Rachel Fairbank reposted
Rachel Fairbank
Rachel Fairbank
@sweetsciencewriter.bsky.social
Science journalist, with bylines in Nature, National Geographic, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Houston Chronicle. I cover a mixture of health topics, with a focus on conditions such as autism, ADHD, ME/CFS, POTS and Long COVID.
1K followers279 following820 posts
Rachel Fairbank reposted
In MAGA, parental estrangement is a big issue — and parents are held out as blameless victims. I suspect that's one reason why Vivek Ramaswamy ran an ad celebrating Amy Acton's vile mother. And why MAGA — including Vance and Trump — are backing him. www.salon.com/2026/10/23/r...
In the past decade, we’ve seen cystic fibrosis go from being a devastating condition, with an average life expectancy of 35, to being a manageable chronic condition, where people can expect to live a full, long life.
Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?
People with cystic fibrosis have gone from expecting they will die young, to figuring out what they are going to do with the long life they never dreamed was possible. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster.
“My life was so amazing leading up to this and was so incredible, and I was so grateful for everything that had been going on. And then just boom, like, everything got taken away." Many of us had full, rich lives before getting sick. Our losses are immeasurable.
In a survey of 435 biological, non-offending mothers of children who were sexually abused, 41.8 percent of mothers responded by believing and protecting their children.
Mothers were more likely to believe and protect their children if they waited until adulthood to have children; if they were not in a current relationship with the abuser; if they did not have current prior knowledge of the abuse; and if the victimized child did not exhibit sexualized behaviors.
“The solution is clear here: take the money and vaccinate as many kids as you can,” said Paul Offit, a vaccines expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who sharply criticized the proposed study as unethical. I’m glad some measure of humanity is being restored here.
Imagine you’re a mother. You want to do the best for your child,” said Henrik Støvring, a Danish researcher who has co-published research raising questions about previous research from the Bandim project.
“If they decide to participate in the trial, they have a 50% chance of getting the vaccine for their children. But if they stay out, they have a 0% chance of getting the vaccine. So how can you say that’s a non-coercive informed consent?” Støvring asked.
“The solution is clear here: take the money and vaccinate as many kids as you can,” said Paul Offit, a vaccines expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who sharply criticized the proposed study as unethical. I’m glad some measure of humanity is being restored here.
The government of Guinea-Bissau now has control over the researchers’ vaccines, which they apprehended when they searched the offices of the Bandim Health Project on Monday.
It was vital to support Guinea-Bissau in rolling the immunizations out to all newborns as soon as possible, Offit said. Guinea-Bissau currently plans to offer the universal birth dose in 2028.
“There are so many stories in Alaska and so much here that goes uncovered, and there is absolutely no good reason why anyone should be competing at this point,” said Nathaniel Herz, executive editor of The Anchorage Press, a monthly newspaper.
“Dozens of news organizations in Alaska have drifted from conventional notions of media rivalry to an all-terrain embrace of collaboration on stories large and small.” Local news makes our communities stronger. In an era of shrinking resources, collaboration can help stretch scarce resources.
Rachel Fairbank reposted
BREAKING: The hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau "will not move forward," the lead researcher says. “The solution is clear here: Take the money and vaccinate as many kids as you can,” @pauloffit.bsky.social told me: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
Rachel Fairbank reposted
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better … If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways,” she said. “So I’m back at square one, that I don’t know what’s going on with me.” I wish people would understand 'no diagnosis' doesn't mean 'no illness.'
Despite learning she had been misdiagnosed, Applegate said that her symptoms remain and her illness has now become a mystery. “I have every symptom of someone with MS. Every single one,” she said. I wish more people understood that a formal diagnosis means having some answers, instead of none.
Even if the diagnosis is one of the many chronic illnesses with inadequate treatment options, knowing what it is still gives you the power to make informed decisions, rather than flying blind.
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better … If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways,” she said. “So I’m back at square one, that I don’t know what’s going on with me.” I wish people would understand 'no diagnosis' doesn't mean 'no illness.'
Applegate tearfully shared the revelation in a two-part episode, saying that new technology led to the discovery. “This may come as great news, but to me, I’m back at square one,” she said. “It’s hard to say that [my doctor] came into my room and she said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS.'”
I read an entire book about Ada Blackjack surviving the Arctic, and it never once mentioned that a CAT survived the Arctic with her as well. Meet "Vic," who was brought along for good luck. Clearly, she was good luck for Blackjack. www.nps.gov/articles/000...
I recently read a book about an Inuit woman who was the only survivor of an Arctic expedition, and now I’m obsessed with scurvy, which one of the expedition members died of. The descriptions of what scurvy is like have me squeezing lemon into my iced tea like I’m about to head off to the Arctic.
As a former athlete who balanced working eight-hour shifts with training before turning professional, she says she has "known fatigue my whole life" and believes the term fails to capture the severity of the illness.
I wish it was just fatigue, that would be a walk in the park," she says. "It's so much more than that. If I thought of fatigue in my top 20 symptoms it might just make the cut." Instead, she says, it feels like her entire body "is shutting down; it feels like you are a few days from death".
Rachel Fairbank reposted
Rachel Fairbank reposted
Replying to @gavinyamey.bsky.social
Exploiting scarcity to experiment on babies is really messed up The ethical action is to use the funding not to advance your list of publications, but to actually give the birth dose to as many newborns as possible. One estimate is that the funds from RFK Jr would cover all newborns for 10 years.
Rachel Fairbank reposted
Replying to @gavinyamey.bsky.social
The RFK Jr-funded Danish researchers might say, "but Guinea-Bissau is too poor to afford the birth dose, so we'll be giving it to half of babies, so these babies will get the life-saving benefits, & we're good people for giving benefits to half" NOPE. You can't ethically exploit poverty/scarcity
Rachel Fairbank reposted
In case you hadn't been following this disturbing sequence of events, here's a recap: RFK Jr wanted to fund a randomized trial, run by Danes, involving newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau Ethicists across the world, including in Nigeria, Cameroon, & Ethiopia, were horrified: it's an unethical study
RFK Jr is funding a grotesquely unethical study on newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau; ethicists, pediatricians, clinical trial experts, & infectious disease experts are calling this horrific trial The New Tuskegee. It is unethical to withhold a life saving intervention from half of newborns FFS.
Rachel Fairbank reposted
BREAKING: Guinea-Bissau did not approve the controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial to move forward, the country's health minister says: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
“Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said on Tuesday.”
It would cost approximately $13,200 to buy enough vaccines through Unicef and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to immunize all newborns in Guinea-Bissau each year, Delawalla pointed out.
Everyone involved should work together to ensure that every baby in Guinea-Bissau receives the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccination, she added. “This is not muddy water: we can use Black babies to further pseudoscience or we can save children’s lives with a 20-cent shot.”
“Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said on Tuesday.”
“The ministry did not authorize the tests under the terms presented in the publications currently in circulation,” the health minister said. He said officials in Guinea-Bissau were “surprised” to see media reports that the country had given approval to the study.
“For the government of Guinea-Bissau to stand up against the United States and Denmark exploiting its children is no small statement,” said Colette Delawalla, a researcher and founder and CEO of the non-profit Stand Up for Science. “We absolutely must respect their sovereignty as a nation.”
“Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said on Tuesday.”
“Members of a Danish research ethics committee were informed that officials in Guinea-Bissau had approved an updated design of the study, which influenced some committee members’ votes to proceed with the trial last week. But the health ministry never agreed to or authorized the trial.”
Rachel Fairbank reposted
Good news Contrary to what the Danish researchers themselves are saying publicly, in fact the government and key health authorities in Guinea-Bissau have NOT approved this highly unethical RFK Jr-funded trial www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
“The children who are randomly selected not to receive the birth dose of the vaccine, those who “lost the lottery”, face in their earliest days the risk of contracting hepatitis B, which can cause irreversible lifelong damage.” No words. I am speechless. This violates all ethical boundaries.
This is several decades behind the times, but I finally read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, which chronicles his Everest summit, which happened on one of the deadliest days in Everest history. Eight climbers, including his expedition leader, died in a blizzard.
“Everest is much safer now. Last year, 2025 was statistically the safest ever on Everest. Only five people died; 846 made the summit. That’s a ratio of one death for every 200 climbers. When I climbed, it was one death for every six climbers who reached the summit.”
Imagine writing a book about the single most traumatic experience of your life, where a bunch of people you cared about died, only to have people read it and say, “yeah, I want to do that.” At least Everest has gotten a lot safer, probably as a result of Krakaeur’s book?
This is several decades behind the times, but I finally read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, which chronicles his Everest summit, which happened on one of the deadliest days in Everest history. Eight climbers, including his expedition leader, died in a blizzard.
Reading Into Thin Air has successfully cured me of wanting to hike Everest. Apparently, that makes me an anomaly. As Krakaeur said in this recent NPR interview: “My book made people go to Everest, as I put it, like gamblers to a slot machine.”
“I was the 621st person in 1996, 30 years later, 13,000 people have climbed.”