Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳

You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great. -- M. Angelou

She/Her.

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@MilaKunisv Shame, shame, shame.

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@KariDru My go to for at least the last 3.5+ yrs!

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@TheUSASingers @eileenvan55 Dirty deeds done dirt cheap!

[James Medlock @jdcmedlock]

The Inflation Reduction Act funding brought IRS customer service hold times down to 4 minutes in 2022 https://t.co/IlnkP6Hxs7

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@JessLooking8 @curiousdatacat Yup. My husband brought it back from the office. I went down 3 days after he decided to test bc he was congested and had a headache. Then he tells me about the guy next to him that was sick at the office the week before....

[Tristan Snell @TristanSnell]

Everyone around Trump who’s testified under oath has said that Trump planned and directed January 6.

Everyone around Trump who has refused to testify under oath has continued to defend Trump.

Hmm if only there was a pattern here 🤔

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

Dear Republicans,
Here we f’ng go.
AGAIN -

There was no ‘upside’ to slavery. There was no fucking “benefit” to being a slave.
And if you’re actually out there saying that “Jews survived the Holocaust by being useful”, then perhaps you need to be reminded, just for starters, that Jews were sorted the day they arrived in some camps and were immediately murdered. And that doesn’t even BEGIN to describe the atrocities carried out against those HUMAN BEINGS irrespective of ANY consideration of “usefulness”.

What you’re suggesting is grotesque, so just fucking stop.

And if you’re saying this twisted shit for “clicks” or because you think it will “distract” us from the shitshow that is your hateful cult of a party, then it’s even more reprehensible, so fuck you.

Frankly, fuck you anyway.

[Ford News @FordJohnathan5]

#BreakingNews The Department of Justice sends a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan that they are concerned Republicans are misrepresenting the Hunter Biden probe and that U.S Attorney Weiss will be available to testify after August recess publicly! The Department of Justice says it's important that the citizens hear from U.S Attorney Weiss directly.

[AJ Leonardi, MBBS, PhD, MPH @fitterhappierAJ]

I want to talk about arrogance in academia. People who dip in and out of my Twitter feed might be forgiven for getting the impression that I enjoy feuds. Nothing could be further from the truth. I learnt early in my career at the NIH that the best scientists are humble and open to possibility. They are empathetic and imaginative. I learnt to recognize those traits and to spot those who exhibited the opposing characteristics. When Covid hit, social media seemed to be flooded with the latter, small-minded bullies. As anyone who’s worked in academia will know, these people tend to have the loudest mouths and will use underhand techniques to silence their opponents.

I had fewer than 500 followers in February 2020, and in many ways my life would have been easier if I hadn’t started writing about Covid. I had decided to build on my expertise as a T cell immunologist and qualify as a physician, so I was in med school, working at the NIH during my summer vacations. But as the virus began to spread, I saw so much misinformation coming from people who should have known better. Influenza can cause non-permissive abortive infections of T cells. Dengue, which is perhaps a better comparison with Covid for reasons that will become clear over time, can infect T cells. It was also clear that we were seeing functional exhaustion of T cells, and I suspected that exhaustion would manifest more in some people over time.

When I saw people posting that we would have long-term immunity from reinfection, that our immune systems weren’t being harmed, and that exhaustion would be without significance, I felt obliged to correct them. Perhaps the most motivating issue was Long Covid. When I saw others downplaying the prevalence and impact of Long Covid, ridiculing and minimizing the experiences of those suffering from it, I felt as though we were losing part of our humanity and a lot of our reason.

When I started speaking out, a group of scientists embarked on a campaign to discredit me. I suspect some of this was coordinated in private message groups. I would like to look at three scientists, Marc Veldhoen, Antonio Bertoletti, and Andrew Croxford. Dr Veldhoen and Dr Bertoletti will be known to some of my followers for their recent attempt to disparage me with the title of their paper on how well T cells are doing.

I reached out to Dr Bertoletti early in the pandemic because I respected his T cell work, but he chose to misunderstand me and underestimate the effects of Covid. Instead of showing humility, he called me a clown. Dr Veldhoen called me a grifter. I’m not sure what my grift was. I was a medical student during term and working at the NIH on cancer immunotherapy during vacations. Somehow a myth sprang up in their community that I was unemployed and unemployable. It was a view that was shared publicly, and I suspect privately, and could not have been further from the truth.

Unfortunately, Dr Bertoletti, Dr Veldhoen and Dr Croxford came to have some influence over certain journalists and were invited to comment in the media, also influencing public opinion. In a February 2023 article for the American Prospect, Dr Bertoletti and Dr Croxford said:
https://t.co/7fdrXmRjaL

“There are a couple of papers that alleged T cell infection from SARS-CoV-2, but they are highly implausible from a theoretical standpoint and some ended up retracted. Those “papers are honestly ridiculous, that’s what they are,” said Bertoletti. Moreover, if the virus could infect white blood cells, it should be easy to replicate in the laboratory, but nobody has been able to do it. The idea “has not been convincing for something so straightforward to demonstrate experimentally,” said Croxford.”

Let me repeat, this was in February 2023. By this time, infection of lymphocytes had been shown in vivo as well as in vitro. This means infection had been evidenced in the lab and in autopsies and biopsies. So, what could have possessed these two scientists to make a statement that was so fundamentally wrong?

I am speculating, but as you can see from the tweet by Dr Veldhoen of the 5 November 2022, he had tried and failed to infect T lymphocytes in his lab. Perhaps he had told Dr Bertoletti and Dr Croxford that such infection was impossible based on his failure to replicate the results of another lab.

A colleague of mine contacted the lab responsible for the Nature paper that evidenced infection of T cells and asked why others were having such problems. The PI kindly replied explaining they were failing to replicate the methods and that a certain process that is commonly found in human infection needed to be carefully induced in the lab.

The fact this team was proven correct by in vivo evidence suggests that such infection is possible in the lab and that the reason the results could not be replicated was down to sloppy science. Saying something is impossible in such circumstances is like a club runner saying it is impossible to run 100 meters in under ten seconds. Just because you can’t do it, doesn’t make it impossible.

A secure scientist with imagination and empathy would say, “I have not been able to do it.” An insecure, arrogant scientist believes science starts and ends within the walls of their labs. They believe their opinions count more than the evidence of others, and they use the most reprehensible techniques to try to silence those who call their ill-informed views into question. I believe policymakers and the media have spent far too much time listening to scientists who fit the latter category.

Like Jeremy Kamil, Dr Veldhoen has now been proved demonstrably wrong about infection of T cells. The screenshots below show the same certainty as Dr Kamil and a lack of humility in the face of a novel virus, which is in fact doing many of the same things as other viruses. Infection of T cells is ‘textbook’. As I mentioned before, rather than comparing Covid to influenza, a comparison that has been the source of many problems, we would be better served comparing it to Dengue. The reasons for this will become apparent in time.

Academia could do with more humility and less arrogance, and when scientists rebut evidence with opinion and tell journalists, “Because I say so,” those journalists would be doing the public a great service if they asked to see actual evidence from the loud opinionators.

Will Drs Veldhoen, Bertoletti and Croxford apologize to members of the media and the public who they steered wrongly? Will they apologize to those who relied on their opinions and perhaps developed Long Covid after vaccination or reinfection? Will they apologize for getting the science so loudly, confidently and fundamentally wrong?

[No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen @NoLieWithBTC]

Inflation rates around the world:

Argentina: 116%
Turkey: 38.2%
United Kingdom: 8.7%
Australia: 7%
Germany: 6.4%
South Africa: 6.3%
Netherlands: 5.7%
Mexico: 5.06%
France: 4.5%
Canada: 3.4%
United States: 2.97%

Every single Republican voted against the Inflation Reduction Act.

[Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl]

Attention on men infiltrating women's space as trans women is meant to distract on the much more prevalent threats to women's safety - like femicide, rape, stalking, harassment, online misogyny - and other types of sexism. @kathryn42
https://t.co/jtLGJ20kc6

[Seth Abramson @SethAbramson]

There’s only one book in print that debunks every false GOP claim about the Bidens and Burisma. It was a bestseller; it’s 600 pages; it uses only reliable sources; it has perfect reviews; and it was written to cast truth on what the GOP is doing RIGHT NOW. https://t.co/JE0tvPwQDR

[Joe Oliver @joeolivermd]

“The announcement calls for indoor air to be completely replaced at least five times every hour and cleaned with minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV)-13 air filters.”

https://t.co/TfUTQ0hTNN

[Don Winslow @donwinslow]

A bunch of #MAGA wack jobs are criticizing @POTUS Biden for his appearance today honoring the fallen at Hiroshima and saying Japanese leaders never did this for Pearl Harbor.

Yes. They did. In 2016. Here is the video.

Stop lying. Stop misinformation.

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@meannie @ProfessaJay I love watching the boyfriends coming to Barre3 class with their girlfriends. #10yearsofB3Newtown

[Autumn T 🌻💚🌎🐢🐳 @autumn_muddles]

@cmclymer I guess MT hasn't heard what happened in TN? 🤔

[Chris Hayes @chrislhayes]

Seems like the obvious group of plaintiffs with clear standing to sue the FDA over mifepristone would be a group of women who took the drug and say they were harmed by it but it's more than a little telling that the anti-abortion forces haven't produced one (1) such woman, no?

[Citizens for Ethics @CREWcrew]

Read all about Donald Trump's $160 million presidential side hustle:
https://t.co/yTnqBAsmHp