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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 · 5h

I'm sorry!

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

Oh, no. Is there a children's hospital in your state that might know where to get one?

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 7h

Great!

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

6/ have no PCP, and millions more will soon lose health care access. But that's an issue here, too.

🔹️Another big problem likely to increase: folks take supplements to manage symptoms rather than seeking medical testing to determine their cause. When the cause is serious, that leads to bad outcomes.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

5/ sell and promote them online," "The pharmaceutical and health care industries have left many Americans disillusioned," & "some patients feel dismissed at the doctor, leading them to seek out alternative treatments for their pain."

The article doesn't mention that almost a third of Americans...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

4/ another."

🔹️In 2024, researchers at U. Michigan estimated that 15 million US adults "take a supplement that could potentially cause liver toxicity, like turmeric or red yeast rice."

(Remember when Dr. Oz used to extol the virtues of turmeric?)

🔹️People like supplements b/c "Prominent doctors...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

3/ supplements, monitoring them less rigorously than drugs and not approving them for safety or effectiveness before they reach the public."

🔹️They've "been found to be mislabeled, in terms of both the ingredients and their concentration. And some mix poorly with certain medications, or with one...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

2/ 🔹️But supplements can "come with side effects," including serious ones. (Just because you can buy it doesn't mean it's safe.) A paper in The New England Journal of Medicine "estimated that supplements are responsible for 23,000 emergency room visits a year."

🔹️The FDA "only lightly regulates...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

As I've said before, I expect issue like this will get a lot worse as access to medical care declines in the US, thanks to the Repubs.

Highlights:

🔹️"Well over half" of American adults take at least one supplement; folks are "buying and taking record amounts."

1/6

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/w...

A Plea From Doctors: Cool It on the Supplements

www.nytimes.com

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

7/ 5 and up. She added that all MinuteClinics... [vaccinate] children 18 months and older."

But "Only about 10 percent of CVS locations have a MinuteClinic."

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

6/ give Covid shots to children 3 and older, which makes access exceedingly difficult for the high-risk under-2 group if their pediatricians don’t stock the vaccine."

🔹️Pharmacy rules vary, too. For ex., a CVS rep. said "select CVS pharmacies nationwide had Covid vaccines available for children...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

5/ and the A.A.P." When in doubt, they abstain.

🔹️Pharmacies have to deal with state regulations, not just CDC & FDA recs. "[S]ome states have higher minimum ages than others for pharmacists to vaccinate, with variation depending on the vaccine. In New York, for example, pharmacists can currently...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

4/ off-label. (Boy, I called that one.) Even in states that have expanded recs., providers are worried about malpractice resulting from giving the shot to kids for whom the FDA didn't approve it.

🔹️Providers aren't used to "navigat[ing] a disagreement between the recommendations of the C.D.C. ...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

3/ to offer Pfizer & now would need to make new contracts w/ Moderna.

🔹️Some pediatricians are hesitant b/c of the CDC's ambiguous rec. to “discuss the risks and benefits” of vaccines, w/o explaining *how.*

🔹️Some are nervous about the potential liability of vaxxing kids w/o a high-risk condition...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

2/ pharmacies aren’t stocking pediatric doses, due to anticipated low demand,
uncertainty about federal guidelines, &/or new logistical issues, like the FDA req. that kids younger than 5 get Moderna vs Pfizer.

🔹️Some providers didn't place orders b/c of the confusion & gov. delays, or b/c they used

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

Thanks to RFK, parents are encountering all sorts of obstacles when trying to find pediatric covid shots, inc. for infants and toddlers younger than 2, who are at higher risk - we knew this would happen.

Some of the problems:

🔹️Many pediatricians and...

🧵1/7

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/w...

Seeking Covid Shots for Their Children, Some Parents Hit a Wall

www.nytimes.com

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

Uh, did you notice all the MDs prescribing ivermectin for covid? In some states, licensing boards went after them; in others, they didn't, or state legislatures passed laws to protect them. Depends on the politics of the state.

Red =/= blue in many, many ways of which the avg. voter is unaware.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

3/ sanctioning bad therapists, that typically happens for clear violations of professional conduct - like having a sexual or romantic relationship w/ a client or inappropriately divulging confidential client info.

There are all sorts of weird therapies out there. If they're legal, they're allowed.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

2/ accept a limited # of plans - folks on Medicare or who get services through their state have far fewer options.

Re: licensing, a major purpose of licensing orgs. is to make sure therapists are qualified to do the work; that they pass minimum standards to get & keep a license. In terms of...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 11h

Plenty of therapists are very good. Unfortunately, many others aren't - but most of those are more likely to provide ineffective, rather than harmful, care. Unfortunately, there are healthcare disparity issues; in my experience as a conservator, the best therapists tend not to take insurance or to

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 12h

The superintendent of Mercer County, IL schools & 2 technology staffers have been accessing student vaccine records, recording them in a database & sharing it since 2019. We don't know why or with whom student records were shared, but it's illegal & seems...nefarious.

www.wfsb.com/2025/10/07/s...

Superintendent, school employees arrested after allegedly sharing student vaccine records

A school superintendent in Illinois was arrested after he allegedly shared students’ vaccine records.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 12h

7/ Finally, note that Cali Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu pitched a *federal* bill banning conversion therapy in 2023. But people keep voting for Republicans or refusing to vote at all (b/c dem candidates aren't "good enough"), so we didn't get that passed, & now we're getting this SCOTUS ruling instead.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 12h

6/ upcoming SCOTUS ruling, it's CBT that's going to see an influx of conversion therapy snake-oil peddlers, & that's going to tarnish its reputation. I don't think licensing boards or professional organizations are going to be able to do a damn thing. Kids will be hurt; it's just that simple.

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 12h

5/ many, many decades (remember: until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association).

CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is one of the very few forms of therapy with benefits solidly supported by decades of research. But with the...

J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 12h

4/ ideas & then distort them in very weird ways - as if some of Freud's original ideas weren't bad enough - like a friend's parent who was a psychoanalyst & believed all mental illness originated in utero w/ rejecting maternal thoughts.

Bad therapists have been getting away with b.s. like this for