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mazer.us
Pathologist and writer. http://www.mazer.us https://www.theatlantic.com/author/benjamin-mazer/
301 posts 1,963 followers 3,606 following
Prolific Poster

“Kennedy didn’t mention the health impacts of smoking once in last month’s Make America Healthy Again reportassessing the biggest threats to Americans’ health.” www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

In the current health administration, we're witnessing the birth of a new medical philosophy: EBMOFCV Evidence-Based Medicine only for Covid Vaccines

This is a remarkable reversal on observational studies for the great Vinay Prasad!

Harsh words from @pauloffit.bsky.social : "Now, with RFK Jr. as head of HHS—and two sycophants from the FDA at his side—the anti-vaccine movement is influencing policy. It’s a dangerous time to be a child in America." pauloffit.substack.com/p/dont-trust...

Classic RFK Jr!

Prediction: Jay claims that this letter is silencing him.

In test of NIH director’s support of dissent, NIH staff sign Bethesda Declaration urging reversal of grant cuts and freezes www.science.org/content/arti...

Narrative intrusion alert: A group of economists suggest that "removal of mask mandates contributed to 21,800 COVID deaths through the rest of 2022, 9% of the U.S. total that year." s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

🤔

LDTs haven’t used up all nine of their lives yet.

Kennedy has said that his department will strive for “informed choice” and “radical transparency.” Public health by fiat, or by tweet, achieves neither. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Must be all those vaccines 44-year-olds are getting.

"A fellowship program will send Hopkins professors to do stints at AEI, and vice versa. The university is trying to normalize conservative perspectives on campus and in the university’s research and public-facing statements." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Nothing is more important than free speech. www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

I participated in a call-in public radio show about Biden's cancer diagnosis and prostate cancer in general. www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2025-05-27/bidens-aggressive-prostate-cancer-diagnosis-testing-treatment

“I’ve studied McCarthyism’s impact on higher education for fifty years,” she said. “What’s happening now is worse.” This is in part because universities today are far more beholden to the federal government. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I agree with Dr. Sax here. We need at least 1 RCT of COVID boosters in the immunity era. Notably, we have them for influenza vaccination across multiple seasons. Not too much to ask. blogs.jwatch.org/hiv-id-obser...

It is difficult to overstate, in fact, how much this Administration has done in just a few months to set back advanced cancer research in the U.S., including research into particularly deadly forms—like pancreatic cancer www.newyorker.com/books/second...

"The question of whether most Americans should be getting COVID shots regularly is fundamentally different from the question of whether healthy kids should be able to get a primary series of shots early in life." www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Stanford economist Jay Bhattacharya is just following orders from Bigballz. Y'all have to cut him some slack!

"Sworn testimonies from top NIH officials reveal that a DOGE representative directed them to terminate hundreds of specific projects." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

My latest story

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

It took just a few hours for MAHA devotees to question Joe Biden’s prostate-cancer diagnosis, Benjamin Mazer writes. "Their weird discomfort with disease—and their outré views on cancer in particular—is being refracted through a sea of false, indecent speculations."

On COVID origins, we're now living in the mirror-image world of 2020: Now the lab-leak theory is assumed to be the truth. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

MAHA leaders seem intrigued by using blood sugar tracking to improve metabolic health--none more so than Surgeon General nominee Casey Means, who cofounded a co pushing CGMs. And yet...there's little evidence it offers lasting health benefits. My latest @opinion.bloomberg.com (🎁 link):

In MAHA land, cancer is not just a misfortune, but a cover-up. How will this wellness-paranoia complex respond to Biden's recent diagnosis? www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

"Now [RFK and MAHA's] weird discomfort with disease—and their outré views on cancer in particular—is being refracted through a sea of false, indecent speculations." @mazer.us

This summarizes the administration's bizarre assault on universities nicely. Add the current congressional proposal to limit student loans (not a bad idea), and it's clear the goal is not to shift funding but destroy higher education - a key competitive advantage of the US.

One questions the wisdom of spending $2,500, the typical charge for whole-body screening, to receive generic wellness advice that can be dispensed at no charge by an elementary Google search using key words “healthy living.” www.jacr.org/article/S154...

MAHA is just a bunch of wealthy powerful people lecturing me about how I'm a sell out for becoming a doctor.

We live in amazing times. After more than a century of wellness gurus telling us the one food or supplement that will fix all of our health problems, the latest guru finally got it right.

In the current administration, “gold standard science” means raking in as much gold as possible by selling bullshit supplements.

Let’s clear something up: You should do your own research. But if you’re a journalist and not a Hopkins doctor you don’t know anything.

A kooky doctor who sells mitochondria-boosting gummies among other nonsense was just nominated for Surgeon General.

In 2021, I interviewed Vinay Prasad for an article on the FDA. Now he will have a chance to stop the "melting iceberg" of decreasing evidence for expensive new drugs. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Vinay finally has his opportunity to sit down with RFK Jr and calmly explain where he is right and wrong about vaccines. www.statnews.com/2025/05/06/v...

oh boy www.science.org/content/arti...

Apropos of nothing, the Justice Department is currently sending threatening letters to medical journals.

I enjoyed this balanced reflection on COVID school closures. I'm still laughing at the idea that kids didn't spread COVID though. It's EBM taken to an absurd conclusion. Kids have lungs and mouths. They spread the virus like everyone else. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

Former FDA vaccine official Krause, whose resignation over Covid boosters many skeptics have brought out as an example of public health failure, is now criticizing political interference at the agency. www.biocentury.com/article/6557...

Regarding the Novavax drama, we do actually need new RCTs for the Covid vaccines in the immunity era. I wrote about this way back in 2022. The problem now is you have anti-vaxxers running the healthcare system. Hard to trust them. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...