Nancy Metcalf

Mostly retired health journalist, lifelong progressive who wants a decent life for my grandchildren.

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

@CeciConnolly @larry_levitt @KFF The only true solution is to force health care prices down. Other countries already do this and so can we if we have the political will to withstand the titanic lobbying power of the health care industry.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Effective tax rate paid by Jeff Bezos from 2014 to 2018: 0.98%

Effective 2025 federal tax rate paid by Amazon: 1.4%

Typical tax rate paid by the average American: 14.5%

Just thought I should point that out.

[60 Minutes @60Minutes]

“We spotted nine Polymarket accounts, all connected, who made, collectively,$2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations,” says Nicolas Vaiman, co-founder of the small data analytics firm Bubblemaps.

“And now here's the crazy part: 98% win rate.” https://t.co/T79aYM48ZI

[Acyn @Acyn]

Maddow: So in January, Trump buys hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Nvidia. Then a week later, his commerce department approves the sale of Nvidia chips to China. 

Also in January, Trump buys between 50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in AMD. One week after he buys it, his commerce department approves AMD doing business in China as well. 

The following month, in February, Trump buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell. Nine days after he buys millions of dollars worth of stock in Dell, Trump veers off script in a speech in Georgia to tell the crowd literally, quote, go out and buy a Dell computer. 

Then in March, Judd Legum at Popular Information reports that Trump repeatedly buys up Thermo Fisher stock, and then he goes and visits Thermo Fisher on a presidential visit and praises the company.

That same day, Trump bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Apple. And then that same day he bought the stock, he did another event where he singled out Apple and Apple CEO Tim cook for praise. Apple a great company.

Then after that, Trump buys Micron stock. The very next day, he calls into the Fox News channel and tells them Micron is one of the hottest companies.

CNBC reporting Trump makes seven separate purchases of Palantir stock. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Palantir stock. Then he gets on truth social and praises Palantir.

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔A researcher invented a fake eye condition called bixonimania, uploaded two obviously fraudulent papers about it to an academic server, and watched major AI systems present it as real medicine within weeks.
The fake papers thanked Starfleet Academy, cited funding from the Professor Sideshow Bob Foundation and the University of Fellowship of the Ring, and stated mid-paper that the entire thing was made up. Google's Gemini told users it was caused by blue light. Perplexity cited its prevalence at one in 90,000 people.

ChatGPT advised users whether their symptoms matched. The fake research was then cited in a peer-reviewed journal that only retracted it after Nature contacted the publisher.

My Take
The researcher made the papers as obviously fake as possible on purpose. The AI systems didn't catch it. Neither did the human researchers who cited it in real journals, which means people are feeding AI-generated references into their work without reading what they're actually citing.

I've covered the FDA using AI for drug review, the NYC hospital CEO ready to replace radiologists, and ChatGPT Health launching this year. All of that is happening in the same environment where a condition funded by a Simpsons character and endorsed by the crew of the Enterprise was being presented as emerging medical consensus. The people making these deployment decisions seem to believe the pipeline from research to AI to patient is more supervised than it actually is. This experiment suggests it isn't supervised much at all.

Hedgie🤗
https://t.co/8Kg8FOrgHW

[Cory Booker @CoryBooker]

This must stop.

[Dr. Angela Rasmussen @angie_rasmussen]

Come for this horribly depressing graph and stay for the heatmap from grant termination hell. Essential reading from @maxdkozlov and colleagues

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

We can only hope

[Colin Wright @SwipeWright]

If Democrats win big in 2028, there’s every reason to believe they won’t hesitate to do exactly what they’ve said they want to do. Taking them at their word isn’t paranoid.

They’ll pack the court, and DEI and gender ideology will come roaring back.

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

@ashishkjha How about the government sets fees? We already do it w Medicare and Medicaid and so do plenty of other developed countries.

[scary lawyerguy @scarylawyerguy]

Eternal shout out to Ralph Nader and Jill Stein "Green Party" (LOL) supporters who tanked three of the most consequential elections of the last 100 years b/c something something no difference b/t the two parties.

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

I've been reporting in East Africa on the impact of President Trump's USAID cuts, and I find that not only are children dying in large numbers but the pace is accelerating as stockpiles run out and people grow weaker. I also obtained an internal Trump administration memo stating that the cost of shutting down USAID is $6.4 billion over two years. That sum could save more than 1 million children's lives; instead, it is being spent to to shut down programs that save lives. Help spread the word. https://t.co/VN9XZIU0b3

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

@NoahMF @mcmansionhell Hartford, totally.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

"Party of the working class."

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

@chrishendel She should switch parties.

[Nancy Metcalf @NancyMetcalf]

@DavidPNoble63 @PeterHotez In the late ‘50s my sister spent over
a week in the hospital fighting off measles pneumonia and even after recovering, came down with pneumonia repeatedly for years afterward.

[Joe @JoePostingg]

"Increasingly worried the Trump administration will implement the policy agenda they ran on instead of the made up one I ascribed to them" – The entire business community for some reason

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

If you want to know why I’m at the 🚨🚨🚨stage on the short term risk of losing our democracy, it’s this.

Trump shuts off spending so each Congressman, Governor, Senator, Mayor has to come pledge loyalty to get the $$ turned back on.

It’s called “petitioning the king”.

[Rick Perlstein @rickperlstein]

Another way the dictatorship might kill you. This is from a friend who is a retired air traffic controller.

[Larry Levitt @larry_levitt]

It's so striking what's missing from the Make America Healthy Again slogans and ideas: health coverage.