Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Gwenfar @gwenfar.bsky.social · 10h

When is International White Men Shut The Fuck Up day?

Reposted by Gwenfar

LGBTIQA+ Greens @lgbtiqagreens.bsky.social · 12h

It's International #LesbianDay (8th October) and we hope that if you're a lesbian you're having a great day. Trans lesbians are lesbians. No amount of shouting about that from anyone can change that.

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Clinically Vulnerable Families 💙💜💗 @cvcev.bsky.social · 23h

🚨 BREAKING: Labour MPs back calls to restore NHS Covid vaccines for all Clinically Vulnerable people!

After pressure from CVF members and supporters - a rapid U-turn appears to be underway.

WELL DONE!

#KeepCovidBoosters campaign a HUGE success!

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Clinically Vulnerable Families 💙💜💗 @cvcev.bsky.social · 21h

We still NEED YOUR SUPPORT on this important issue of vaccines for all CV people.

🙏Please write to your MP using our easy template!

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www.clinicallyvulnerable.org/post/labour-...

Labour MPs Call for Covid Vaccine Access for Clinically Vulnerable People

After months of tireless campaigning, writing to MPs, briefing the media, and speaking up at the UK Covid Inquiry - our community may finally be seeing progress.We have received confirmation that some...

www.clinicallyvulnerable.org

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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 13h

"Reproductive freedom should be sacrosanct" and "we should tax women who refuse to breed" are not in fact mutually compatible statements.

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 15h

My most controversial take on this is probably that while I think reproductive freedom should be sacrosanct, I don’t really have any problem with additional taxes on (high income) childless people. Someone gotta pay into the pensions!

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Chris Ponting @cgatist.bsky.social · 1d

The research used to claim reliability of a ME/CFS blood test has important limitations, shown here.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Three possible confounders in a study proposing an ME/CFS blood test : sex/age, batch and inactivity/severity. Better designed studies by independent researchers are necessary.

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👻madeline boOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 12h

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

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DevinCow @devincow.bsky.social · 1d

Whew. Breathe.

www.wsmv.com/2025/10/08/i...

‘I didn’t mean to scare anyone’: Dolly Parton’s sister says after asking for prayers

Dolly postponed her first Las Vegas residency in more than 30 years late last month, saying she was dealing with health challenges.

www.wsmv.com

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David Barnett @davidmbarnett.bsky.social · 18h

Weird how they put all their efforts into using technology to replace human creativity and art and then say creative arts degrees are useless.

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Kate Griffin @griffinkate.bsky.social · 17h

As requested, I rang the second pharmacy again (in the nearest Big Tesco). They said there's no booking on their system and the booking site I've been using (Pharmadoctor) no longer lets you book with Tesco pharmacies.

"do Pharmadoctor know that?"
"yes, but they're doing nothing to rectify it."

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 17h

The reason the Right are so invested in the myth that the arts have no value isn’t because the arts don’t generate wealth (they do); it’s that studying the arts teaches people to imagine better ways of judging the value of an idea than by counting how much money it makes…

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Dr Alex Cruikshanks @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 16h

Happy International Lesbian Day! 🏳️‍🌈

Where Are My Lesbians? - Pride (2014) - Movie Clip

YouTube video by duckpoof

youtu.be

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Gwenfar @gwenfar.bsky.social · 15h

Same

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Gwenfar @gwenfar.bsky.social · 15h

We are all faking it because.... *looks at notes* ... because we love being house/bed bound, with barely any social lives, missing careers, travel, entertainment, are financially ruined, & have to watch everyone else get on with their lives.

No-one wants this life. Wesslley is the one faking it.

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Nic Wilson @nicwilson.bsky.social · 16h

Lyme, ME/CFS, endometriosis, long COVID, coeliac disease, adenomyosis, fibromyalgia & all the other conditions where there's actually nothing wrong with us, but we just enjoy pretending to be ill. For fuck's sake. It's like we've regressed to the 1960s when my mum was accused of being a malingerer.

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 1d

Just as we are beginning to understand the biochemical basis of this horrendous condition, the government appoints the man perhaps most responsible for the mischaracterisation of ME/CFS – Simon Wesseley - to its *overdiagnosis* commission. www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/controv...

Controversial professor to investigate overdiagnosis of mental health and neurodivergence for Labour

Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 1d

Just as we are beginning to understand the biochemical basis of this horrendous condition, the government appoints the man perhaps most responsible for the mischaracterisation of ME/CFS – Simon Wesseley - to its *overdiagnosis* commission. www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/controv...

Controversial professor to investigate overdiagnosis of mental health and neurodivergence for Labour

Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

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ME/CFS Science @mecfsskeptic.bsky.social · 15h

1) There's a new ME/CFS study that is getting a lot of attention in the media. It focuses on epigenetics: how genes are switched on or off by folding DNA in a different way.

You genetic code itself is fixed but the expression of genes can change by environmental factors.

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Aliza Adi (she/her) @alizaadi.bsky.social · 1d

The UK’s Trans healthcare scandal isn’t a complex issue

Her death was preventable

It was the result of a complete failure by cisgender policymakers and clinicians who willfully ignore expert warnings and lived experience

They are responsible for a system built to delay, deny, and destroy hope

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Gender clinic waiting list 'far too long' says coroner after teen's death

Camden's Tavistock Centre has been criticised by a coroner but its specialist clinic for children and young people closed down last year

www.mylondon.news

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Emerge Australia @emergeaustralia.bsky.social · 2d

Join the #ausmebiobank in advancing #MECFS and #longCOVID research.
If you're in QLD, NSW or VIC with these conditions, or a healthy volunteer, donate blood today.
Find out more 👉 zurl.co/kSU0r

#MECFSResearch #DonateForScience #MedicalResearch #ThankYouDonors

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Tom Kindlon @tomkindlon.bsky.social · 1d

Please support Dr David Tuller's important work: he has the necessary skills, knowledge & networks to be able to challenge those who promote dubious psychobabble theories & that conditions can be overcome with enough effort/discipline

crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/47768

#MEcfs #LongCovid #PwME

Trial By Error: Reporting on ME, ME/CFS, Long COVID, & so on...

Ten years ago this month, I launched Trial By Error with a 15,000-word investigation of the fraudulent PACE trial, which tested cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy as curative treatments for what was then being chronic fatigue syndrome. What I thought was a one-off somehow morphed into an extended academic project on psycho-behavioral research across a broad range of conditions, including what is known as Long COVID.

Amazingly, the pandemic and its consequences have rendered much of my earlier work relevant in a way I could never have anticipated. I had planned to end the project a couple of years ago, but decided to continue as I saw the same investigators I'd already criticized for their flawed research pursuing the exact same strategies in taking on Long COVID.

This current crowdfunding will cover my work on Trial By Error and my position at Berkeley from January-June, 2026. Assuming it goes well, there will be one more crowdfunding campaign next spring to cover July-December, 2026. I plan to retire from Berkeley at the end of 2026. (I will be 70 on October 10, 2026.)

I have been busy since last spring’s crowdfunding!!!

*I’ve written dozens of posts on Virology Blog, many explaining why awful papers about psycho-behavioral interventions for ME/CFS and Long Covid are, in fact, awful.

*I've covered news events and developments not only in the UK and US but also in multiple European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

*I've posted video interviews with Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki about the latest in Long COVID research, University of Edinburgh geneticist Chris Ponting about the DecodeME findings; Columbia University's Ian Lipkin about immune-related abnormalities in ME/CFS; the UK ME Association's Charles Shepherd about the UK government's pathetic plan for ME/CFS; and others.

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Gwenfar @gwenfar.bsky.social · 1d

🫂

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Ingrid Birchell Hughes @1ngi.bsky.social · 1d

Hello.
It me.
October 7th is World Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day.
6+ years and counting. It's a life changing illness. There is no cure. Facial pain falls down the cracks between diciplines. It's recognised as one of the worst pains in medicine.
#ShowTN3Fingers #FaceofTN #TrigeminalNeuralgia

A white middle aged woman with auburn hair, wearing a blue dress, holds three fingers up to her cheek.

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 1d

Mourning those murdered by Hamas isn't incompatible with mourning those murdered by the Israeli state.

Demanding that the hostages return isn't incompatible with naming & demanding an end to genocide.

Naming the power imbalance & impact thereof doesn't desecrate those murdered two years ago today.

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Trans Greens 🏳️‍⚧️💚 @transgreens.bsky.social · 1d

Green Party Conference recently passed some amazing healthcare policy for the trans community. It commits us to an informed consent model of trans healthcare, a trans-led public inquiry into NHS care, a trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy, and so much more.

The Green Party just voted to reform trans healthcare.

What does this bold new policy look like?

Promoted by LGBTIQA+ Greens (Green Party), c/o PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

What we're calling for:
- The end of segregation in trans healthcare.
- Ending the torture of conversion therapy.
- Moving the NHS to an informed consent model.
- Expanding the range of funded transition care.
- Access to affirming healthcare for trans youth.
- NHS support for people who seld-medicate or use private care.
- Real support for detransitioning people.

Promoted by LGBTIQA+ Greens (Green Party), c/o PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

How we get there:
- Closing the existing Gender Identity Clinics and supporting GPs with training and funding to care for trans people.
- Lifting the politically motivated ban on 'puberty blockers'.
- Starting a government funded, trans-led, inquiry into past NHS treatment of trans people.
- Including & prioritising trans expertise in independent care reviews.
- Passing a trans-inclusive ban on 'conversion therapy'.

Promoted by LGBTIQA+ Greens (Green Party), c/o PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

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David Tuller @davetuller1.bsky.social · 1d

Berkeley's fall crowdfunder for Trial By Error is now up!
crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/47768

David Tuller's Trial by Error Fall 2025

Help UC Berkeley raise $68,000 for the project: David Tuller's Trial by Error Fall 2025. Your gift will make a difference!

crowdfund.berkeley.edu

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