Having in the past administered a lot of rabies PEP with RIG and the vaccine, I thought this new rabies PEP alternative was pretty cool; from a UMass Chan press release:

A new post-licensure clinical study published in The Lancet further demonstrates that Rabishield, a monoclonal antibody therapy developed by UMass Chan Medical School in partnership with the Serum Institute of India, offers a safe and effective alternative to older rabies treatments. In India, rabies kills an estimated 20,000 people every year—two people every hour. 

In the new study, more than 4,000 patients in India who had high-risk animal bites received either Rabishield plus a rabies vaccine or the traditional equine rabies immunoglobulin plus vaccine. Both groups developed strong immune responses, but Rabishield was better tolerated, with fewer serious side effects. Importantly, no participants developed rabies during a year of follow-up. 

Sadly, I’ve come to conclude that social media, relying as it does for its sustainability on some of our worst human impulses (e.g. unfettered profit seeking, prurient interest in the misfortunes of others, etc.) and capable of widespread rapid dissemination without effort or cost, has become destructive to society and mental health. It’s now a net negative. The hopes that it might become a force for good by freely sharing truth and knowledge have been dashed and are irrecoverable.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk was terrible. But venerating the man because of  his murder is a mistake.   He was flawed and incorrect in many ways.  Jamelle Bouie discusses some of those ways in his NYT essay Charlie Kirk Didn’t Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn’t Either.  He cites a prime example when he quotes quotes Kirk saying this in 2023: “I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it,” Kirk said at a 2023 event. “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”   No good defense for that one.

Nine former Directors or Acting Directors of the CDC (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) discuss in the NY Times the damage being done to the American public by RFK Jr.’s assault on public health. He is demonstrably, manifestly unfit.
So many experts (and even his own family) agree:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/opinion/cdc-firings-kennedy.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/19/opinion/vaccines-autism-evidence.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/opinion/bernie-sanders-robert-f-kennedy-jr-resign-hhs.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/opinion/kennedy-vaccine-panel.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/health/caroline-kennedy-rfk-jr-hhs-confirmation.html
• https://doctorsforamerica.org/statement-release-rfk-resignation/

Apparently, CDC Director Susan Monarez, PhD., confirmed by the Senate only a month ago, has been fired.  This is really bad – every competent leader at a critically important public health agency, the CDC, is being ousted or driven away at an institution already decimated by cuts, shot at, and subjected to incompetent appointees.  The purging of capable scientists devoted to excellence  just doesn’t stop.

Tom Friedman writes in his NYT essay The America We Knew Is Rapidly Slipping Away about how truth, justice, and the American way are disappearing. The termination of McEntarfer at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and cyberwarrior Jen Easterly at West Point are particularly galling (the latter after another loony Loomer post).  Friedman quotes Easterly from her response on LinkedIn:

“As a lifelong independent, I’ve served our nation in peacetime and combat under Republican and Democratic administrations. I’ve led missions at home and abroad to protect all Americans from vicious terrorists …. I’ve worked my entire career not as a partisan, but as a patriot — not in pursuit of power, but in service to the country I love and in loyalty to the Constitution I swore to protect and defend, against all enemies…Every member of the Long Gray Line knows the Cadet Prayer. It asks that we ‘choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.’ That line — so simple, yet so powerful — has been my North Star for more than three decades. In boardrooms and war rooms. In quiet moments of doubt and in public acts of leadership. The harder right is never easy. That’s the whole point…To lead in this moment is to believe that with unshakeable certainty, to resist the cynicism that corrodes our institutions, to meet falsehoods with fidelity to truth and adversity with resilience.”

This government is losing the best among us.

Apparently, it’s hear no evil, see no evil, avoid all mention and then the problem of climate change disappears. Magic!  WashPo reports that the State Department has fired the remaining employees who worked on climate change negotiations.

Take Off the Mask, ICE is an excellent essay by former police officer and chief of police Brandon del Pozo, writing in the Atlantic.

Jeremy Faust summarizes the current cuts to Science, the NIH, CDC, etc. in his latest Inside Medicine Substack post.  It’s not pretty.

More insanity, this time coming from the incompetent head of HHS; as reported by the Washington Post: