Adam W Gaffney @awgaffney Twitter profile

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

This looks like a straightforward assault on a Harvard student — is the university taking this seriously? It’s interesting that people are instead discussing the propriety of interrupting or using curse words as part of a political protest.

Jarvis

@jarvis_best

4 months

Hahahahahaha I keep saying you can just throw these guys around like nothing, it’s easy hahaha

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Federal coverage for COVID-19 treatment and testing for the uninsured ends today. Coverage for vaccine administration for the uninsured ends in about two weeks. The rationing of COVID-care by ability to pay begins.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The depiction of the Empire in Andor as not just a big bad mean dictatorship but as a sprawling colonial and commercial enterprise — positioned over a powerful but ultimately subordinate corporate quasi-state — is so much more interesting than its portrayal elsewhere in Star Wars

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

What possible explanation could there be for the fact that this prominent surgeon — 50 years old and working at the time he was swept up by the IDF in Gaza — died in an Israeli prison?

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

According to the new CBO report, under single-payer, we could cover ~100% of the population, make medical services free at point of use, and expand benefits — without spending a dollar more. And healthcare providers would still do perfectly well.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

An important new study is out. Baseline findings from the NIH's longitudinal, intramural Long COVID study — perhaps the most detailed, controlled, comprehensive investigation of multiple health metrics in this setting thus far conducted — were just published in @AnnalsIM A🧵 1/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Two weeks ago, settlers attacked a village in the West Bank. Medics evacuated two villagers who were shot. IDF soldiers then fired into their ambulance, sirens wailing, on the way to the hospital, killing its volunteer driver.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The CBO estimates that under a M4A system w/long-term care, people would have annual out-of-pocket spending averaging: -$6 for hospital care -$84 for doctors / clinicians -$13 for prescription drugs -$0 for long-term care. -$152 for "other services" (e.g. OTC drugs)

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

If the United Kingdom could enact the National Health Service amidst the rubble and ruin and austerity of the post World War II moment, the United States can enact Medicare for All in the midst of the COVID-19 recession. The notion that we “can’t afford it” is a lie.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

This is absolutely the wrong framework. The question is not: “What is my personal risk from Covid?” It is: “How can we save as many lives as possible through collective action?”

David Leonhardt

@DLeonhardt

3 years

Covid now presents the sort of risk to most vaccinated people that we unthinkingly accept in other parts of life. And Covid isn’t going to disappear. In many ways, the future has arrived. So which precautions should stay and which should go? 🧵

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Absolutely horrifying reports on the COVID pandemic in India. We should be diverting vaccine stock to India now. Patents should be disregarded and technology transferred as needed to maximize global vaccine production everywhere.

‘The system has collapsed’: India’s descent into Covid hell

Many falsely believed that the country had defeated Covid. Now hospitals are running out of oxygen and bodies are stacking up in morgues

www.theguardian.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I don't have much to add about the CDC guidelines to what's already been said. If it is safe to reduce isolation time it should be supported by copious references that haven't been offered. It should not be to placate business interests that want their employees back at work.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Maybe surprising, but IMHE now estimates that about 4/5 people in Japan have had COVID-19 at least once (vs. almost 100% in the US). Yet US death toll is 8-fold higher — which is explainable by **when** people were infected: pre- vs. post- vaccination.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Went to the Harvard encampment today. Chatted with some students — all very thoughtful, polite. The scene was entirely peaceful; nothing objectionable. More to the point: we should be proud that students are taking a stand against this ongoing nihilistic violence.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Within a few months, it is quite possible that nearly everyone (who wants it) may be vaccinated — and with an incredibly efficacious vaccine. If there was ever a time to close non-essential workplaces and pay the workers to stay home from work it is now.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Idea of using vaccination status as a factor in the rationing of ICU beds has zero ethical (even utilitarian) merit, honestly not worth engaging with.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Probably the most successful pandemic-related medical care policy in the US was direct federal government procurement of vaccinations & strictly free provision. In contrast, expanding access to Covid testing was done VIA INSURANCE COMPANIES and has been so screwed up.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The US booster campaign, insofar as it can be called a campaign, has been a failure. This isn’t about hesitancy — this is a failure of our medical care system & public health response. We’ve boosted ~half the share of adults as UK or Germany.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

Forcefully shoving a person into the ground can, sometimes, cause serious injuries. This isn’t a game. I hope responsible people in administration are investigating this assault seriously.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Periodic reminder that, today, if an uninsured person gets hospitalized for COVID, they could go bankrupt from medical bills. The lifeline that covered Covid care for the uninsured has mostly been cut.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Vaccinating children against Covid-19 is a no-brainer. It doesn’t matter that the risk of Covid for children is very low on an individual level. The point is that when 70 million children are infected, rare adverse effects translate to appalling, horrifying loss of life.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I support dramatic public health interventions in hard hit areas to slow Covid (and buy time to vaccinate everyone possible) but I strongly dislike this irresponsible mode of reporting which will scare the shit out of every parent with a kid with a cold.

‘This Is Really Scary’: Kids Struggle With Long Covid (Published 2021)

Lingering physical, mental and neurological symptoms are affecting children as well as adults, including many who had mild reactions to the initial coronavirus infection.

www.nytimes.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

You probably heard: "We don't know if COVID-19 vaccination protects against transmission." It's an odd statement! Presumably what is meant is: "It almost certainly protects against transmission, but we don't know by exactly how much, and we do know it's less than 100%."

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Or worse - people have lost eyes and even their lives from these projectiles. I don’t think it’s hyperbolical to say that we are not yet fully grasping the enormity of what is transpiring across the country.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

We should be devoting enormous resources right now into outreach, advertising, & scheduling of COVID-19 boosters for the elderly especially. You shouldn’t be able to turn on the damn TV now without a thoughtful, slickly-produced reminder about the importance of boosting.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

It’s time for hospitals to liberalize visitation policies. It’s not justifiable in the current environment - visitation is a right, not a privilege, that can only be refused when absolutely necessitated by circumstances.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Long Covid is not any one thing, I write in @TheAtlantic . I discuss its many varieties; its association with medical conditions like heart attacks; the potential role of psychosocial strain; and ways to reduce suffering now.

What Doctors Still Don’t Understand About Long COVID

Even mild COVID-19 is at least correlated with a startlingly wide spectrum of seemingly every illness. We need a much better taxonomy to address people’s suffering.

www.theatlantic.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

This show may prove better than anything else in the Star Wars universe / money generator since the original two movies

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

That only 1% of people in low-income nations have gotten a COVID vaccine is the vaccine story that really matters — not whether one new analysis found that Pfizer vaccine effectiveness against severe illness from delta variant is 94%, not 97%.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

We should be ramping up a primary care-based, universal medical care response to Covid-19. Instead we’re pulling out the rug from under our medical measures — even as we discard public health interventions.

Dan Diamond

@ddiamond

2 years

- Ending free testing, treatment for uninsured - Rationing monoclonal antibodies - No variant-specific vaccines Covid money has run dry, nervous officials say. “This is real. It’s very important that people understand the implications,” one told The Post

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

So many people struggle to comprehend just how nihilistic the violence inflicted upon Gaza will prove to be. Hamas will survive & regroup; Israel will withdraw. Enormous numbers of people including thousands of small children will have been blown up for utterly nothing.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

20 days

We have simply no idea how many people have been killed like this — by the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure & many of its medical professionals.

Dave Zirin

@EdgeofSports

20 days

The first Palestinian to ever compete at the Olympics (1996), long distance runner Majed Abu Maraheel has been killed by the Israeli blockade of Gaza, unable to receive medical treatment for kidney failure. We should all look forward to this story being covered on @SportsCenter

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The linked article is bunk, but it well illustrates an evolving discourse about this virus: it “progressively weakens its host population”; it’s “sowing chaos in western societies already dancing a tango with political collapse” “The word diabolical comes to mind,” they write.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The Democrats have won the trifecta. This is a time for bold and sweeping change — and remember, we don’t know how long this window will remain open. Time for a grand push for Medicare for All.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Every claim thus far that such and such a population has “reached herd immunity” is incorrect. That’s why we keep seeing surge after surge. What is true is that partial population immunity changes the threshold at which behavioral change produces a plummet in cases ....

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

This is part of "getting back to normal": earlier in the pandemic, most insurers waived copays/deductibles for COVID-19 care, but not any more. Average out-of-pocket cost for privately-insured is now ~$4000 a hospitalization.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

It’s hard to overstate the urgency of redistribution of the global supply of (incredibly effective!) COVID vaccines (and expanding production using all feasible means including technology transfer). This is such a glaring and deadly manifestation of global inequality.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

To summarize, there was a large burden of symptoms & worse mental health post-COVID (particularly among those with PASC) but no difference in objective neurocognition, & no evidence of "ongoing systemic inflammation or immune activation" or any organ damage. Some caveats: 13/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The ivermectin hypers are effectively an anti-vaccination-contingent dressed in anti-parasite-drug-enthusiast clothing. Regardless of final word on ivermectin (currently not promising), they have convinced many that ivermectin is a safe alternative to vaccination - killing many.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

Blaming the pandemic on individuals' behavioral choices is the ultimate dodge for politicians — a way to evade responsibility for policy failures.

News 8 WROC

@News_8

4 years

Gov. Cuomo on following COVID-19 rules: "If you’re socially distant, and you wore a mask, and you were smart, none of this would be a problem — it's all self imposed. If you didn't eat the cheesecake you wouldn't have a weight problem."

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

It is an utterly wild yet uncontested fact that the severe police repression unleashed on UCLA students inclusive of rubber bullets (which can kill) was justified by … violence unleashed by anti-Palestinian “counterprotestors” against those very students the night before !!

Corinne Low

@femonomics

2 months

Statement from UCLA Hillel makes clear violence was initiated by pro-Israel outsiders. "We can not have a clearer ask for the off-campus Jewish community: stay off our campus. Do not fund any actions on campus. Do not protest on campus. Your actions are harming Jewish students."

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Absolutely. A university calling in the police to arrest its own students engaged in a peaceful encampment is completely beyond the pale, and speaks to the escalating McCarythism of this moment — on and off campus. It also sets a terrible precedent.

James Brandt

@j_e_brandt

3 months

For context, when Occupy Harvard occurred in 2011, Drew Faust allowed the encampment to persist for six weeks, at which point the group voluntarily disbanded. The decision to call in the NYPD here should be seen as extreme and unnecessary.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

I’d also like some more follow up from this @thecrimson reporting:. “A Harvard University police officer ordered the protesters to leave the Kennedy School campus, and the protesters complied,” the spokesperson said.” But what of the response to the assailant?

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

There should not be a debate here: by not waiving patents and transferring technology, we are putting the financial prerogatives of drug firms above the value of an enormous number of lives worldwide.

Pressure Mounts to Lift Patent Protections on Coronavirus Vaccines (Published 2021)

President Biden and drugmakers are facing demands from liberal activists and global leaders to suspend intellectual property rights on the vaccines as the pandemic surges.

www.nytimes.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Utterly frightening - officers just assailing downed protestors with closed-fist blows to the upper body or head.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

1 month

I have an article in @thenation on the Gaza death count “controversy”: whatever uncertainties there may be, it is clear that it is civilians who are overwhelmingly the victims of the Israeli military - and highly probable that the actual death toll is even worse than reported.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The enactment of this Texas abortion ban law, which allows *anybody* to sue anyone who is in anyway involved in helping a person obtain an abortion after just 6 weeks of pregnancy, is a public health emergency.

ACLU

@ACLU

3 years

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has not responded to our emergency request to block Texas’ radical new 6-week abortion ban, SB8. The law now takes effect. Access to almost all abortion has just been cut off for millions of people. The impact will be immediate and devastating.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Disappointing to see so many of my physician colleagues at Harvard Medical School sign on to this letter amidst the indefensible destruction of Gazan hospitals, the killing of so many of its doctors, the infliction of starvation as a policy of war, and other atrocities.

The Harvard Crimson

@thecrimson

2 months

More than 180 Harvard faculty urged interim University President Alan M. Garber ’76 and interim Provost John F. Manning ’82 to end the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard in an open letter. @tillyrobin and @neilhshah15 report.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

We had almost two years to build an adequate national Covid testing infrastructure that could respond to surges and provide rapid-turn around results. The impediment to achieving this was never technological or logistical — it has been the lack of necessary political will.

uché blackstock, md

@uche_blackstock

3 years

The testing situation in Brooklyn is getting worse and becoming untenable. This morning, there are very long lines. It’s 40 degrees and windy. There are elderly, people with disabilities, and young children waiting. People are wrapped in blankets and sitting in folding chairs.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Declining case counts in Massachusetts are not reflected in what we are seeing in the ICU at present. I just came off a very busy call weekend. We are continuing to see many patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia progressing to acute respiratory failure.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 months

Pfizer's EPIC-SR study is (finally) published (what took this so long?). 1: Primary finding: No benefit from Paxlovid on symptom alleviation among vaccinated or unvaccinated people.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

For-profit entities should not be involved in the delivery of healthcare. Healthcare is simply too important to be left to profit-maximizing corporations that, far too often, put revenue generation above the prerogative of patient care.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

A national vaccine mandate for airlines travel would have been a wonderful thing to have in place for, you know, the time of year when enormous numbers of people fly across the country.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Lack of a universal, single-tier, integrated, primary-care-centric healthcare system is clearly an important driver of inadequate COVID vaccination uptake in the US — yet this is gets so little attention in the ongoing "pandemic response" debate, even though it also ties in...

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I'm as enthusiastic a COVID vaccine proponent as you will find, but it is egregiously unethical to threaten those on probation w/ literal prison for declining vaccine. The headline: "Get a Covid-19 Vaccine or Face Prison, Judges Order in Probation Cases"

Get a Covid-19 Vaccine or Face Prison, Judges Order in Probation Cases (Published 2021)

At least two judges in Ohio have made receiving Covid-19 vaccinations a condition of probation. While judges have leeway in setting such rules, it’s a murky area, experts said.

www.nytimes.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

This is enraging. If it it possible for vaccine production to be boosted by simply using production facilities of other companies, why wasn't this already done — and why aren't we using every possible production facility already?

Sanofi to Make Millions of BioNTech-Pfizer Vaccine Doses

Sanofi agreed to produce millions of doses of BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc.’s coronavirus vaccine in an unusual collaboration to speed vaccination efforts.

www.bloomberg.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Notably, post-COVID patients were much more likely to have high anxiety scores and depression scores, particularly anxiety with PASC. How about evidence of persistent inflammation or infection post-COVID? 10/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

@thecrimson The @harvard community deserves answers.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

I'll have many more thoughts on this analysis soon, but the bottom line is clear. Any healthcare reform other than single-payer will either have higher costs or skimpier benefits than single-payer.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The hypothesis that a mild upper respiratory tract infection - even if caused by a new virus - causes a chronic dementing illness in children is a sweeping, massive, frightening claim. It is unlikely to my mind, given what we know about mild upper respiratory tract infections …

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 months

@OwenJones84 This is also a jaw-dropping detail from that report :

Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 months

Retired military officer who led Israel's investigation into World Central Kitchen strike... *** Is the CEO of the defense firm that makes the drone missiles used in the strike ! *** This could never make it into a movie script --- far too on-the-nose.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Those who support sub-universal health coverage, or the imposition of financial barriers for healthcare access, are rarely if ever asked to provide evidence to support their positions, whether from the prospective of health or economics.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

We spend an enormous amount of money on the processing of medical bills in this country (one study found 25% of total payment to hospitals for an ER visit was consumed by the cost of processing the bill), and it's nothing but waste — a giant pile of money just set on fire.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

As I argue in this short editorial for The Nation, we should be expanding social supports and pandemic response measures as the Omicron wave fills our ICUs — instead, we are letting them collapse.

The Nation

@thenation

2 years

Out now—ICU doctor @awgaffney reports on the new wave of Covid:

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

We should fight for healthcare that is free at point of service. Imposing payments serves two purposes, both harmful. First, ideologically, it reinforces the notion that healthcare is a commodity. Second, practically, it distributes the use of services by means, not needs.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

One final point. There's only one reason why this debate really matters, and that's improving treatment for these patients.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The US Covid vaccination campaign has been a failure. While some may point to unique right-wing anti-vaxx politicization, that does not explain it fully. Health systems factors are almost certainly a major factor — how else can we explain massive underperformance on boosters?

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 months

Retired military officer who led Israel's investigation into World Central Kitchen strike... *** Is the CEO of the defense firm that makes the drone missiles used in the strike ! *** This could never make it into a movie script --- far too on-the-nose.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

Nearly 3 of 4 young children in Gaza have diarrhea according to this estimate — 23-fold higher than the pre-conflict rate! Apart from the bombs and missiles, a staggering number of children are going to be killed by this man-made humanitarian crisis.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Disappointing that although major outlets have done big stories on some sketchy preprints, anecdotes, and uncontrolled studies on this issue, when a big provocative population-based study comes out that goes against the grain of current paradigms, there is nearly zero coverage.

Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

A new study at @JAMAInternalMed finds that protracted symptoms are not independently associated with evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection ascertained serologically (except loss of sense of smell), but is associated with belief in having had COVID.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

This Thursday, @SenSanders is holding a hearing on Medicare for All in the Budget Committee. I’m excited to testify alongside @AbdulElSayed & @NNUBonnie . The need for fundamental healthcare reform has never been so urgent.

Medicare for All: Protecting Health, Saving Lives, Saving Money

The Official U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget

www.budget.senate.gov

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I've lost track of the # of patients I've seen in the ICU with downstream consequences of untreated hypertension (e.g. heart failure, renal failure) because of lack/loss of health insurance. Achieving national health insurance should be regarded as an urgent national emergency.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The “catastrophic moral crime” is that we haven’t do more to save the lives of over 860,000 people, not that we did too much.

John Ziegler

@Zigmanfreud

2 years

If, like me, you have been longing for a prominent woke liberal, other than Bill Maher, to finally have the scales fall from their eyes & see the total insanity that has been the response to COVID especially in schools, you’ll want to watch this clip of @bariweiss several times!!

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I don’t think any of my critically-ill (all unvaccinated) Covid patients have been “anti-vaxx”. There are many barriers and obstacles to vaccination for so many, especially those in oppressed groups. I have zero interest in the patient-blaming “shame the unvaccinated” discourse

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The FDA should cancel the Whole Foods’ Lung Quackery section

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

On the other hand, numerous biomarkers showed no difference between those post-COVID and controls, including tests for: (1) general inflammation (e.g. CRP) (2) autoimmunity (e.g. ANA) (3) clotting abnormality (e.g. d-dimer) (4) heart inflammation (e.g. troponin) 5/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

Notable that one of the leading physician advocates for using ivermectin for COVID-19, Paul Marik, was once also convinced that he had cured sepsis with a combination of vitamins and steroids — a finding not replicated once a randomized trial was actually performed. /Thread

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@awgaffney

2 years

Havana Syndrome is no more mysterious than chronic symptom complexes without clear source experienced by substantial proportion of the globe What is likely, however, is that credulous reporting that these symptoms were inflicted by invisible weapons impedes recovery for patients

Josh Lederman

@JoshNBCNews

2 years

NEWS: CIA interim report says Havana Syndrome isn't result of a sustained global campaign by an adversary to harm 100s of Americans. Report says US focused on subset of cases where they can't rule out a foreign actor. Exclusive from @KenDilanianNBC & me

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

@RepThomasMassie Not only that, a disproportionate share of ALL deaths occur among Medicare-eligible individuals. Really makes you think

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The case for vaccine requirements for air travel is similar to the case for banning smoking on planes. Public safety justification is obvious; distancing is impossible; helps protect workers. As important, there would be a big bang for the buck.

Mark D. Levine

@MarkLevineNYC

3 years

Now would be an exceedingly good moment for the U.S. to finally start requiring vaccination and a negative test to get on a domestic flight.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 months

@thecrimson

Climate Protester Thrown to the Ground After Interrupting Joe Manchin’s Harvard IOP Talk | News |...

Climate Protester Thrown to the Ground After Interrupting Joe Manchin’s Harvard IOP Talk | News | The Harvard Crimson

www.thecrimson.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

I want to make the argument that virtually 100% of healthcare "overutilization" is in fact "overprovision" — more specifically, it is what an economist would term "supplier-induced demand" for useless or near useless procedures or drugs. Why? 1/5

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

1 year

It’s remarkable to me that ostensible adults are unable to understand that societies can elect to make certain things free-at-point-of-use (parks, schools, healthcare, libraries, etc.) while also paying for the cost of production inclusive of good reimbursement to workers.

Libertarian Party NH 🦔

@LPNH

1 year

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

I support a shutdown. If we slow pandemic spread, even temporarily, we buy some time to: 1. Vaxx more unvaccinated; 2. Boost more of the vulnerable; 3. Upscale antiviral infrastructure; And thereby save many lives. But restrictions have to be accompanied by social supports.

Andrew Goldstein

@AndrewMakeTweet

3 years

If a 2-3 week, $2,000 paid shutdown right now would save 50,000 lives, would you support it?

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

We slashed child poverty **during** a pandemic and economic downturn — and could do it again now. An absolute travesty that this was allowed to die

The Expanded Child Tax Credit Is Gone. The Battle Over It Remains. (Published 2022)

A pandemic-era program that sent monthly checks of up to $300 per child to most families drove down poverty rates. Amid new research about its merits, some Democrats are vowing to bring it back.

www.nytimes.com

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

I have zero tolerance for patient blaming when unvaccinated people suffer, even die from Covid. A host of factors contribute to failure to be vaccinated, from propaganda to oppressive social structures. The profiteering purveyors of that propaganda, however, are rightly vilified.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

4 years

If you also add, as we should, universal long term care with no out-of-pocket costs, you'd spend about ~$300 billion more a year on healthcare altogether, they estimate — but we'd have a free-at-point-of-use system with comprehensive benefits for all, including long-term care.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 months

Fascinating that universities cow-towed to a guy who tweets about how he can't decide whether to vote for fascistic Trump or hair-brained conspiracy-nut RFK.

Bill Ackman

@BillAckman

2 months

One of our most important civic obligations is participating in the political process and deciding whom to vote for in our upcoming presidential election. By now everyone seems to think that this election is a two-horse race, and many have complained about the options. I think

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

No. Attacks of any sort — much less from a hypothesized “directed energy” weapon — remain a profoundly unlikely explanation for the development of complexes of non-specific symptoms among US officials around the globe, including outside a Trader Joe’s in a Virginia suburb.

Washington Post Opinions

@PostOpinions

3 years

Nearly five years after it began, someone and something is still causing serious injury to U.S. officials abroad, the Editorial Board writes:

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

The doctor in charge of the COVID response at Gaza’s principal hospital was killed in an airstrike along with many members of his family. “Dr Abu al-Ouf was buried under the rubble for almost 12 hours, but was alive for five to six hours,” per the BBC.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

(5) Kidney function (6) Liver function (7) Blood levels (8) Brain injury (neurofilament light chains) Next, they report lung function tests. Again, no differences, unsurprising given that the post-COVID patients mostly did not have severe pneumonia which damages the lungs. 6/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

The investigators identified few pre-COVID-19 risk factors for PASC, e.g. a history of an anxiety disorder. In contrast, there were no correlations between any of the diagnostic tests and the presence of PASC. 8/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

There were no differences in neurocognitive testing between the groups, e.g. in processing speed, episodic memory, or executive functioning. However, quality of life, both physical and in terms of mental health, was much lower post-COVID compared to controls. 9/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 months

A horrifying human rights violation is underway and it behooves every single one of us to do what we can to stop or mitigate it.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

Vilifying unvaccinated people undercuts solidarity and lets policymakers off the hook. The unvaccinated are victims — of propaganda, circumstance, or both. Nobody who is informed and who has choices willingly embraces a high risk of an untimely death for literally nothing.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

First, while it is a uniquely detailed study, it is not large, so in no way rules out rare post-COVID side effects (e.g. heart attack or stroke instigated by acute inflammation) Second, this is mostly about non-hospitalized COVID patients. In the ICU, COVID-19 causes the lungs..

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

In terms of heart function, assessed with ultrasound: Again, no differences between post-COVID subjects and controls. There was no difference in percent with low oxygen levels either. There was a distance in walk distance over 6-minutes compared to controls: 560m vs. 595m. 7/

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

3 years

People want a return to normalcy, but the simple fact is >1000 people are dying in the US every day from Covid, and cases are again on the rise. We should be talking about doing more — not less — to save as many lives as possible.

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

@gillespie_ian @opinonhaver To an extent, but far less explicitly and vividly I think - and indeed some of same team behind them

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Adam W Gaffney

@awgaffney

2 years

In clinic I still talk to patients with chronic lung disease (!) who have not had a booster, not because of entrenched anti-vax ideology but for the usual, varied reasons that we ALL procrastinate ... A renewed, national vaccination/booster campaign is needed now.

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