#epidemiology notes

[er-cryptid]

Patreon

[cemetery-blooms]

i love my creative writing class in my other classes i'm constantly crying and throwing up and stressed and overwhelmed and in this class we r making shitty headcanons on a character from some fuckass painting

[mangoisms]

going through my stuff and found all the notes from my statistics class and families in society class i took. whew. fall 2021. still keeping them bc i know i’ll need the stats refresher this fall. but the families in society notes.. GOD i loved that class and i love those notes still too i am absolutely keeping them i cannot throw them away

[colibrie]

Can. Can you please do #11 with the Fang AU?

11. "Just keep breathing. In and out. You're doing great." (Minor warning for blood and injury).

Hamato Leonardo knew himself to be a turtle of many enviable talents. Out-of-this-world charisma, rugged good looks, hilarious, a tactical mind, and a resourceful field medic. The whole package. Except, he was not a scientist. He'd never had the patience or the attention span for fiddly formulas, obsessive note-taking, and tedious repetition needed for an experiment to be successful. As the team’s leader and face man, Leo thrived in the gray, mixing information and spontaneity, tweaking and twisting to ensure the outcome he wanted came to pass. Science was Donnie's world. His egg-headed twin thrived in black and white; relying on repetition, craved clearly defined variables, delighting in percentiles and predictability. That was what balanced them in the end, what made them tick as twins. Brainiac and face man, street smarts and book smarts, innovation and invention.

And maybe that was why he was struggling now, sitting hunched over his secret pile of medical books, scowling as he compared them to the ones April had brought from the library. Squinting at tiny, cramped print as his head pounded, forcing eyes crusted from lack of sleep to open to absorb the paragraphs detailing anatomy, herpetology, and epidemiology, alongside pictures that were various degrees of uselessness. This was Donnie’s world, and maybe he would have enjoyed this torment. Maybe, his twin could make sense of these "viral counts" and "impact percentiles ". Maybe, if his twin weren't strapped to the bed behind him, delirious and writhing in pain, they could have already fixed whatever this thing was.

"Shell," Leo groaned, throwing down his pencil as one hand rose to rub his tired eyes.

He was going to get crow's feet and fine lines from glaring at these useless books, things he could (loudly) tolerate if they were to result in a solution to whatever plaguing their purple brother. But they hadn’t so far. Days of effort, nights of burning well past the midnight oil, and all he had to show for his efforts was a splitting headache and a massive collection of unwashed tea mugs. None of Donnie's symptoms matched with anything detailed in the textbooks, or CDC and WHO websites. Given the creepy level of the lab they'd wreaked, it wasn’t truly that surprising, even if it was frustrating. There was, shockingly, not a lot of published research on mutants, let alone their illnesses or immune systems. But, illnesses didn't just come out of nowhere! He didn't need a fancy piece of paper or a Donnie-level IQ to know that. Whatever was ailing Donnie had to be documented somewhere. But he was a field medic for pizza's sake! He knew how to set bones, sew up cuts, and head off infections. Not cellular biology!

Throwing his hands up in defeat, he slouched back into his desk chair. Maybe Mikey was right. Maybe it was time to call in Draxum, much as Leo would rather eat a bucket of nails or light fire to all his limited-edition JJ comics than say it out loud. Mad scientist psycho or not, the Yokai understood a lot more than Leo did, in this one area anyway. And while they were at it, maybe they’d been looking at things all wrong. If a science-based solution wasn’t available, maybe a mystic solution could help? It would be the most delicious kind of irony, given Donnie’s historic skepticism of anything mystical or magical. Maybe their father could take a trip to the mystic library, or they could send one of the Casey’s to Witch Town. So long as they didn't drop Donnie's name in any conversations it would probably be...

A pained snarl cut through his thoughts, and he whirled the chair around to find Donnie bucking against his restraints, head thrown back in a terrible arc as he gasped for air.

"Whoa! Easy D!" Leo exclaimed, jumping out of his seat to reach for the oxygen mask and tank that April and Casey Jr had kindly "liberated" from April's school following the Krang invasion. "Just keep breathing Dontron, in and out."

His twin hissed in response, pants deepening to a guttural growl as Leo approached and attempted to press the mask over Donnie's nose and mouth.

"Come on man, you're doing great. This is going to help you do even better, so chill out a little and I'll-"

Faster than lightning Donnie struck, neck muscles stretched and strained as he ducked around the mask and sunk his teeth deep into the flesh of Leo's forearm.

"OW!" Leo yelled, the oxygen mask slipping from his fingers as they spasmed open in shock. "Dee, let go!"

Donatello snarled in reply, sharp teeth sinking and shredding as his jaws clamped down on Leo's limb.

"Get OFF!" Leo bellowed, jamming the thumb of his free hand into the pressure point just behind the soft shell’s jaw. It took way longer than it should have for Donatello’s teeth to release him, too many long, painful seconds before Leo could pull his arm away and stumble back a step from the bed, cradling his injured limb close. Torn flesh burned against the open air, pain licking out from fingertip to elbow while small crimson streams braided into rivers as they raced across his skin to follow gravity to the floor.

“What the shell?!” Leo snapped, free hand clamping down over the injury as he stumbled towards the cabinet that held their stock of bandages.

Donnie hissed again in reply, and Leo had to fight the urge to cringe away from the way his blood smeared across his brothers lips and chin, the way it painted his sharp teeth when said lips peeled back in a snarl. Dark eyes followed every jerky move as he fumbled with trying to disinfect and wrap the wound with one hand, breaths hitching as the pain in his arm built, creeping like the most agonizing ivy towards his shoulder. Slitted predator pupils zeroed in one the…wait…Donnie didn’t have slitted pupils. None of them did. Their eyes had always been human…

“What the…”

He didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. Between one breath and the next the pain exploded, lancing up his neck and spearing deep into his chest. His jaw snapped shut around a cry as every nerve in his body seemed to simultaneously go up in flames, numb and useless legs folding like a house of cards as he hit the concrete floor of the med bay. He tried to break his fall, but his body failed to respond to any desperate command his brain tried to send. He tried to call for help, or maybe just scream, but his lungs couldn’t pull in the air he needed. He was trapped, a silently writhing vessel slowly filling up with pain.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Disease Template

Because you are a sick bastard that wants to maim, injure and kill thousands or millions or even billions of people characters in your story.

I did a ton of research to create this list. And I'm probably the only one really interested in it. I created the three major classes: Parasites, viruses, and bacteria. I also considered genetic factors.

I looked up a lot of wikipedia pages on various diseases, looked up parasites of various types (the type that kill, maim and bother), looked up CDC pages, and also fictional diseases to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Cholera, foot and mouth, Scarlet fever, Huntington's chorea, Huntington's, Foot and Mouth, etc. So Congenital and pandemic type—you have to strike off items of made up congenital/genetic diseases, but that shouldn't be too difficult. (N/A it)

Slight note here, but I am kinda sick (haha) of people using Zombie virus type of things to reinforce colonialism, Neoliberalism, and pro-oppression narratives. Haha, white person getting attacked by zombies because they are going to take over and that white person is a Southern US person doesn't quite read like you think it does considering that zombies were an allegory about becoming slaves. Looks like a slave uprising, in which case, the zombies should win over that white person's butt. The original Zombie Mythology was supposed to do the exact opposite. I would hope that people would honor and remember what the original mythology was about.

So when you do diseases, etc, think about *how* you are going to portray it and the people who have it carefully. I've done some of that work. Also, this isn't ND sort of things or creating a new ND. Creating a new ND, I think takes a lot more knowledge and thought since it doesn't affect everyone.

Should not have to be said, but please don't steal the template and then say "I came up with this idea". I genuinely took weeks of research to come up with this list. It's free, link it/reblog it if you like it.

Disease Name

Name Information Scientific Name:

Scientific Classification:

Name Meaning:

IPA Pronounce:

Common Names:

Common Name Meanings:

Subspecies:

Taxonomy Who Discovered it:

Date of Discovery:

Subsequent Famous Scientists:

Anatomy Pathogen Type: (Bacteria/Virus/Parasite) Body’s Biome:

Cell Target:

Symptoms:

Severe Version:

Severe Version Symptoms:

Subtypes:

Symptoms:

Complications:

Epidemiology Origin species:

Species Found In:

Geographical Origin:

Geographic Hotspots:

Transmission: (Water, air, food, rodents, fleas, mosquitoes, water droplets, etc) Infection Rate:

Incubation Time:

Carrier Rate:

Resistances: (heat, cold, drugs) Infected Population Number:

Inflicted Population Type: (Female, males, children, Elderly) Mutation Rate:

Death Rate:

Diagnosis and Treatments Diagnosis Methods:

Severe Version Diagnosis:

Medicines:

Folk Cures:

Vaccination:

Prevention Methods:

Mortality Rate:

Post Disease Syndrome:

Post Disease Symptoms:

Additional Notes:

Human Relationship Stigma Level:

Social Impacts: (Can they donate blood, etc) Visibility:

Public Awareness:

Misconceptions:

Economic Impact:

Famous Deaths:

Famous Art:

Mythology/Religion:

Literature:

History Major Outbreaks:

Pandemic Dates:

General:

Miscellaneous Background:

Notes:

[unassumingcavegoblin]

intro post?? idk, this feels kinda silly but… 🤷‍♀️

hi! you can call me star or australili* (she/her)

*p.s., australili is the name i put as the watermark on my edits

p.p.s., i sign my art with my irl initials (nas)

i am a queer ethnic jew, i am israeli, and i am a zionist. most of my posts on this blog aren’t about anything to do with israel, but that is an intrinsic part of who i am. if you don’t like it, don’t interact. i’d just appreciate it if you’d hate me in silence and keep it off my blog. thanks <3

(p.s., if you disagree with my political stances but don’t have an issue with me being who i am and understand that it’s not your problem - and won’t make it mine - you’re welcome here)

this is my main blog! i have a few others, i’ll make like a master doc or smth at some point

socials masterlist

more abt me below the cut :)

i’m obsessed with pjo (child of athena ^v^) and epic the musical; i also like heathers, the owl house, hamilton, the crane wives, bikini kill, and arcane (my comfort show <333)

fav epic saga is either wisdom or ithaca, fav songs (from epic) are would you fall in love with me again, odysseus, scylla, warrior of the mind, little wolf, god games, there are other ways, no longer you, and every other song in epic ^v^

my fav rrverse books are the last olympian, the lost hero, son of neptune, blood of olympus, the red pyramid, all of magnus chase, and camp half blood confidential :)

omniromantic + platoniromantic + ace; adhd, gad, ocd; very extroverted; i like to read, write, draw, and hang out with my friends :)

random facts abt me:

- i skipped 5th grade

- i HATE touching greasy stuff

- i loveeeee epidemiology!

- i’m currently making a fictional disease for a book that me and my friend are writing together

- i <3 rings!!

- i have a pink american flag with chappell roan on it hanging on my bedroom ceiling

- my stuffed animals take up more space in my bed than me

- i’m ridiculously short 😭😭

- i’ve played 3000+ hours of the sims 4

- i have 200+ files in my ts4 mods folder

- i own a copy of almost every book rick riordan has ever written except camp jupiter classified and the ultimate guide :333

- i play the flute!

- i have a youtube channel that i share with my friend (they post gacha, i post edits)

- i got to talk to te/mo once and she said that she thinks i’m gonna be famous <3333

tag index !!!

star’s yapping again - not quite rambles, just lil bite sized yap sessions

star’s reblogs - reblogs

star’s rambles - rambles

star’s asks - asks

star’s adventures - irl stuff

star’s very cool stuff - stuff i made

star’s pleas for help - i. need Advice.

star’s housekeeping - self explanatory

star’s reading - book stuff 😸

star’s musings - introspection

star’s edits - my edits

star’s feral - ASGDHHTHFHFJ. JAJEJRJEJSJDKIFKR HELP ME

star’s dying - vents n stuff

star’s music - music

star’s polls - polls

star’s stuff - other

additional note (2/24/25): i twisted my ankle :(

[mariacallous]

In the middle of the nineteenth century, filth of every kind accumulated on the streets of New York. The land was boggy and lacked proper drainage. Epidemics ravaged many of the city’s impoverished neighborhoods. In the summer of 1864, an inspection undertaken by a committee of concerned physicians yielded a seventeen-volume report that catalogued the conditions. One inspector noted that, in his assigned district, refuse filled gutters, blocked sewage culverts, and sent forth “perennial emanations which generate pestiferous disease.” Another observed that certain streets better resembled “dung-hills rather than the thoroughfares in a civilized city.” In response to the report, state lawmakers introduced legislation that led to the establishment, in 1866, of the Metropolitan Board of Health, one of the country’s first municipal public-health authorities. Upon its formation, the board immediately confronted a potential cholera outbreak. It established quarantine measures and administered new health ordinances that helped to contain the spread of the disease. Support for the new agency soared, and other cities began organizing similar authorities. The modern-day public-health movement in the United States was born.

An important revelation from the “great sanitary awakening” of the nineteenth century, as it became known, was that social and environmental factors could significantly affect people’s health. During the second half of the twentieth century, policymakers began turning their attention to issues such as product and workplace safety as a way to save lives. In the mid-nineteen-fifties, nearly forty thousand people were dying every year from motor-vehicle accidents. Attention was primarily focussed on the responsibility of drivers, but physicians and engineers pointed out that most of these deaths were, in fact, preventable through changes in automobile design. In 1965, Ralph Nader, a young lawyer who later became an activist and a perpetual Presidential candidate, published “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a book examining the ways in which automakers had failed to prioritize safety. It became an unlikely nonfiction best-seller, alongside Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” Nader’s reporting prompted congressional hearings and the formation of what is now known as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. William Haddon, a pioneering public-health scientist, became the agency’s first administrator and oversaw the first safety requirements for new cars, including energy-absorbing steering columns, shoulder harnesses, and side-door beams. The ratio of motor-vehicle deaths to miles travelled by drivers in the United States plummeted.

The principal aim of public health is prevention. It takes its scientific cues primarily from epidemiology, which studies the prevalence of diseases and their determinants to shape control strategies. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, public-health practitioners began to incorporate these methods into a nascent discipline known as injury science, taking on problems such as children falling from windows, residential fires, childhood drug poisonings, and, beginning in earnest in the nineteen-nineties, gun violence. The premise is tantalizingly straightforward: utilize scientific data to identify risk factors and the most vulnerable populations, and adopt multipronged solutions to stop problems before they arise. When it comes to gun deaths, for instance, public-health interventions might include pediatricians inquiring about safe storage at home, and the government establishing waiting periods for the purchase of firearms and raising the legal age for gun ownership. The challenge comes in marshalling consensus for the kind of community-wide solutions that public health demands. This is where public-health initiatives have often floundered, including with guns.

In recent years, public-health researchers have begun to consider whether a new societal threat deserves their scrutiny: political violence. One of the researchers leading this effort is Garen Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis, who has spent more than four decades studying firearm violence. Wintemute is a gaunt, bespectacled emergency physician. (He still works four or five weekend shifts a month at U.C. Davis’s hospital.) He is seventy-two years old but speaks with an almost childlike inquisitiveness when discussing research into violent death. Wintemute told me that, during the coronavirus pandemic, he and his researchers tracked a nationwide surge in firearms purchases, particularly among first-time gun owners. Even as the COVID-19 crisis began to subside in 2021, they noticed that people were still purchasing guns at unusually high rates. Baffled by the ongoing demand, he wondered, What the hell is this? He spent a week immersing himself in the available data on political polarization and its connection to violence. When he emerged, he concluded that the subject of political violence urgently needed study, because people seemed to be “arming up” and the result “could reshape the future of the country.” He eventually directed a third of his thirty-person team to spend at least some of their time on a new project: researching the possibility that people might resort to violence to achieve their political ends.

As with any public-health problem, the first task was to collect reliable data. Wintemute’s team conducted their first broad-based survey in 2022 and found that nearly a third of the population believed that violence was usually or always justified to advance at least one of seventeen political objectives—a list that included curbing voter fraud, stopping illegal immigration, and returning Donald Trump to the Presidency. Nearly one in five agreed strongly or very strongly with the statement that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.” The willingness to justify violence was greater among people who identified as “strong Republicans” than those who identified as “strong Democrats.” Another study by Wintemute’s team found that nearly half of a cohort that they labelled “MAGA Republicans”—self-identified Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 and believed the election was stolen—strongly or very strongly agreed with the statement “Our American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Wintemute also examined the threat posed by right-wing extremists who endorse racist beliefs and the use of violence to effect social change, and who express approval of certain militia groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Within this small subset—Wintemute estimates it to be less than two per cent of the population—he found strong association with support for political violence and the willingness to engage in such violence.

Yet certain findings offered Wintemute reason for optimism. A survey published last month found that only 6.5 per cent of the population believes strongly or very strongly that a civil war is coming, and just 3.6 per cent that the “United States needs a civil war to set things right.” Both figures are roughly similar to the previous year’s findings, an unexpected result, given that 2024 is a Presidential-election year and political tensions have ratcheted upward. Wintemute also found that, of the 3.7 per cent of respondents who said they considered it very or extremely likely they’d participate as a combatant in a large-scale conflict, more than forty-four per cent said they would be “not likely” to join if they were dissuaded by family members; more than thirty per cent said they could be deterred if a respected religious leader urged them not to participate; and just under a quarter said they could be dissuaded by a respected news or social-media source. The implication, according to Wintemute, is “a large percentage are saying, ‘You can talk me out of it.’ ” That points the way to potential public-health interventions, which might include consistent messaging from the media, religious leaders, and others about rejecting political violence.

The threat of violence has hovered like a nimbus cloud over this election season. The spectre of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol remains omnipresent, but the two most visible instances of violence during the 2024 campaign have been directed at Trump. On July 13th, during a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a man on a warehouse roof fired eight times at the former President. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear; one rallygoer, a former volunteer fire chief, was killed; two others were injured. Then, on September 15th, as the former President was playing a round of golf at his club in West Palm Beach, a Secret Service agent patrolling the grounds spotted the muzzle of a rifle poking out of the shrubbery along a chain-link fence. The agent opened fire and the gunman fled. After the authorities arrested him, they discovered that he had been staking out the course for hours. Democrats have also been targeted. In Tempe, Arizona, state Party officials recently closed a campaign field office after it was shot at three times in three weeks.

According to tracking by the Bridging Divides Initiative, at Princeton University, threats and harassment of local public officials surged in July. Despite this, violence by extremist groups, as reported by a different organization, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, has actually ebbed this year, likely because law enforcement has arrested dozens of members of these groups for their participation in the Capitol riot. It makes for a perplexing picture. Is political violence an imminent threat to Americans or not? Political scientists, applying their theoretical frameworks, have long made clear the reasons for concern, including the way the country’s deepest cleavages, over race, ethnicity, religion, geography, and culture, are now embedded in people’s politics; the weakening of democracy’s guardrails during the Trump era; and the spread of misinformation.

The promise of public health is that it rests on scientific data and offers pragmatic solutions. Treating political violence like a contagion could help safeguard the future of American democracy. And yet the same fractures that potentially drive political violence can imperil the collaboration needed to address public-health crises. They can also lead to the most dangerous symptom of all: a sense of helplessness. But, if we simply wait for the disease to strike, it may already be too late. 

[briarpatch-kids]

I know youre an advocate for muscle biopsies, so I was wondering if there were any tests that your doctor required you to do before you were able to get one, and if comfortable sharing, if any of the other tests you had had abnormal results before the biopsy?

For me, it was a combo of clinical presentation, lack of test results giving a reason for that clinical presentation, a last ditch effort before giving me a diagnosis of exclusion and like... my lack of reaction to one medicine and positive reaction to another another medicine* So in my case it was kind of a unique mix of reasons the biopsy was ordered. Here's some info from an educational group that explains better some of red flags that could indicate a muscle biopsy.

*so, because I didn't get any relief from the muscle relaxer tizadinine for my muscle rigidity and spasms, that indicated it may be a neuromuscular problem. Then, I had a paradoxal reaction to Dantrolene where instead of it making me tired, it gave me more energy along with symptom relief. Dantrolene has a positive side effect of making cellular respiration work better somehow, which made my doctor go "huh, I wonder if it's metabolic." and order the muscle biopsy.

**I also want to say that my symptoms didn't follow any of the patterns of somatiform or functional disorders as well, beyond getting worse with distress and no explanation for what was going on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with coming to the end of the line in testing, trying treatment for those disorders, and hoping they work. That was going to be my next step before a diagnosis of exclusion.

I have a lot of complicated feelings regarding how people treat a somataform or FND diagnosis, both in community and in the medical setting, but it really IS a best case scenario explanation for some really serious symptoms and doesn't mean you made it all up or that its all in your head. I'll probably try and sum up my feelings about it in another post.

Sorry for all the side notes, shits complicated and bodies are weird. Mitochondrial disease is not well understood currently.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Reference archived on our website

Could covid be driving an increase in sudden infant death syndrome? Further study is needed, but these statistics aren't looking great.

Key Points Question What is the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)?

Findings In this cross-sectional study of 14 308 SUID cases, the risk of SUID and SIDS increased during the intrapandemic period (March 2020 to December 2021) compared with the prepandemic period (March 2018 to December 2019), with the greatest increases noted in 2021 (9% for SUID and 10% for SIDS). A marked statistically significant monthly increase in SUID from June to December 2021 was observed.

Meaning These findings suggest that the pronounced shift in SUID epidemiology during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic may be associated with altered infectious disease transmission at the time.

Abstract Importance Infection has been postulated as a driver in the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cascade. Epidemiologic patterns of infection, including respiratory syncytial virus and influenza, were altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparing month-to-month variation in both sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and SIDS rates before and during the pandemic offers an opportunity to generate and expand existing hypotheses regarding seasonal infections and SUID and SIDS.

Objective To compare prepandemic and intrapandemic rates of SUID and SIDS, assessing for monthly variation.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study assessed US mortality data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2021. Events with International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision codes for SIDS (R95), unknown (R99), and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed (W75) causes of death were examined. The data analysis was performed between November 2, 2023, and June 2, 2024.

Exposure COVID-19 pandemic.

Main Outcomes and Measures The primary and secondary outcomes were the monthly rates of SUID and SIDS during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021) compared with the prepandemic period (March 1, 2018, to December 31, 2019) as measured using generalized linear mixed-effects models. Seasonal trends in RSV and influenza rates were also examined.

Results There were 14 308 SUID cases from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021 (42% female infants). Compared with the prepandemic period, the risk of SUID increased during the intrapandemic period (intensity ratio [IR], 1.06; 95% CI, 1.05-1.07). Monthly assessments revealed an increased risk of SUID beyond the prepandemic baseline starting in July 2020, with a pronounced epidemiologic shift from June to December 2021 (ranging from 10% to 14%). Rates of SIDS were elevated throughout the intrapandemic period compared with the prepandemic baseline, with the greatest increase in July 2021 (IR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.22) and August 2021 (IR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.13-1.22). Seasonal shifts in RSV hospitalizations correlated with monthly changes in SUID observed during 2021.

Conclusions and Relevance This cross-sectional study found increased rates of both SUID and SIDS during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a significant shift in epidemiology from the prepandemic period noted in June to December 2021. These findings support the hypothesis that off-season resurgences in endemic infectious pathogens may be associated with SUID rates, with RSV rates in the US closely approximating this shift. Further investigation into the role of infection in SUID and SIDS is needed.

[er-cryptid]

Epidemiology of Babesia

-- found in the eastern United States

-- important enzootic foci: -> Nantucket -> Martha's Vineyard -> Long Island -> Northern Midwest states -> Western US

-- also found in Europe

-- many European cases are seen in splenectomized patients

-- majority of US cases were immunocompetent (not immunocompromised)

-- incubation period after tick bite is 1 to 3 weeks

-- causes mild disease in healthy patients

-- major symptoms: -> fever -> hemolysis -> hemoglobinuria -> chills -> nausea -> fatigue

-- two species infect humans -> B. bovis -> B. microti

-- transmitted by Ixodes scapularis ticks

-- can be fatal

-- parasite limited by humoral responses

-- can undergo antigenic variation

.

Patreon

[magnetictapedatastorage]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/well/maha-report-citations.html

AI slop at it again. full article under the cut.

White House Health Report Included Fake Citations

A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.

By Dani Blum and Maggie Astor

May 29, 2025

The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.

But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.

“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.

The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.

Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.

Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”

Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”

The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.

“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this.”

Researchers previously told The Times that they agreed with many of the report’s points, like its criticism of synthetic chemicals in the U.S. food supply and of the prevalence of ultraprocessed foods. (An early copy of the report shared with reporters did not include citations.)

But doctors have disagreed with some of the report’s other suggestions, including that routine childhood vaccines may be harmful — which scientists say is based on an incorrect understanding of immunology.

The news that some citations were fake further undermines confidence in the report’s findings, Dr. Keyes said.

She noted that her research had indeed shown that rates of depression and anxiety were rising among adolescents, as the report said they were. But the faulty citation “certainly makes me concerned about the evidence base that conclusions are being drawn from,” she said.

The report also originally cited a paper on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs published in The Lancet in 2005. A paper with that title does exist, but it was a perspective piece from an expert, not a study. It was published in a different journal five years earlier, and was not written by the cited author.

Another citation incorrectly referred to a paper on the link between sleep, inflammation and insulin sensitivity. The citation included a co-author who did not work on the paper, and omitted a researcher who did; it also listed the wrong journal. The citation has now been corrected, but Thirumagal Kanagasabai, a researcher in Toronto and the lead author on the paper, said she was shocked an incorrect citation had made it in there in the first place.

“I just don’t understand that,” she said. “How could it get mixed up?”

The report also pointed to what it said was a 2009 paper in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology by “Findling, R.L., et al.,” on the advertising of psychiatric medications. A spokesman for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Dr. Robert L. Findling works as a professor of psychiatry, said Dr. Findling had not written the article.

Experts said that even some correctly cited papers were inaccurately summarized. For example, the report said that the fifth edition of a guide used by psychiatrists to classify mental health conditions had loosened criteria for A.D.H.D. and bipolar disorder, driving a 40-fold increase in diagnoses in children from 1994 to 2003.

But that edition was not published until 2013. The diagnoses mentioned in the cited study would have been made using an earlier version.

In addition, the data appeared to originate from a 2007 study that refers to an approximately 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder among youth from 1994 to 2003, but does not mention increases in A.D.H.D. prevalence.

Part of what makes the errors so striking, Dr. Kanagasabai said, is that the importance of citations is drilled into young researchers even in the earliest stages of their careers.

“You want to always go back to the original source, and you want to make sure that source is correct,” she said.

Christina Caron contributed reporting.

Dani Blum is a health reporter for The Times.

Maggie Astor covers the intersection of health and politics for The Times.

[cemetery-blooms]

about to watch the live leaderboard for dutch gp while i do uni study yeehaw!!!!

[honeymark]

𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 ♡ 𝐍.𝐉𝐌

"Your heart holds nothing but love for him, and usually, his smile is enough to melt away the anxiety that gnaws at the corners of your mind, but not today. Never have you been this terrified that your love is running out of breath." ⟪ Na Jaemin x fem!Reader ⟫ A supernatural tale of love, carnal ambition, and the twisted power of predetermined destiny.

# GENRE: Romance, Soulmates!AU, College!AU

# TW: Smut, Threats of Violence

𝟎𝟏: available on 05.03.2024

𝟎𝟐: available on 05.10.2024

𝟎𝟑: available on 05.17.2024

𝟎𝟒: available on 05.24.2024

𝟎𝟓: available on 05.31.2024

𝟎𝟔: available on 06.07.2024

𝟎𝟕: available on 06.14.2024

+𝟏: available on 06.21.2024

+𝟐: available on 06.28.2024

# AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi! It's been way too long since my last post. Sorry about that! I'm currently earning a doctorate degree in epidemiology, so I haven't had much time to write until now! I've been working on this series for a few weeks, and I'm so excited to finally share it with you :) Thanks for being here, hope you enjoy! ♡, Soojin

[scienceshenanigans]

Hii, I was wondering, in response to your tag on the rate of neurodivergence post, how did you test for the effects of pollution on rates of neurodivergence? Is there a paper you would recommend reading? (Entirely out of interest)

So specifically for my PhD I looked at air pollution exposure during pregnancy as a risk factor for autism, and as part of the background for this project I had to be pretty familiar with the epidemiological literature on this subject. This was over 10 years ago now (lolsob), but even then it was apparent that areas with higher rates of what we call particulate matter air pollution had concurrent increased rates of autism (among other things including ADHD, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's).

At that stage, there were few animal and cell models to substantiate what the epi literature was seeing. Nowadays tho there's many groups looking at this and the animal and cell models by and large corroborate the association in the epi literature (that is, we're moving away from simple correlation to increasing plausibility/causation).

Since particulate matter is a complex mixture of many individual pollutants, the research these days is now focusing on whether it's any of these individual specific components that are driving the changes in brain development (for example, metals, gases, etc.). So far no consensus, but overall the literature agrees that air pollution and particulate matter are indeed risk factors for atypical brain development. Brain development that's happening during pregnancy is (like many other organ systems) more vulnerable to external factors than it would be during later life stages. It's also hypothesized (and supported by a few studies) that pollutants may interact with autism risk genes to result in enhanced risk.

An important note is that pollution exposures often intersect with other risk factors, such as race and socioeconomic status, which in many places can determine where you live (and thus, what you're exposed to).

This is a very simple overview, but I encourage you to check out the following open-access reviews if you're interested to know more:

Costa 2021

Weisskopf 2016

Allen 2018

[colibrie]

Fang AU: Infection

Sooooo this is yet another extension of scene I wrote for the Fang AU created by @trilobitepunch, based on a request from @psychologicalwarclaire. Its starting to become something of a trend for me. Anyway, hope you all enjoy. Props and thanks, as always, to trilobug for letting me play around with her amazing creation, and curly for enabling me.

Hamato Leonardo knew himself to be a turtle of many enviable talents. Out-of-this-world charisma, rugged good looks, hilarious, a tactical mind and a resourceful field medic. The whole package. Except, he was not a scientist. He'd never had the patience or the attention span for fiddly formulas, obsessive note-taking, and tedious repetition needed for an experiment to be successful. As the team’s leader and face man, Leo thrived in the gray, mixing information and spontaneity, tweaking and twisting to ensure the outcome he wanted came to pass. Science was Donnie's world. His egg-headed twin thrived in black and white; relying on repetition, craved clearly defined variables, delighting in percentiles and predictability. That was what balanced them in the end, what made them tick as twins. Brainiac and face man, street smarts and book smarts, innovation and invention.

And maybe that was why he was struggling now, sitting hunched over his secret pile of medical books, scowling as he compared them to the ones April had brought from the library. Squinting at tiny, cramped print as his head pounded, forcing eyes crusted from lack of sleep to open to absorb the paragraphs detailing anatomy, herpetology, and epidemiology, alongside pictures that were various degrees of uselessness. This was Donnie’s world, and maybe he would have enjoyed this torment. Maybe, his twin could make sense of these "viral counts" and "impact percentiles ". Maybe, if his twin weren't strapped to the bed behind him, delirious and writhing in pain, they could have already fixed whatever this thing was.

"Shell," Leo groaned, throwing down his pencil as one hand rose to rub his tired eyes.

He was going to get crow's feet and fine lines from glaring at these useless books, things he could (loudly) tolerate if they were to result in a solution to whatever plaguing their purple brother. But they hadn’t so far. Days of effort, nights of burning well past the midnight oil, and all he had to show for his efforts was a splitting headache and a massive collection of unwashed tea mugs. None of Donnie's symptoms matched with anything detailed in the textbooks, or CDC and WHO websites. Given the creepy level of the lab they'd wreaked, it wasn’t truly that surprising, even if it was frustrating. There was, shockingly, not a lot of published research on mutants, let alone their illnesses or immune systems. But, illnesses didn't just come out of nowhere! He didn't need a fancy piece of paper or a Donnie-level IQ to know that. Whatever was ailing Donnie had to be documented somewhere. But he was a field medic for pizza's sake! He knew how to set bones, sew up cuts, and head off infections. Not cellular biology!

Throwing his hands up in defeat, he slouched back into his desk chair. Maybe Mikey was right. Maybe it was time to call in Draxum, much as Leo would rather eat a bucket of nails or light fire to all his limited-edition JJ comics than say it out loud. Mad scientist psycho or not, the Yokai understood a lot more than Leo did, in this one area anyway. And while they were at it, maybe they’d been looking at things all wrong. If a science-based solution wasn’t available, maybe a mystic solution could help? It would be the most delicious kind of irony, given Donnie’s historic skepticism of anything mystical or magical. Maybe their father could take a trip to the mystic library, or they could send one of the Casey’s to Witch Town. So long as they didn't drop Donnie's name in any conversations it would probably be...

A pained snarl cut through his thoughts, and he whirled the chair around to find Donnie bucking against his restraints, head thrown back in a terrible arc as he gasped for air.

"Whoa! Easy D!" Leo exclaimed, jumping out of his seat to reach for the oxygen mask and tank that April and Casey Jr had kindly "liberated" from April's school following the Krang invasion. "Just keep breathing man, in and out."

His twin hissed in response, pants deepening to a guttural growl as Leo approached and attempted to press the mask over Donnie's nose and mouth.

"Come on man, you're doing great. This is going to help you do even better, so chill out a little and I'll-"

Faster than lightning Donnie struck, neck muscles stretched and strained as he ducked around the mask and sunk his teeth deep into the flesh of Leo's forearm.

"OW!" Leo yelled, the oxygen mask slipping from his fingers as they spasmed open in shock. "Dee, let go!"

Donatello snarled in reply, sharp teeth sinking and shredding as his jaws clamped down on Leo's limb.

"Get…OFF!" Leo bellowed, jamming the thumb of his free hand into the pressure point just behind the soft shell’s jaw. It took way longer than it should have for Donatello’s teeth to release him, too many long, painful seconds before Leo could pull his arm away and stumble back a step from the bed, cradling his injured limb close. Torn flesh burned against the open air, pain licking out from fingertip to elbow while small crimson streams braided into rivers as they raced across his skin to follow gravity to the floor.  

“What the shell?!” Leo snapped, free hand clamping down over the injury as he stumbled towards the cabinet that held their stock of bandages. Donnie hissed again in reply, and Leo had to fight the urge to cringe away from the way his blood smeared across his brothers lips and chin, the way it painted his sharp teeth when said lips peeled back in a snarl. Dark eyes followed every jerky move as he fumbled with trying to disinfect and wrap the wound with one hand, breaths hitching as the pain in his arm built, creeping like the most agonizing ivy towards his shoulder. Slitted predator pupils zeroed in one the…wait…Donnie didn’t have slitted pupils. None of them did. Their eyes had always been human…

“What the…”

He didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. Between one breath and the next the pain exploded, lancing up his neck and spearing deep into his chest. His jaw snapped shut around a cry as every nerve in his body seemed to simultaneously go up in flames, numb and useless legs folding like a house of cards as he hit the concrete floor of the med bay. He tried to break his fall, but his body failed to respond to any desperate command his brain tried to send. He tried to call for help, or maybe just scream, but his lungs couldn’t pull in the air he needed. He was trapped, a silently writhing vessel slowly filling up with pain.

 Words dissolved. Not just words, but the very concept of speaking drained away, skewered by pain and caught by an strange continuous croon that kept pulling him in. Dragging him down, down, down, a silent and deadly riptide wrapped around his ankles. It hurt... it hurt...

Hurt. Pain! Painpainpainpain! Scared. Alone. Alonealonealonealon-

Here.

The crooning grew louder, building and rebounding until it vibrated in his bone marrow. It rushed in to smother his scalded tissues, knitting into his nervous system. It was all around him. It was him.

Fear!

Here.

Fearpain!

Comprehend. Herecomfort.

Here? Comfort?

Affirmation. Herecomfort. Heretogether.

Together…

Like a lighthouse in a storm the notion split through the chaos, neatly severing his mind from the inferno still warping his flesh and bones. It reeled him in, no longer a rip tide but a now a much welcomed life line that he clung to. The crooning became a pleasant hum in his mind, stripping away the burden of thought and feeling, wrapping his synapsis in cotton wool before pressing him down, down, down…

 He was not alone.

No

They did not need fear.   

Never

They were…

Together.

Like a key in a lock it fell into place, cemented and unshakable as the very cosmos themselves. For a while all they could do was be, ignoring bodies that distantly stilled their writhing. Together ran in an unending circuit between them, euphorically triumphant as each rebound grew louder and louder.

Togethertogethertogethertogethertogethertogether.

Togetherhappy!

Agreed. Togetherhappy. Togethercomplete.

Completecomplete…Complete…Complete?

Like a grain of sand in an oyster, the question grew, streaking their prior enthusiasm with jagged lines of frenetic frustration.

Not complete.

Not complete!

Need…Needwhat?

Needmore…moretogether…

Moretogether. Moretogether! Moremoremoremore….

Whatmore?

Compute…

Like a flower blossoming in double time an image appeared before them. Red and green. Green and Orange. Silver-Brown. Smooth scales, soft fur. Love…Family…

Family…

Familytogether.

Needfamilytogether!

As though by invisible cue, two familiar scents hit their noses, bodies inhaling synchronously. Red and orange. Close. They needed them. They needed to complete together. They needed to-

Needsearch.

Needbite.

Bitebitebitebite!

They both froze a new scent hit their noses. Sweeter than Red and Orange. Warmer. Softer…

Human.

Slitted eyes opening simultaneously, the world kaleidoscope into prisms as they looked at each other from above and below. Humans. Humans were near together. Unacceptable.

Hunt. Kill.

They rose from the floor on silent legs, making their way to sever the ties that held them bound to the bed.

Seek. Bite.

They rose, bodies fluid and soundless as the slunk into the gloom beyond the door. Their objectives were clear. It was time.

Go.

[spookyshadows303]

note how abed and another character do a han/leia bit in the series twice. first time is with troy, and it references a very overtly romantic scene, but the show was probably like. But this could mean nothing. and the hetero fandom was like that too probably. then, annie and abed do a similar thing and it’s played as a joke but also blatant ship tease. therefore, if people can use the paintball kiss between abed and annie to validate that ship, i sure as hell can use the epidemiology scene to make a case for trobed.