richardcoker.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Astonishingly beautiful. And important.

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

HARVARD PROF David Armitage: “We’re being made an example of by Trump — authoritarians across the world go for the universities first, because they’re set up for freedom of thought and provide critical opposition.”

submitted 16 hours ago • 91 comments

“No children are dying on my watch,” said Rubio. It's blatantly false. Credible estimates count 190K deaths so far. In Kenya, I am seeing devastating impact, incl this child's starvation & many deaths directly caused by Rubio’s actions. More in my @msnbc.com clip. www.instagram.com/atul.gawande...

submitted 21 hours ago • 106 comments

Ah, is that the sweet smell of bear I sense?

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

'Written with care, passion and clarity that fascinates and leaves the reader with life-affirming awe' #NoOrdinaryDeaths by Molly Conisbee gets a wonderful review in Buzz Magazine. Out now, this history of mortality is not to be missed! 💀 www.buzzmag.co.uk/no-ordinary-...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

5 weeks to go before we hit the magic date in Daniel Hannan's fever dream post-Brexit Britain paradise. If you haven't read his article before, you must! In the 9 years since the referendum, it has never been bettered. Wrongness so dense, it's formed a black hole. www.reaction.life/p/britain-lo...

submitted 7 days ago • 50 comments

Government takes a page out of the Luddites’ book and gets in ahead.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Such a thoughtful, nuanced essay.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Straining the bounds of propriety is when I gave a talk at an Ivy League med school wearing jeans and a polo. This is extraordinary corruption.

submitted 12 days ago • 32 comments

Dr Casey Means, Trump’s ‘outstandingly smart academic’ choice for Surgeon General, has authored 6 peer-reviewed publications - and seemingly too few are cited to have an h-index score. Seriously unserious.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Just another story of horrific price gouging by pharma. Expect more as US federal protection institutions collapse www.propublica.org/article/revl...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

The new NIH director said grants “canceled because they’re DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]-based science … [which does] not actually have anything to do with promoting the health of the American people” www.science.org/content/arti... So let’s take a quick look at some of his past papers… 🧵

submitted 19 days ago • 11 comments

‘In this way, “do your own research” becomes a kind of epistemic cosplay—mimicking the gestures of rigorous inquiry without submitting to its demands.’ infinitehearsay.com/how-do-your-...

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

IS THE U.S. BECOMING AN AUTOCRACY? Other countries have watched their democracies slip away gradually, without tanks in the streets. That may be where we’re headed—or where we already are.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

Elon Musk may or may not fulfill his promise to step back from DOGE. But his legacy is already clear: He is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system — the likes of which we have never seen in the United States. My latest for NYT Opinion (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/o...

submitted 25 days ago • 104 comments

I came across this while reading more of Brigit Barlow's memoir last night. God bless Geoffrey Keynes. #HighAchievingFamily

submitted 28 days ago • 2 comments

Quick reminder that when my book Critical came out, which explains how politicians are betraying the NHS, The Guardian chose to hand it to a former Health Secretary to review, and he wrote some sneering paragraphs ending “for those like her who can’t accept the use of the private sector to provide…

submitted 28 days ago • 9 comments

A simple stats mistake leading the head of the NHS to dismiss the importance of her own organisation. Analogy: access to clean drinking water shows no explanatory value for the variation in health outcomes in the UK. We all have it, so it drives no variation. But it’s still critically important!

submitted 29 days ago • 7 comments

College presidents are finally standing up to Trump. A letter signed by more than 400 university heads offers a sharp rebuke to the bully-in-chief.

submitted 29 days ago • 112 comments

Mischlinge, anyone?

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

I remember being asked by Google’s ‘charity’ arm to give them a massive data set of countries’ health system data. Same vibe. podcasts.apple.com/th/podcast/t...

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Tell me you don’t understand that medicine is a meld of science and art, that empathy is core, without spelling it out.

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

I’m reminded of Tony Benn and wonder how each of his questions might be answered in today’s America: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don’t want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. - Bukowski

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

Good ideas often take a while to gain traction.

submitted 35 days ago • 2 comments

Another editorial from this week’s @bmj.com. By Kate Pickett and David Taylor Robinson. A wealth tax in the UK could raise £60bn a year to tackle widening inequalities. Perhaps we can no longer afford NOT to do it? Link here: www.bmj.com/content/389/... #MedSky #Inequalities #SDOH #WealthTax

submitted 35 days ago • 8 comments

The waves crash with timeless rhythm along the rugged coast of Inis Meáin, #Ireland. Part of the Aran #Islands, Inis Meáin is known for its wild Atlantic beauty, traditional stone walls, and deep connection to #Irish heritage. [Damien Marshall]

submitted 39 days ago • 303 comments

Harvard stood up to the bully — and the bully blinked

submitted 36 days ago • 129 comments

@mrjamesob.bsky.social i am so grateful to you and the team at @lbc.co.uk for talking to me yesterday. I'm astounding at the reaction the video has received. It's quite overwhelming. ❤️ youtu.be/thwpvsnzTj8?...

submitted 37 days ago • 43 comments

He wasn’t just censored. They altered his responses to NYT questions on his publication Egregious. www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/h...

submitted 37 days ago • 8 comments

@erictopol.bsky.social Lysenko is reborn and this time in the US

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Quite a level the US has fallen to.

submitted 37 days ago • 2 comments

Every now and then, I come across prose so poignant it causes me to shudder. From The Last American Road Trip by Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social

submitted 38 days ago • 8 comments

It just be heartbreaking for the US AI bosses to see someone’s taken their intellectual property and extracted value from it, without compensating or even asking them if it was okay to do so. What kind of monster would do that?!

submitted 38 days ago • 14 comments

My husband has taught human reproduction and development to the Cambridge medics for over three decades. When people start banging on about "only two biological sexes" he starts with "which sex: genetic, hormonal, or gonadal"? Biological sex is not binary. www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-...

submitted 39 days ago • 240 comments

1/ 🧵 How do health systems shape vaccine uptake and confidence? Our new paper in Vaccine led by @catherinearsenault.bsky.social with @mekruk.bsky.social and colleagues, looks at this in Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

🧵DISMANTLING DEMOCRACY I've been keeping track of Trump actions - now up to 192. Here, I dig into 69 actions specifically targeted at undermining democracy, rule of law & suppressing dissent. It's been 12 weeks of assaults on democracy. based on christinapagel.substack.com/p/a-republic... 1/18

submitted 41 days ago • 80 comments

Could or is crumbling? @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 40 days ago • 14 comments