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Anna Kirkland

@annakirkland.bsky.social

2.9K followers 910 following 200 posts

U Mich prof. Anna like Donna. Author of Health Care Civil Rights (new and open access from University of California Press), Vaccine Court (2016), and Fat Rights (2008). www.profannakirkland.com Speaking for myself.

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Apr 8

Publication day for HEALTH CARE CIVIL RIGHTS: How Discrimination Law Fails Patients from @ucpress.bsky.social!

118 in depth interviews, analysis of 1500 health insurance plan documents and dozens of legal cases, 8 years of research to explain why our laws fail us when we need them most.

$book standing up on a table with the title Health Care Civil Rights: How Discrimination Law Fails Patients and author Anna Kirkland. Cover background is refracted rainbow light on a blue background$

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · 6d

I’m borrowing that! Thank you!

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · 9d

Yes

Leta McCollough Seletzky @letaseletzky.com · 9d

I don’t want to hear anything else about what we should or shouldn’t be putting in our bodies (Tylenol, artificial sweeteners, sugar, or fat) until something is done about the BULLETS being put into bodies

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · 15d

I agree that Obergefell is probably going down, too. 😔

Opinion | 5 Reasons the Supreme Court Might Change Its Mind on Same-Sex Marriage

Marriage equality is popular, but a lot has changed since Obergefell.

www.politico.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · 18d

Congratulations!! I can't wait to read it.

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Sep 7

How far off in this political timeline is asking to re-segregate the blood supply? 😔

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Sep 1

Every word of this 👇

How federal officials talk about health is shifting in troubling ways • Missouri Independent

The Make America Healthy Again movement has generated a lot of discussion about public health. But the language MAHA proponents use to describe health and disease has also raised concerns among the di...

missouriindependent.com

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 28

Thank you, @iwashyna.bsky.social — that felt like the editorial equivalent of jumping up and down and screaming at the time. It seems like so long ago 😔

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 27

Good.

Michigan civil rights law still applies and protects against gender identity discrimination in hospitals and clinics.

www.michigan.gov/ag/-/media/P...

www.michigan.gov

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 26

It’s here

Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · Aug 25

The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...

America Tips Into Fascism

Today is different than before.

www.doomsdayscenario.co

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 26

😔

TPM @talkingpointsmemo.com · Aug 25

The University of Michigan’s statewide hospital system will stop providing gender-affirming care for patients under 19 after receiving a subpoena and being threatened with investigation by Trump’s Justice Department, TPM reports exclusively.

The University of Michigan Will End Gender Affirming Care for Minors Amid Trump Admin Legal Onslaught

The Trump administration has strong-armed the University of Michigan’s statewide hospital system...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 26

😔

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 20

These exclusions from employee health benefits for adults would seem to be straightforwardly illegal under Bostock and equal protection.

I put nothing past this Roberts court, though.

Lambda Legal Condemns Trump Administration’s Illegal Exclusion of Gender-Affirming Care from Government Employee Health Benefits

Policy violates constitutional protections and multiple federal anti-discrimination laws Lambda Legal today condemned the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s announcement that it will exclude cover...

lambdalegal.org

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 18

Hi it’s me

TPM @talkingpointsmemo.com · Aug 18

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the vaccine court, calling it “biased” against compensating people, slow and unfair. He has said that he wants to “revolutionize” or “fix” this system.
talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/rfk-jr-...

RFK Jr.’s Wants to Overhaul the US ‘Vaccine Court.’ What Would That Actually Look Like?

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 18

RFK Jr.’s Wants to Overhaul the US ‘Vaccine Court.’ What Would That Actually Look Like?

(I'm so excited to be re-published in @talkingpointsmemo.com, one of my favorite news sites that I pay for :) Also I love the new title!

RFK Jr.’s Wants to Overhaul the US ‘Vaccine Court.’ What Would That Actually Look Like?

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 16

A great resource for those of you wondering what’s this vaccine court and why is RFK Jr attacking it?

FactCheck.org @factcheck.org · Aug 15

RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Court Spin

www.factcheck.org/2025/08/rfk-...

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

Let’s make it even harder for this disastrous administration to do hard things.

RFK Jr.’s plans to overhaul ‘vaccine court’ system would face legal and scientific challenges

The 40-year-old ‘vaccine court’ relies on scientific evidence to determine whether a person experienced harm from a routine vaccination.

theconversation.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

The mRNA announcement and its fallout is critical context for any plans to overhaul the vaccine compensation system.

Seems pretty chaotic over there.

How RFK Jr. alienated MAGA, MAHA and the White House in a single week

The botched announcement about mRNA vaccines reveals a health department full of dysfunction and infighting.

www.msnbc.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

I genuinely don't know what could happen here because there are multiple possibilities. Of course authoritarianism is happening and that will matter. But let's not panic and assume there's more power than there is.

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

There's a robust petitioners' bar that will not want their jobs destroyed and their clients' best chances for compensation ruined.

Veto points. An activated legal profession. Fragmented coalition. Lawsuits already incoming against his anti-vax agenda. Regulatory steps. Real reform is hard.

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

Turns out it's set up by Congress, administered in HHS with input from multiple committees, and cases go to special masters in the US Court of Federal Claims. They aren't Article III judges with life terms, but they still have some insulation with terms and limits on removal.

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 15

My new article in @theconversation.com today explains what's going on at the vaccine court under RFK, Jr.'s HHS leadership.

Yes, it's alarming, but it's also complicated.

RFK Jr.’s plans to overhaul ‘vaccine court’ system would face legal and scientific challenges

The 40-year-old ‘vaccine court’ relies on scientific evidence to determine whether a person experienced harm from a routine vaccination.

theconversation.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 11

and you can find more material from the vaccine court research project on my personal website:

Anna Kirkland

I am the Kim Lane Scheppele Collegiate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. I have courtesy appointments in our School of Law and the departments of Sociology,...

www.profannakirkland.com

Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 11

Here's the book that explains this court and its place in our political, legal, and public health worlds:

Vaccine Court

A behind-the-scenes examination of the special court dedicated to claims that vaccines have caused harmThe so-called vaccine court is a small special court i...

nyupress.org

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 11

Nothing makes a girl feel young again like all the RFK terrible arguments coming back (gift link). The vaccine court was the subject of my 2016 book from @nyupress.bsky.social. It's still relevant today because it explains and contextualizes all Kennedy's current criticisms.

Kennedy’s Next Target: the Federal Vaccine Court

www.nytimes.com

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Anna Kirkland @annakirkland.bsky.social · Aug 10

👊 @clancyny.bsky.social

Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · Aug 10

"Civil rights are usually understood to be about voting, education, and employment, not health care."

Kirkland asks, "What do civil rights look like when refracted through the lens of American healthcare, a massive and complex web of public and private relationships, laws, regulations...?"

$HEALTH CARE CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAN RIGHTS TRADITION This book analyzes civil rights in health care in the contemporary United States. But civil rights are usually understood to be about voting, education, and employment, not health care. Scholars of civil rights have mostly studied them in the workplace, theorizing how rights can assist social movement mobilization but also reinscribe inequalities and ratify ineffective organizational practices that fail to produce much social change.5 What do civil rights look like when refracted through the lens of American healthcare, a massive and complex web of public and private relationships, laws, regulations, institutions, professions, norms, and financial arrangements that comprises one-fifth of the US economy? What rights are there in US healthcare, anyway? What would a nondiscriminatory health benefit plan look like? We are famously a country that lacks an explicit right to health. And yet our US healthcare and welfare systems offer a range of entitlements, protections, rules, and supports for health insurance, so much so that Christina Ho argues that we already have some rights to health that we fail to see as true rights.6 So then what is a civil right in health? It turns out that seeing rights through health is different in important ways than seeing them through other contexts like employment.$

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