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m-coates.bsky.social
Matt Coates
@m-coates.bsky.social
27 followers 93 following 3 posts
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Reposted by Matt Coates
jamellebouie.net
it is the policy of this government to treat democratic-led states as conquered territories and the people therein as something like hostiles or even enemy combatants
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d
Dr Oz threatens to pull Medicaid support for Minnesota: "Sticking to the narrative that's cold in Minnesota -- this is the tip of the iceberg"
January 7, 2026 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
davidho.bsky.social
Just like climate change , there are two sides to this but one side is lying and we can just report the truth.
donmoyn.bsky.social Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d
If the headline is "disputed shooting" rather than straightforwardly telling the public what happened this rewards the DHS for lying about these events
NY Times headline Live Updates: Minneapolis Mayor Disputes Federal Account of Fatal ICE Shooting
January 8, 2026 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
ketanjoshi.co
This is a thread of major media outlets falsely anthropomorphising the "Grok" chatbot program and in doing so, actively and directly removing responsibility and accountability from individual people working at X who created a child pornography generator (Elon Musk, Nikita Bier etc)

#1: Reuters
Grok says safeguard lapses led to images of 'minors in minimal clothing' on X By Reuters January 2, 20267:40 PM GMT+1Updated 1 hour ago Illustration shows xAI and Grok logos xAI and Grok logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Jan 2 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's xAI artificial intelligence chatbot Grok said on Friday lapses in safeguards had resulted in "images depicting minors in minimal clothing" on social media platform X and that improvements were being made to prevent this. Screenshots shared by users on X showed Grok's public media tab filled with images that users said had been altered when they uploaded photos and prompted the bot to alter them. "There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing," Grok said in a post on X. "xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely." "As noted, we've identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them — CSAM is illegal and prohibited," Grok said, referring to Child Sexual Abuse Material. Grok gave no further details. When contacted by Reuters for comment by email, xAI replied with the message "Legacy Media Lies". In a separate reply to a user on X on Thursday, Grok said most cases could be prevented through advanced filters and monitoring although it said "no system is 100% foolproof," adding that xAI was prioritising improvements and reviewing details shared by users.
January 2, 2026 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
sejordt.bsky.social
#PedSky #MedSky #EpiSky #addictionsci #policysky #polisky 🛟🫁💊
Today, California starts selling insulin at $11 per injection pen, the second drug sold under the CalRX label after naloxone. Albuterol inhalers and vaccines are next.
California Will Offer Deeply Discounted Insulin in January | KQED
Californians will be able to purchase an insulin pen for $11 under the state-run drug label, CalRx, bypassing pharmaceutical companies that sell it for far more.
www.kqed.org
January 2, 2026 at 4:05 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
mcbridetd.bsky.social
American food safety could be headed for a breakdown www.statnews.com/2025/12/22/a...
American food safety could be headed for a breakdown
More Americans will be exposed to foodborne illness as a result of this year's funding cuts, food safety experts predict
www.statnews.com
December 22, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
oacarah.bsky.social
Re. Prediagnostic Exposures and Cancer Survival: Can a Meaningful Causal Estimand be Specified?

…research questions and estimands should concur on and be explicit about the target population(s)

#Causalinference #CausalSky #CausalEstimands #TargetPopulation #EpiSky

journals.lww.com/epidem/fullt...
journals.lww.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
weatherwest.bsky.social
Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.
usatoday.com USA TODAY @usatoday.com · 23d
Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
bit.ly
December 17, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
sabrinanorwood.bsky.social
Did you know that from tomorrow, Qualtrics is offering synthetic panels (AI-generated participants)?

Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"
Text reads: About synthetic panels Recruiting the right participants for a study can be difficult. You may not get the exact demographics you need, and the shorter the deadline, the less sure you can be that everyone will answer on time. One possible solution can be to use synthetic panels. Synthetic panels are powered by a first party proprietary AI model developed here at Qualtrics. Our synthetic panel is trained on thousands of responses from a variety of demographic backgrounds in order to more accurately predict how certain populations would respond to a survey. Our synthetic panel is based on the United States General Population, and is only available in English. This panel comes with ready-made quotas and target breakouts in order to represent your chosen population and make it easy to launch your survey right away. Text reads: Question-writing best practices To get the most reliable and actionable results from synthetic audiences, consider these question-writing best practices: Ask forward-looking and attitudinal questions. Synthetic panels perform best with perceptions, preferences, and intent-based questions. For example, “How likely are you to try…?” Synthetic panels are less applicable for studies on past behaviors, detailed recall, brand recall, or awareness questions. For example, “When did you last visit…?” Text reads: Discussion The current study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis of the TPB when applied to health behaviours which addressed the limitations of previous reviews by including only prospective tests of behaviour, applying RE meta-analytic procedures, correcting correlations for sampling and measurement error, and hierarchically analysing the effect of behaviour type and sample and methodological moderators. Some 237 tests were identified which examined relations amongst model components. Overall the analysis indicated that the TPB could explain 19.3% of the variance in behaviour and 44.3% of the variance in intention across studies. This level of prediction of behaviour is slightly lower than that of previous meta-analytic reviews which have found between 27% (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Hagger et al., 2002) and 36% (Trafimow et al., 2002) of the variance in behaviour to be explained by intention and PBC.
December 16, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
bencollins.bsky.social
This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites.

The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.
A wrong Grok post making up a white guy who stopped the Australian mass shooting. BBC 'Hero' who wrestled gun from Bondi shooter named as Ahmed al Ahmed Emily Atkinson Sun, December 14, 2025 at 1:06 p.m. CST 2 min read A "hero" bystander who was filmed wrestling a gun from one of the Bondi Beach attackers has been named as 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed. Video verified by the BBC showed Mr Ahmed run at the gunman and seize his weapon, before turning the gun round on him, forcing his retreat. Mr Ahmed, a fruit shop owner and father of two, remains in hospital, where he has undergone surgery for bullet wounds to his arm and hand, his family told 7News Australia.
December 14, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
andrew.heiss.phd
Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things
December 15, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
robinince.bsky.social
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
This is the saddest day of my professional life. Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage. I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys. I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show, A show that I named and helped develop over all those years. Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry. These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices. Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'. • I chose the latter. It broke my heart. I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make. I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer. I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career. I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more. I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost". James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice. Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences. I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness. Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire. I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal. I am so sorry to let you down. I hope that you can understand my reasoning. I have to accept that I am not what the current BBC expects of their freelance presenters. Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not "just a job" I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world. From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too. The strawberry is dead. Long live the strawberry. B
December 13, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
oacarah.bsky.social
New paper for #causalinference folks in all fields

#DAGs

#CausalDiagrams

#CausalSky #StatsSky #EpiSky

academic.oup.com/ije/article/...
Making DAGs even more useful: using augmented causal diagrams to depict counterfactual, study design, measurement, analytical, and interventional features
Since their mainstream introduction in the 1990s, causal diagrams, including directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), have been increasingly used to depict our caus
academic.oup.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
statsepi.bsky.social
In Ireland we probably averted about 500 newborn RSV hospitalizations once nirsevimab was introduced last year (~75% risk reduction). Uptake was > 80%, and that's what's threatened by these cynical safety concerns from the antivaxxers in the US government.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
December 10, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
themckenziest.gay
They’re hiding cameras in traffic barrels to track and monitor us
Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with 'suspicious' travel patterns
The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.
apnews.com
November 22, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
clarajeffery.bsky.social
MAHA

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
EPA just approved new ‘forever chemical’ pesticides for use on food
Critics warn the EPA’s approvals of new PFAS pesticides could expose more Americans to “forever chemicals” through their food.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
ddiamond.bsky.social
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
Autism and Vaccines QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS PAGE 2 OF 9 | ALL PAGES J For Everyone NOV. 19, 2025 KEY POINTS • The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities. HHS Research on Plausible Biologic Mechanisms between Vaccines and Autism HHS will evaluate plausible biologic mechanisms between early childhood vaccinations and autism. Mechanisms for further investigation include the impacts of aluminum adjuvants, risks for certain children with mitochondrial disorders, harms of neuroinflammation, and more. * The header "Vaccines do not cause autism" has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.
November 20, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
gavinyamey.bsky.social
Bhattacharya's NIH made cuts to grants that disrupted trials, disproportionately impacting infectious disease trials & trials affecting minorities (e.g. trials on mitigating kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease, & cervical cancer in minority populations).

These cuts were litigated in court.

1/x
washingtonpost.com The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · Nov 17
A new study found the Trump administration’s cuts to NIH grants disrupted more than 380 clinical trials, affecting over 74,000 participants.

The cuts disproportionately impacted trials on infectious diseases and minority communities.
Federal cuts upended clinical trials. A new study reveals the toll.
Grants for 383 clinical trials were terminated and the funding disruptions affected more than 74,000 trial participants, according to new research.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
ryanmarino.bsky.social
In a lot of cases, clinical trials might be the only way for a child to survive a fatal childhood disease, or keep someone from dying from a form of cancer that doesn’t have any other options, etc. We tend to think of “trials” as novel experiments, but they’re often much more than that.
November 17, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
nslayton.bsky.social
We're seeing a massive institutional deportation and state violence apparatus being built and it honestly feels like people dont grasp the sheer scale of it and what already is in place. For every horrific video of masked feds kidnapping people there are so many people pushing paper to help.
dell.bsky.social dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · Oct 30
NEW: ICE is planning to build a shadow deportation network in Texas. A proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine.

My latest @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/ice-is...
Early planning documents reviewed by WIRED describe a statewide transport grid designed for steady detainee transfers across Texas, with ICE estimating each trip to average 100 miles. Every county would have its own small, around-the-clock team of contractors collecting immigrants from local authorities deputized by ICE. It is a subtle transfer of the physical custody process into the hands of a private security firm—authorized to carry firearms and perform transport duties “in any and all local, county, state, and ICE locations.”
October 30, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
johnholbein1.bsky.social
In response to anti-DEI legislation in the states, universities have started to hire more white male faculty.

This increase starts before bills are signed into law.

Universities appear to be anticipating anti-DEI legislation and preemptively hiring more white men.
October 22, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
purplechrain.bsky.social
The subtext of this comment is that the Mayor of Boston is Asian-American, whereas the Mayor of Chicago (like almost everyone else that Trump refers to as “a low IQ person”) is Black.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Oct 15
Trump: "Boston had a bad mayor who at least is a reasonable IQ person. Most of them are low IQ. I mean, what's going on in Chicago ... "
October 15, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
statnews.com
Protecting the nation’s public health demands data, whether it be new measles cases, a surge in ER visits, or shifting patterns in obesity. The most recent job cuts at the CDC threaten the mostly unseen foundation of that research enterprise.
www.statnews.com/2025/10/14/c...
CDC team running top survey on health and nutrition is laid off
NHANES has collected data on eating patterns, diabetes and other common diseases for decades. The CDC team that runs it has been fired.
www.statnews.com
October 14, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Matt Coates
madhupai.bsky.social
New study in @thelancet.com

“After nearly 2 years of war and severe restrictions in humanitarian aid, tens of thousands of preschool-aged children in the Gaza Strip are suffering from preventable acute malnutrition and facing an increased risk of mortality”

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Assessment of malnutrition in preschool-aged children by mid-upper arm circumference in the Gaza Strip (January, 2024–August, 2025): a longitudinal, cross-sectional, surveillance study
After nearly 2 years of war and severe restrictions in humanitarian aid, tens of thousands of preschool-aged children in the Gaza Strip are suffering from preventable acute malnutrition and facing an ...
www.thelancet.com
October 9, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Matt Coates
gavinyamey.bsky.social
Holy shit. As someone who teaches global public health & policy, I find this absolutely chilling. It’s *impossible* to teach this topic without discussing politics, conflicts, social determinants of health, power, equity, disparities, colonialism & neocolonialism….
atherton.bsky.social Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · Oct 6
"Along with the termination, Tulane altered the course’s syllabus, removing the article, a Harvard School of Public Health discussion about the resurgence of polio in Gaza."

My alma mater continues to embarrass. Public Health students learning public health?
oh no
lailluminator.com/2025/10/06/t...
Tulane changes syllabus, fires academic manager over Gaza article • Louisiana Illuminator
Some say that the incident is yet another glimpse of the tense climate experienced on local and national campuses by people who support Palestine.
lailluminator.com
October 6, 2025 at 10:32 PM