some medical experts who say the vaccine schedule is safe and effective."

🔹️"Means has...blurred sponsorship lines when talking about supplements and other...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

15/ unlocking your limitless potential as a lightning rod of spirit, and as a part of god,' she wrote in a newsletter. In her book, Means talks about taking psilocybin mushrooms."

🔹️On "prominent podcasts," she "publicly questioned the cumulation of the childhood vaccine schedule and the hepatitis B

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

14/ brother, Calley, a close Kennedy ally — now reads like a 'Make America Healthy Again' manifesto. It includes a chapter titled 'Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor.'"

🔹️She also "often invokes spirituality as underpinning the path to health. 'Build your life on an unshakable foundation in service of

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

13/ with every mother in this country.'"

🔹️"As surgeon general, Means would be charged with speaking to the American public with authority....in a 2021 blog post, [she wrote] “...be bold in communicating it through every bit of content you produce.”

🔹️Her best-selling book, "which she wrote with her

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 1d

12/ aside traditional medical expertise."

🔹️"Means was instrumental in catapulting Kennedy’s MAHA initiative, which has been galvanized by women who support his goals and who have become known as 'MAHA moms.' On Fox News in May, Kennedy noted that Means was pregnant and said she has 'a touchstone...