NEW: A new poll shows who Americans trust over the CDC. Survey reveals substantial gap between the major professional health associations and CDC, FDA and NIH. My story.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
“We have a more complicated mixture of #covid and #flu this year peaking at about the same time. That adds an increased burden on the health care setting.”
WastewaterSCAN co-principal investigator Dr. Marlene Wolfe discusses recent #wastewater trends with @fenitn.bsky.social.
@washingtonpost.com
Public health seems to be operating under the assumption that they're more likely to boost covid vaccine uptake if it's folded with flu/RSV, but not sure the numbers are backing that up!
Flu has overtaken covid in emergency rooms during the past two winters
Hospital numbers don’t capture how most people actually experience these illnesses: minor inconveniences or nasty bugs that leave you feeling lousy and homebound. Wastewater tracking, which measures viral particles in sewers to track viral trends, also shows that flu has surged and covid has seen a small uptick, smaller than the summer wave.
We barely had a winter wave of COVID this year but the flu has been absolutely brutal
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
I've been saying for years that someone needs to find the story behind those insane Top Dog Law radio commercials. Elahe Izadi delivered.
This was my favorite ad where it goes completely off the rails
wapo.st/46y0NjV
Trying my hand at more unhinged science writing. This was labeled internally as "WHALEDADDIES" wapo.st/3OFLiAf
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, now stacked with covid vaccine critics picked by RFK Jr., is scheduled to discuss "covid-19 vaccine injuries" at its March meeting public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-03877.pdf
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that contaminates people when air pollution settles on rivers and streams and gets into the fish we eat. Current Health Secretary RFK jr once had mercury poisoning from eating too much tuna, but has been silent these rollbacks
www.eenews.net/articles/rfk...
From @lenasun.bsky.social article: "Three top voice medical experts and Dysphonia International said there is no scientific basis for the claim that the flu vaccine is behind Kennedy’s condition; there is evidence to suggest a potential association between dystonias and certain drug use."
🚨 Inside RFK Jr.’s long-running crusade against the flu vaccine w/ @lenasun.bsky.social @caitlingilbert.bsky.social
-links vaccine to his voice condition without evidence
-moved to kill a flu vaccine campaign his 2nd day on job
-changed vaccine schedule
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
🚨 WaPo scoop: You've heard of Trump's "board of peace."
Now HHS wants to build its own World Health Organization that will cost exponentially more than the U.S.'s contribution to the WHO.
-- with the incredible @lenasun.bsky.social
The latest big scoop from @lenasun.bsky.social w/ @jacobbogage.bsky.social assisting
After pulling out of the WHO, Trump officials are proposing the U.S. spend about three times as much to duplicate it wapo.st/4tKRwyM
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. inaccurately claimed that patients with schizophrenia were cured through ketogenic diets. Experts say the diet does show promise, but the research is preliminary and RFK. Jr. is overstating nutritional science.
NEW: The AMA and a leading public health research group focused on vaccines are teaming up to create a parallel system to review vaccine safety and effectiveness.
The CDC’s vaccine review process has “effectively collapsed” under RFKJr. My story.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
Paige’s last story for us, now atop the homepage, shows what we lost.
She could have done a quick hit on Oz telling Americans to delay retirement, but instead delivered a comprehensive piece rich in policy analysis, data, voices of real people and a rare non-TV interview with Oz wapo.st/4rHUCC6
Reader data offers a roadmap for success. And we’ve gone down a path of gutting coverage areas they value.
“Katie Mettler, a former chair of the Washington Post guild, said: “I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired. I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.”” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/t...
No one writes more incisively, accessibly and credibly than Geoffrey about the ways tech companies are serving — or, far more often these days, disserving — everyday consumers than Geoffrey. He’s worth following wherever he goes.
A yacht will never turn a profit, and it would be confusing to expect it to. But you know that your net worth is such that if the yacht never supports itself, you will still be proud to call yourself the yacht’s owner and will not suddenly say, “Well, perhaps if we just pivoted part of the yacht sharply to the right and knocked dozens of people off, the yacht would suddenly become self-sustaining.”
@petridishes.bsky.social is a national treasure, exhibit #394729374 www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
Still working to hold power to account here
@washingtonpost.com on the health team amid our crushing losses yesterday.
Email/signal/DM with tips as the work continues.
Thankfully our lead CDC reporter Lena Sun is still with us, but we are a very colloborative team and reporters who worked closely with her are not bsky.app/profile/lena...
We had devastating cuts to @washingtonpost. Our health team of 14 lost 9 reporters yesterday despite it being listed as part of the Post’s new focus.
But I still have my job. Along w/a core team, we are still dedicated to covering public health, holding the powerful to account.
And the indignant reply-alls to the all-staff email with a subject line about Marty that was announcing his 50-year anniversary, not his departure as many feared!
Nothing was more Washington Post than Marty Weil starting his night shift by walking around the newsroom saying hello to every single person at their desks
Correction: Left off a reporter on parental leave (!) while I was doing the mental health. So that's 9 out of 14 gone
I had the privilege of editing one of the sharpest health policy reporters anywhere.
Paige owned coverage of Medicaid cuts and the expiration of enhanced ACA subsidies and brought precision and nuance often missing in coverage. She's relentless about fairness.
Hire her!
At least the five that remain were at the forefront of that work
None of us still here will go along with anything like that
He deserves a new platform! markjohnson6926@gmail.com
Our second most read story right now comes from @markjohnpost.bsky.social, a Pulitzer-winning science reporter on our team, who announced he was laid off.
Just the latest example of how he found the most fascinating areas of science to unpack beautifully www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
