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

1/ Being an infectious disease expert in the U.S. today feels like standing in the eye of a storm. Science should be our shield, but instead, we’re under attack, our expertise disregarded, our funding slashed, and public health increasingly politicized. 🧵

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/h...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Not sure this really merits an NYT article, even if the data is from Akiko Iwasaki. It’s an unpublished study of 64 people about a condition with no definition and endpoints of unclear clinical significance. Important area of research, but the findings are very hard to interpret, even for scientists

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

“At a minimum, 300 babies that wouldn’t have had HIV, now do,” one current USAID worker estimates. The impact on PEPFAR HIV programs is likely even more severe. The number is likely much higher. 🧵 www.wired.com/story/usaid-...

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

We at AVAC are so grateful to our lawyers at @publiccitizen.bsky.social and our partners at @globalhealthorg.bsky.social in a parallel suit in forcing the administration to get back to work and support foreign assistance to ensure we are all safer, stronger and more prosperous.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

I’m so sad about the destruction of USAID, because of the impact on millions, and I’m so sad about the termination of a small group of EIS trainees, because of their youth and conviction, and my emotions are just stretched from end to end.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Doing the unthinkable: The deep cuts to the #CDC's workforce today are expected to decimate the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a program that has trained public health rapid responders for decades. Envy of the world. Poof! www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/t...

submitted 8 days ago • 547 comments

You know in movies when there is a mystery outbreak, they show this crack team of scientists arrive and they’re wearing special suits and have notebooks and eventually solve the mystery?That’s the Epidemic Intelligence Service. #IDSky

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

"the extremely strong desire is to just punish universities [..] It’s not based on any kind of coherent policy agenda. It’s just a desire to inflict pain." This, is critical to understand. Pointing out "it's hurting us" won't do, since it's the whole point. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...

submitted 9 days ago • 6 comments

A study of vaccine safety. We have many of these.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

#USA: We are calling on the US government to immediately resume funding for the full range of PEPFAR operations as well as other critical health and humanitarian aid. Uncertainty around PEPFAR program puts millions of people at risk www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/uncer...

submitted 10 days ago • 10 comments

RFK Jr. is disqualified, dangerous, and cannot be given the power to make critical health care decisions for millions of Americans. I'm headed to the floor to put up a fight against his nomination.

submitted 10 days ago • 727 comments

6.3 million AIDS deaths are predicted in four years if PEPFAR is paused. Plus, most of the program’s support for HIV prevention PrEP remains banned. www.poz.com/article/deat...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Just looking at my bottle of Tagrisso, a cancer drug that literally reduced death by half in people like me. The product of intense clinical trials and meticulous science. The trials were supported by the National Cancer Institute, a part of NIH.

submitted 11 days ago • 75 comments

🧵 Trump’s USAID funding freeze abruptly halted critical global health research, abandoning participants mid-trial. A gross ethical violation. @bachynski.bsky.social & I explain what happened and why it matters @bmj.com . ⬇️ www.bmj.com/content/388/...

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

"Abrupt PEPFAR cutbacks would have immediate and long-term detrimental effects on epidemiologic and clinical HIV outcomes in South Africa" New modeling study in @annalsofim.bsky.social www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Govt closes all HIV clinics in Uganda thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump interfering with USAID. Regardless of your thoughts on countries relying on international aid, this is NOT how you treat poor people. Shameful.

submitted 12 days ago • 10 comments

1. This time last year, the US had only ever recorded 1 human infection with #H5N1 #birdflu, in 2022. With the confirmation of an infection in a Nevada dairyworker, there've now been 69 confirmed cases in 11 states.

submitted 12 days ago • 8 comments

"The health ministry in Uganda has announced its intention to shut all dedicated HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) clinics in the country. Stand-alone pharmacies supplying antiretroviral drugs will also be closed." news.sky.com/story/people...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Looking out my window at floors and floors of labs. What will they do when there’s no money to pay the rent?

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Free flu and COVID-19 vaccination clinics in Hyde Park, Dorchester, and Brighton this week. No appointment needed. Please bring your insurance card with you. If you are not insured, you will still receive free flu and COVID-19 vaccines. Learn more at boston.gov/respiratory-protection.

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

From independent @USAID sources, >800 contracts and awards are being terminated en masse – with the procurement team subject to hourly checks on speed of executing terminations. The pace has exceeded the ability to confirm whether lifesaving assistance or any Congressional mandate is affected.

submitted 13 days ago • 33 comments

IAVI is funded by USAID. Or it used to be …

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%. I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 15 days ago • 271 comments

NIH cuts indirect rates on grants to 15%. This will be the end of American excellence in science. Universities will struggle and many (likely most) will terminate their research programs. Independent research institutions will not be able to survive this. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 15 days ago • 20 comments

I am deeply disappointed by the subdued response of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (@idsainfo.bsky.social) to the dismantling of public health structures, both in the US & globally Here's what I wrote in the closed listserv (response: 🦗) in hopes of stimulating discussion here #IDSky

submitted 15 days ago • 14 comments

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

HAPPENING NOW: AIDS ADVOCATES ARE OUTSIDE THE US STATE DEPARTMENT TO PROTEST TRUMP AND RUBIOS FREEZE ON AID AND ATTACKS ON PEPFAR IMPACTING 20 MILLION PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV WORLDWIDE.

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

You cannot abandon participants that have received experimental drugs or devices. It is a violation of the Declaration of Helsinki and a dereliction of medical responsibility. Other agencies or local govt’s have got to step in to support these medical teams. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Proud to be your classmate @danielbolnick.bsky.social - wish my professional society IDSA @idsainfo.bsky.social would be this emphatic. @germhuntermd.bsky.social @drjrmarcelin.bsky.social

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

www.bmj.com/content/388/... “If anything is forbidden now, it is that medical and science journals, whose duty is to stand for integrity and equity, should bow to political or ideological censorship.”

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

The #PEPFAR tracker is following the real time impact of each passing day of the funding suspensions spurred by the USAID funding freeze. Although there is a waiver to allow dispersion of ART, this is not happening because clinic workers have been laid off. People are dying. pepfarimpact.vercel.app

submitted 17 days ago • 21 comments

#Ebola in Uganda: Confirmed cases up to 7, all contacts of the first confirmed case, the male nurse who died on 1/29. That is the only death so far. Other cases are family members or health workers who treated the nurse. Nearly 300 contacts have been identified & are being monitored. (source: #WHO)

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Including a phase 1 HIV vaccine trial (BG505 + 426c.Mod) led by Glenda Gray, not to mention IAVI and fhi360, but then again, none of that matters anyway if PEPFAR won’t restart

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

This paragraph works just as well when you substitute IDSA for AMA #IDSky

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

Two weeks into President Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid, HIV groups abroad have not received any funding, jeopardizing the health of more than 20 million people, including 500,000 children.

submitted 17 days ago • 93 comments

I’ve been reflecting on one word that speaks to me each day. Today, my word of the day is COMMUNITY. Community may be different for every person. Is it your work? Home? Church? Regardless of who or where they are, community is peace. Community is hope. Community is strength. Find your community. 👊🏽

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments