Michael Pollard
@kmichaelpollard.bsky.social
Assoc. Prof Scripps Research working on how non-biological exposures lead to autoimmunity.
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Now live, and thanks to @erictopol.bsky.social for organising this!
Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb2)
This was a terrific discussion with Eric about my new biography of Francis Crick.
substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Now live, and thanks to @erictopol.bsky.social for organising this!
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Here's an extract from my chat with @erictopol.bsky.social about Crick; this is about his involvement in 1980s work that helped lead to today's "AI"'s. Full video here: substack.com/home/post/p-...
November 25, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Here's an extract from my chat with @erictopol.bsky.social about Crick; this is about his involvement in 1980s work that helped lead to today's "AI"'s. Full video here: substack.com/home/post/p-...
Worth dropping into.🧪
Going live to chat on @erictopol.bsky.social’s substack shortly! Be there or be square! Details on Eric’s profile!
November 25, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Worth dropping into.🧪
Reposted by Michael Pollard
In a potentially dramatic change to how it chooses what science to fund, NIH is ending a long-running practice at many of its institutes of establishing, and making public, a threshold peer-review score needed for a grant application’s approval. https://scim.ag/48ck2zu
NIH shake-up to grant decision-making draws concerns of political meddling
Policy drops “paylines” based on peer-review scores and requires geography and other factors to guide approvals
scim.ag
November 25, 2025 at 3:18 PM
In a potentially dramatic change to how it chooses what science to fund, NIH is ending a long-running practice at many of its institutes of establishing, and making public, a threshold peer-review score needed for a grant application’s approval. https://scim.ag/48ck2zu
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Reposted by Michael Pollard
"The Barmy Army, stunned into reckless late-afternoon abandon, began hurling beer trays at each other, creating a cascade of cardboard which was still only the third or fourth strangest thing happening at that given moment."
#TheCricket
#TheCricket
Australia's Head explosion sums up and decides Perth's TikTok Test match
The innings of a lifetime from Travis Head may be the resounding memory from an often farcical first Test in Perth, won by Australia and lost by England in spectacular fashion.
share.google
November 22, 2025 at 4:12 PM
"The Barmy Army, stunned into reckless late-afternoon abandon, began hurling beer trays at each other, creating a cascade of cardboard which was still only the third or fourth strangest thing happening at that given moment."
#TheCricket
#TheCricket
Reposted by Michael Pollard
My interview with @dallasnews.com www.dallasnews.com/news/public-...
Change on CDC website links vaccines and autism. What does it mean for doctors, parents?
The updated page casts aside decades of research by scientists around the world, which has found no link between childhood vaccines and autism.
www.dallasnews.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
My interview with @dallasnews.com www.dallasnews.com/news/public-...
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Excellent. Love the comments.
The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence says that vaccines do NOT cause autism. The link has been studied many many times. Here is just a taste of the mountains of peer-reviewed evidence:
Thread [1/9]
Thread [1/9]
November 21, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Excellent. Love the comments.
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Scientists tell Americans not to trust the CDC.
Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into “a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,” said @pauloffit.bsky.social.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into “a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,” said @pauloffit.bsky.social.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
After unprecedented autism-vaccine messaging change, scientists, advocates say CDC no longer trustworthy
www.cidrap.umn.edu
November 20, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Scientists tell Americans not to trust the CDC.
Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into “a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,” said @pauloffit.bsky.social.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into “a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,” said @pauloffit.bsky.social.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
Reposted by Michael Pollard
"In the first three months of 2025, the U.S. tallied 6,600 cases — four times last year's pace and 25 times 2023's. Several states are posting their highest case totals in a decade, and outbreaks from Louisiana to South Dakota to Idaho make clear this surge isn't regional. It's everywhere." 🧪
Whooping cough outbreaks surge, fueled by waning immunity and falling vaccination rates
New details from health officials suggest the whooping cough surge may be part of a national pattern driven by slipping vaccine coverage and waning immunity, with infants bearing the brunt.
www.cbsnews.com
November 20, 2025 at 8:17 PM
"In the first three months of 2025, the U.S. tallied 6,600 cases — four times last year's pace and 25 times 2023's. Several states are posting their highest case totals in a decade, and outbreaks from Louisiana to South Dakota to Idaho make clear this surge isn't regional. It's everywhere." 🧪
When you have a bias "vaccines cause autism" and you go looking for evidence to support that claim, you aren't doing science. You are simply feeding on your own BS.🧪
CDC Vaccine Website Promotes Antiscience Claims of Autism Ties
The CDC this week quietly changed its official language to suggest vaccines may cause autism, a claim that scientists say has no basis in evidence
www.scientificamerican.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:41 PM
When you have a bias "vaccines cause autism" and you go looking for evidence to support that claim, you aren't doing science. You are simply feeding on your own BS.🧪
Reposted by Michael Pollard
How awful. This is outright health disinformation, lying to the American people. Not only is there massive evidence showing no link between vaccines & autism, there’s not even a plausible mechanism based on what we’ve learned about the genetics of autism, some environmental exposures in pregnancy
HEADS UP: CDC website now officially asserts that vaccines may cause autism.“Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.” Also says the “vaccines do not cause autism” header remains b/c of an agreement with Cassidy.
November 20, 2025 at 3:18 AM
How awful. This is outright health disinformation, lying to the American people. Not only is there massive evidence showing no link between vaccines & autism, there’s not even a plausible mechanism based on what we’ve learned about the genetics of autism, some environmental exposures in pregnancy
Reposted by Michael Pollard
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
November 19, 2025 at 9:48 PM
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
I left in 1987. The writing was already on the wall back then.
The CSIRO cuts are just the tip of the iceberg for Australia's science funding
Australia is known as a country of innovators, but with a combination of brain drain, continuous cuts, and a loss of critical science projects, is Australia losing its edge?
www.abc.net.au
November 19, 2025 at 3:34 PM
I left in 1987. The writing was already on the wall back then.
Reposted by Michael Pollard
The amount of aluminum in select vaccines is
up to 72 TIMES LESS aluminum than you ingest daily from foods
and
up to 400 TIMES LESS aluminum than is in your body at any time.
Oh and it’s ALL filtered and excreted by your kidneys in the SAME EXACT WAY.
up to 72 TIMES LESS aluminum than you ingest daily from foods
and
up to 400 TIMES LESS aluminum than is in your body at any time.
Oh and it’s ALL filtered and excreted by your kidneys in the SAME EXACT WAY.
November 18, 2025 at 12:22 AM
The amount of aluminum in select vaccines is
up to 72 TIMES LESS aluminum than you ingest daily from foods
and
up to 400 TIMES LESS aluminum than is in your body at any time.
Oh and it’s ALL filtered and excreted by your kidneys in the SAME EXACT WAY.
up to 72 TIMES LESS aluminum than you ingest daily from foods
and
up to 400 TIMES LESS aluminum than is in your body at any time.
Oh and it’s ALL filtered and excreted by your kidneys in the SAME EXACT WAY.
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Thanks @financialtimes.com for choosing #ScienceUnderSiege as one "Best Books of 2025"
www.ft.com/content/af55...
www.ft.com/content/af55...
Best books of 2025: Environment, Science and Technology
Pilita Clark, Clive Cookson and John Thornhill select their must-read titles
www.ft.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Thanks @financialtimes.com for choosing #ScienceUnderSiege as one "Best Books of 2025"
www.ft.com/content/af55...
www.ft.com/content/af55...
Reposted by Michael Pollard
RFK Jr & his loyal henchmen (the Great Barrington Declaration dudes Jay Bhattacharya & Martin Kulldorff; Martin Makary; Dr Oz; Vinay Prasad) have been successfully dismantling the US vaccination system & achieved the return of deadly vaccine preventable diseases. This is the world they worked for...
SCOOP: CDC officials on Monday linked for the first time the measles outbreak that began in Texas with another in Utah and Arizona, a finding that could end America’s status as a nation that has eliminated measles.
(Gift link)
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/h...
(Gift link)
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/h...
C.D.C. Links Measles Outbreaks in Multiple States for the First Time
www.nytimes.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:03 AM
RFK Jr & his loyal henchmen (the Great Barrington Declaration dudes Jay Bhattacharya & Martin Kulldorff; Martin Makary; Dr Oz; Vinay Prasad) have been successfully dismantling the US vaccination system & achieved the return of deadly vaccine preventable diseases. This is the world they worked for...
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Lovely review of CRICK by Peter Lawrence - who knew Francis well and took the photograoh below - in @currentbiology.bsky.social. “Scintillating… a biography to savour.”
Francis Crick: A thoughtful biography to savour
“His aim was not just to make discoveries about two of the major riddles of science,
he was also driven (…) to understand our true place in the Universe, shorn of superstition
and religion.”
www.cell.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Lovely review of CRICK by Peter Lawrence - who knew Francis well and took the photograoh below - in @currentbiology.bsky.social. “Scintillating… a biography to savour.”
Crispin G has come to talk with me. He's gathering his thoughts. Best boy.
November 16, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Crispin G has come to talk with me. He's gathering his thoughts. Best boy.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of an obsession with DNA.
"Recombinant DNA happened. DNA sequencing happened. The Human Genome Project happened. Like scientists before him, Dr. Watson got carried away by a pretty but simplistic model of the gene that seemed able to explain everything."
"Recombinant DNA happened. DNA sequencing happened. The Human Genome Project happened. Like scientists before him, Dr. Watson got carried away by a pretty but simplistic model of the gene that seemed able to explain everything."
Had a great time in New Orleans at #HSS2025!
Historians of recent science may be interested in my guest essay in this morning’s @nytopinion.nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/o...
Historians of recent science may be interested in my guest essay in this morning’s @nytopinion.nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/o...
Opinion | James Watson Saw the True Form of DNA. Then It Blinded Him.
www.nytimes.com
November 16, 2025 at 4:50 PM
The good, the bad, and the ugly of an obsession with DNA.
"Recombinant DNA happened. DNA sequencing happened. The Human Genome Project happened. Like scientists before him, Dr. Watson got carried away by a pretty but simplistic model of the gene that seemed able to explain everything."
"Recombinant DNA happened. DNA sequencing happened. The Human Genome Project happened. Like scientists before him, Dr. Watson got carried away by a pretty but simplistic model of the gene that seemed able to explain everything."
Reposted by Michael Pollard
Celebrating Rosalyn Yalow on #WorldDiabetesDay.
Yalow, a physicist, co-invented a super-sensitive test (radioimmunoassay, or RIA) that uses tiny amounts of radioactive tags to detect exact levels of insulin in blood--& won the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it. #WomenInSTEM
Yalow, a physicist, co-invented a super-sensitive test (radioimmunoassay, or RIA) that uses tiny amounts of radioactive tags to detect exact levels of insulin in blood--& won the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it. #WomenInSTEM
November 14, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Celebrating Rosalyn Yalow on #WorldDiabetesDay.
Yalow, a physicist, co-invented a super-sensitive test (radioimmunoassay, or RIA) that uses tiny amounts of radioactive tags to detect exact levels of insulin in blood--& won the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it. #WomenInSTEM
Yalow, a physicist, co-invented a super-sensitive test (radioimmunoassay, or RIA) that uses tiny amounts of radioactive tags to detect exact levels of insulin in blood--& won the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it. #WomenInSTEM
Reposted by Michael Pollard
November 14, 2025 at 2:42 AM