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MarkH

@markhoofnagle.medsky.social

3.3K followers 720 following 4.7K posts

Trauma Surgeon. Basic Scientist. UVA/UMD/UPenn. Now WashU/STL. Blocking is curating.

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · Nov 12

So I decided to contribute.

People here are skeptical thinkers from a variety of fields not just medicine - including law, journalism and academia.

Let me know who I missed. go.bsky.app/P8Vnf7M

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 7h

Did a deep dive to find there is some 45K gallons of tritiated water, a beta-source, they intend to dump over years into a system that moves 14.1 million gallons per hour.

I think we’re gonna be fine.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 7h

I have been blocked from a discussion by fucking morons because I pointed out the real risk of accumulation of radioisotopes in the environment is from tons of aerosolized material from fossil fuel combustion, not miniscule exposures from nuclear power.

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 7h

Yeah that chapter has nothing to do with this. So, kindly fuck off with fearmongering.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 7h

Trace accumulation of radionucleotides in a water system then diluted by 300x that volume per hour?

The real environmental threat continues to be fossil fuel combustion. The fearmongering around radiation is irrational as shit.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 7h

At what level? The release of tiny amounts of a beta emitter is not particularly concerning.

Just deep dived into this and the 45k gallons are dwarfed by the volume of the system and this is a tempest in a teapot when the hudson discharges 14.1 million gallons per hour.

Reposted by MarkH

Sage Divinorum 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · Mar 7

Gavin Newsom trying to impress Charlie Kirk, an incel who “owns the libs” by wearing diapers at colleges:

The Norman Osborn “something of a scientist myself” meme, except it’s Gavin Newsom & he’s saying “You know, I'm something of a transphobic creep myself.”

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 9h

You get more radiation exposure from cinderblocks, or a plane flight than you would in a year of exposure.

But kudos for recognizing the extremely subtle exception to the rule…

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 9h

Yes. But so few people have that depth of understanding that exposure to radiation (without like actual particle accelerator stuff or neutrons like you mention) doesn’t make stuff radioactive. Same attitude about microwaves. In comparison to fossil fuel combustion it’s infinitessimal.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 9h

They’re going to take out WONDER next. Count on it. We wont be able to see how they’re killing us anymore if we don’t aggregate the death certificate data. They’ll be able to kill us in the dark and outside of effective state public health (California and a few others) no one will be able to tell.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 9h

The Simpsons unfortunately is responsible for such an unscientific view of nuclear as to be absurd and it’s probably hopeless at this point. The cooling water is not itself radioactive and isn’t exposed to the fuel. This scientific ignorance on both sides is going to doom us all.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 10h

But that isn’t whats happening here. The water isn’t radioactive it’s just used by the plant for steam power/cooling.

Coal, for example, actually releases radiation in the atmosphere due to aerosolization of trace radionucleotides during combustion (and lead and mercury) which then bioaccumulate.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 10h

This is antinuclear fearmongering. Nuclear plants use water to cool the reaction and make steam which drives the turbines, but this does not make it radioactive. That’s not how any of this works. Radiological water is just a fearminfering term.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 10h

Honestly coal plants put much more radiation into the atmosphere by aerosolizing coal combustion byproducts. The water that comes out of a nuclear plant is safe as houses. It’s not radioactive any more than water you microwave. That’s not how radiation works.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 10h

But this is bullshit right? “Radiological water”? Power plants dont make the water radioactive. This was just the cooling water for the reactor. It’s environmental threat is essentially zero. It’s paywalled so I can’t be sure but this seems to be radiophobia.

Reposted by MarkH

Doc Revan @docrevan.bsky.social · 1d

I think the counter argument to “Ellison and Weiss will turn CBS News into an unstoppable propaganda machine” is Bezos’s WaPo which lost basically all the talent and also is in a subscription death spiral

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 17h

Do they promise? That sounds like a voluntary reduction in force that would save millions of dollars while simultaneously ridding the NYPD of its most unprofessional officers.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 17h

"IRB oversight"

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

They have good reason to do this. There is a dramatic signal in maternal and infant mortality related to antiabortion measures. They want to be anle to kill us in the dark.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

I suspect their next target will be data collection of death certificate results. The way they will hide the real world harms of policy will be to end CDC WONDER. That would make it nearly impossible to track the codes on death certificates that allow us to identify geographic and temporal trends.

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

This also means that our scientific journals and peer reviewers must automatically reject any attempt to publish anything from CDC as they will be in violation of the most basic norms of scientific conduct. Operating without an IRB is a nonstarter.

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

So they fired the IRB.

Conducting research without IRB research is inherently unethical and is unmonitored human experimentation. This is against 100 years of scientific tradition developed in response to human rights abuse by science like Tuskegee or Mengele. They can no longer ethically operate.

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 19h

The entire HR department at the CDC is gone. Everyone at the IRB, which makes sure studies are conducted ethically and rigorously, and the ethics office, which oversee conflicts of interest for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

‘Instability and confusion’ as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half

Trump administration says 700 notices were sent in error, while top CDC officer says ‘they didn’t think through what they were doing’

www.theguardian.com

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

Bezos has successfully killed it in my opinion. I wouldn’t trust it to report the wrather.

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18h

Tells me the locals have given up on it. And it’s a stunning collapse over 5 years. Over 60% drop is a cratering trajectory. And (massive grain of salt) fox news reports 90% drops in daily online readership, and we know they lost 200k in one week after Harris snub.

www.foxnews.com/media/washin...

Washington Post’s daily digital reader base shrunk during Biden years by nearly 90%, internal data reveals

New internal datas revealed that The Washington Post's daily online readership has plummeted throughout the time of the Biden administration.

www.foxnews.com

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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 1d

We are in a doom loop of oligarchs and narcissists circlejerking each other into oblivion.

MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 1d

She’s objectively garbage. She’s bad at journalism. She says easily falsifiable things with confidence. She talks big and delivers small. And now she’s in charge of CBS and probably thinks, at 29, she somehow deserves this rather than simply conveniently cowtowing to oligarchs.

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