Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Susan Butler-Wu @sbtothedub.bsky.social · May 7

Add this awesome T-shirt to the huge multitude of reasons that I love the @pascv.bsky.social meeting!! Excited to be kicking off our Clinical Microbiology Boards review - let’s go!! 🦠 🧫 🍄 🪱 🧬 🔬

4

Susan Butler-Wu @sbtothedub.bsky.social · Apr 7

Are you taking a clinical microbiology boards exam soon? Or did before and just fancy a refresher on clinical micro? If so, there’s still time to register for our review course at @pascv.bsky.social - come for the course, and stay for the meeting! #beachn’bugs 🏝️ 🧫 🦠 🪱 🍄

Molecular Virology Workshop - Pan American Society for Clinical Virology

search.app

2 1 3

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · Mar 11

I know this is going to sound naive or earnest, but I genuinely find myself shocked by how little people seem to be upset by the levels of corruption we're seeing. Is that the median voter assumes everyone is corrupt already? Or isn't actually getting stories about the corruption?

7.6K 6.3K 42K

Susan Butler-Wu @sbtothedub.bsky.social · Mar 10

a man in a suit and tie is holding a banana and smiling .

ALT: a man in a suit and tie is holding a banana and smiling .

media.tenor.com

1

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Katherine J. Wu @katherinejwu.com · Mar 7

if you've had an NIH grant terminated, I want to hear about it. Signal: katherinejwu.12

3 390 500

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Ilan Schwartz @germhuntermd.bsky.social · Mar 5

Our call to to resistance, led by @angelahuttner.bsky.social and first published in @cmicomms.bsky.social, now published in @cmijournal.bsky.social too

www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S119...

From medical editors: a call to the global infectious diseases and clinical microbiology community

The views expressed by the authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) or Elsevier.

www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com

3 38 110

Susan Butler-Wu @sbtothedub.bsky.social · Mar 5

He for sure thinks transgenic = transgender 🤯

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · Mar 4

I don't think there's precedent for this level of open corruption at the federal level, certainly not in the last 100+ years.

WIRED @wired.com · Mar 4

SCOOP: Business leaders are paying as much as $5,000,000 to meet one-on-one with President Donald Trump at his Florida compound, sources tell WIRED, while others are paying $1,000,000 apiece to dine with him in a group setting.

People Are Paying Millions to Dine With Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Business leaders are paying as much as $5,000,000 to meet one-on-one with the president at his Florida compound, sources tell WIRED, while others are paying $1,000,000 apiece to dine with him in a…

buff.ly

170 1.6K 4.8K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation @egpaf.bsky.social · Feb 28

What happens when HIV services are terminated?

When mothers have access to treatment, their risk of transmitting HIV to their babies is less than 1%. Global health cannot wait!

6 2

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · Feb 28

Per Dr Atul Gawande, ex USAID: “All malaria supplies protecting 53 million people, mostly children, including bed nets, diagnostics, preventive drugs, and treatments – terminated.”

There are no words that sufficiently describe this level of cruelty and sadism.

1.1K 14K 38K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD @arghavansallesmd.medsky.social · Feb 28

Of the 4000 researchers at NIH, only 20% are tenured. They’re going to fire all the rest as their contracts come up for renewal, absolutely decimating research at the NIH. This is catastrophic, not just for Americans, but for the whole world.

www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research

Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs

www.science.org

240 2.7K 7.3K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · Feb 27

Update: Hours after Musk asserted that USAID had "restored" Ebola prevention, the agency informed several organizations working with USAID on Ebola prevention that their contracts were being cancelled, two people tell me + @johnphudson.bsky.social.

One of those organizations was UNICEF.

21 360 870

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Infectious Diseases @infectiousdz.bsky.social · Feb 26

Ebola prevention doesn't mean that you go and buy an Ebola prevention kit.
Ebola doesn't arrive shouting it's name and saying it's me, it's Ebola.
What you support are healthcare systems with infection prevention and control that are open day in and day out, triaging and caring for patients.

8 27

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Craig Spencer MD MPH @craigspencer.bsky.social · Feb 26

Make a huge mistake. Then make a false claim about how you fixed it.

They did it for PEPFAR.

Now Ebola.

I follow this particular topic VERY closely, so here's what really happened and why this isn't true AT ALL...🧵

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Feb 26

Elon Musk: "We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect ... so for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was ebola prevention."

200 2K 4.3K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Sarah Karlin-Smith @sarahkarlin-smith.bsky.social · Feb 26

Breaking: FDA's March meeting to select flu shot strains for 2025-2026 season has been canceled per email sent to committee members, a VRBPAC member told me. drug companies need about 6 months leeway to make shots in time for fall vax campaigns. #healthpolicy

420 3.5K 6.8K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Tara C. Smith @aetiology.bsky.social · Feb 26

Updated: It is in a child.

"The Texas Department of State Health Services is reporting the first death from measles in the ongoing outbreak in the South Plains and Panhandle regions. The school-aged child who was not vaccinated was hospitalized in Lubbock last week and tested positive for measles."

Tara C. Smith @aetiology.bsky.social · Feb 26

First #measles death in the US in a decade, due to the ongoing outbreak in Texas. No details yet on the patient. Predictably, our head of HHS is silent.

First measles death is reported in the West Texas outbreak that's infected more than 120 people

A person who was hospitalized has died from measles in West Texas. It's the first since the outbreak began late last month.

apnews.com

12 130 250

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Duncan MacCannell @drm.bsky.social · Feb 19

As you drive up Clifton Road towards CDC’s Roybal campus, there are often signs by the side of the road.

This past month, they have been focused on the importance of public health and the commitment of its staff.

I thought I would share a few of them here. #publichealth

Sign by the side of the road, with CDC in the background.

4 18 76

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

D’Epitomee of 92% @epitomee.bsky.social · Feb 15

cc: @Gavin Newsome It’s time to build a CDC & NIH in California with the folks who were fired from the feds. In fact, I think each blue state governor needs to scoop up these scientists, healthcare workers and laboratory workers asap. @gavinnewsom.bsky.social

660 3.4K 16K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Eli Perencevich @eliowa.bsky.social · Feb 13

Who tracks surgical infections and sets guidelines for how to prevent your shiny new hip replacement from getting infected?

Who funds studies to determine the most cost-effective way to prevent your hip replacement from getting infected?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“The CDC”

35 73

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

pascv.bsky.social @pascv.bsky.social · Feb 12

In light of recent events, PASCV would like to reaffirm that we remain dedicated to maintaining a professional society that is open and inclusive, transparent in our decision-making, and resolute in the support of our members.

2 2

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Ilan Schwartz @germhuntermd.bsky.social · Feb 8

"The professors are the enemy"

- Chairman Mao Zedong

<Checks notes>

Ooops, scratch that,

it was JD Vance

2 15 49

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

WIRED @wired.com · Feb 7

SCOOP: A US Treasury threat intelligence analysis has designated DOGE staff an ‘insider threat'. An internal email reviewed by WIRED calls DOGE staff's access to federal payments systems “the single biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

A US Treasury Threat Intelligence Analysis Designates DOGE Staff as ‘Insider Threat’

An internal email reviewed by WIRED calls DOGE staff's access to federal payments systems “the single biggest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

wrd.cm

710 12K 27K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

WIRED @wired.com · Feb 7

It feels like no one should have to say this, and yet we are in a situation where it needs to be said, very loudly and clearly, before it’s too late to do anything about it: The United States is not a startup. If you run it like one, it will break.

🔗 www.wired.com/story/the-us...

160 1.9K 6.3K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · Feb 7

From USAID colleague, with permission to share. It's not just chaos it is devastation and tearing apart of families and communities. Not to talk of systems that kept us safe. This is just one story, multiple this by 10,000.
Is this really making America great?

Letter from colleague fired from USAID, sharing devastating impact and chaos that this has wrought on her life and family.

41 580 1.2K

Reposted by Susan Butler-Wu

Ilan Schwartz @germhuntermd.bsky.social · Feb 7

They are scrubbing critical information about zoonotic transmission of a potentially deadly virus with pandemic potential. Cool, cool.

(If only there was a US-based professional society representing >13k infectious diseases experts brave enough to speak out about this)

Apoorva Mandavilli @apoorvanyt.bsky.social · Feb 6

SCOOP: Cats that became infected with bird flu might have spread the virus to humans in the same household and vice versa, according to data that briefly appeared online in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but then abruptly vanished.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...

CDC Posts, Then Deletes, Data on Bird Flu Transmission Between Cats and People (Gift Article)

The data, which appeared fleetingly online on Wednesday, confirmed transmission in two households. Scientists called on the agency to release the full report.

www.nytimes.com

3 21 73