A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org

I've officially moved to @BE @zeroes.ca

Yes, I had to put a space in that because even typing out that would lead to an error that wouldn't let it post.

I'd like to point out to anyone who thinks that "you do you" public health is sustainable that it's illegal to wear a mask in many public places in the US. This has only been on hold because of the emergency declaration and that's about to end.

For example, let me introduce you to my local law in Florida. Florida State statute 876.12:

Wearing mask, hood, or other device on public way.—No person or persons over 16 years of age shall, while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter upon, or be or appear upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, highway, or other public way in this state.

This law was pointed out to my wife by a law enforcement officer who really wanted to arrest her for wearing a mask in a grocery store last year.

If you think you're going to be able to avoid COVID after the end of the emergency declaration you'd better be a full on hermit who never has to venture out.

I follow a lot of people. 1,878 as of this morning. I also don't engage in any other social media. Never have, never intend to. Pretty much every other social media domain is blocked at our firewall level. I only looked at twitter(as it was called at the time) in December of 2019, for the first time in my life, to try to get fast breaking COVID news, and have access to scientists who would be ahead of the knowledge curve.

I'm only really here for one reason. To get good info, synthesize it, and redistribute it, often in different words, when I think it'll be helpful. Despite some truly "delightful" DMs I've received recently, I have no ulterior motive. No one's forcing you to believe that, and I take it as a badge of honor to be blocked, so, knock yourself out if you're so inclined.

I'm asking everyone, particularly scientists, to be careful with your words. There's been palatable rising tensions here in 2024. Some of it has to do with science(H5N1, WHO airborne) some of it doesn't(politics), but it's real.

I have seen some truly awful H5N1 takes as things ramp up. Particularly this morning. Nuance matters. If you want to be a prognosticator, be clear. "I think" or "I believe" instead of launching into what you want to say.

Here's a few things I've seen that should be discussed carefully:

- Pasteurization is completely effective against H5N1.

Here's what the FDA says about that:

The FDA believes the pasteurization process is “very likely” to inactivate H5N1, though they acknowledged that no studies have been done to test that.

Here's someone who knows better:

“Daniel Perez, an influenza researcher at the University of Georgia, is doing his own test tube study of pasteurization of milk spiked with a different avian influenza virus. The fragile lipid envelope surrounding influenza viruses should make them vulnerable, he says. Still, he wonders whether the commonly used “high temperature, short time” pasteurization, which heats milk to about 72°C for 15 or 20 seconds, is enough to inactivate all the virus in a sample.”

- It's already spreading person to person across the US.

The only reference I can find that would lead to that conclusion would be this:

"Only one human case linked to cattle has been confirmed to date, and symptoms were limited to conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. But Russo and many other vets have heard anecdotes about workers who have pink eye and other symptoms—including fever, cough, and lethargy—and do not want to be tested or seen by doctors. James Lowe, a researcher who specializes in pig influenza viruses, says policies for monitoring exposed people vary greatly between states. “I believe there are probably lots of human cases,” he says, noting that most likely are asymptomatic."

Or, perhaps in conjunction with this:

"The genetic sequence from the human case, which occurred on an unidentified farm in Texas, is sufficiently different from the cattle sequences that it can’t be easily linked to them, he said. The differences suggest that the individual was either infected in a separate event — maybe not via a cow, but through contact with infected wild birds — or that there might have been another line of viruses in cattle early on and it has since died out."

I don't want to belabor the point, and I don't want to call out anyone. I just felt the need, after scrolling through my timeline this morning, to point out that language matters. Be careful. Don't spread misinformation. If you want to prognosticate, go ahead, but be clear it's your opinion. Your magic internet points don't matter.

I've alluded to the fact that I spent many years working on a nation-wide(US) water testing project once and that I don't own the results, they were never published, and I can't specifically give away those results that I don't own. All of this recent talk about PFAs in water is absolutely killing me. This new water testing is going to take place over the next three years, and it's important to note that it's *only* talking about a handful of chemicals.

I've found that particularly US-based people really think their water is great and vastly overestimate how great it is. It comes out of the tap, you drink it and you don't die of waterborne illnesses. Woohoo. Really, it's an accomplishment.

But until you spend time in a water testing lab you don't really begin to realize how much isn't tested for in that water you drink and bathe in. It's just not possible.

People would ask me all the time "How do I get my water tested for everything?" You can't. Think of the story recently about how many chemicals are in plastics, for instance. 16,000-ish and over 4,000 that are potentially hazardous. Basically zero of those are tested for in any way whatsoever. To get something tested, someone has to care enough that it's there in the first place. Then someone has to create testing procedures and standards. Then there has to be a market for that test.

Let's JUST talk about PFAs. You know how many there are? Ballpark is ~15,000 different PFAs. You know how many are tested in this new EPA program? 25.

Now that we've established that, just how likely is it that testing will find PFAs in YOUR water in the US?

https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/

Pretty likely.

While I can't really talk about what states are likely to find if they honestly look, what I do talk about, and have for probably 20 years now, is what I did when I realized what's really in your water. I put in a whole home filter outside of our home to filter out a lot of stuff for showering and hand washing. No one so much as cleans vegetables here unless the water comes from the reverse osmosis system in our kitchen. Drinking water, ice, pasta water, fruit and veggie washing water, etc all comes from that.

I'm very sensitive to the fact that not everyone can do all of that. It's a step in the right direction that the EPA is beginning to do something about this, but it's far later than it should be and doesn't go nearly far enough. All I can say is that you should demand better, and not just about PFAs, but all contaminants in your water supply.

And before anyone asks, yes, the spring water on the homestead is about as clean as you can find anymore. Under 10 TDS and no contaminants that I've found to date. Again, can't test for everything even if you wanted to and had a million dollars to throw at it. It was a major selling point on the property for us.

I've officially moved to @BE @zeroes.ca

Yes, I had to put a space in that because even typing out that would lead to an error that wouldn't let it post.

Movers are coming tomorrow. Things suddenly got real

I was just moving some boxes out into the car and a delivery person was on the way up the driveway with a couple boxes. I swear, she looked all of 18, and as I'm walking with the boxes she says to whoever she's on the phone with, "Hold on. I've got a boomer coming out of this house."

I'm GenX and now I just don't know if I'll ever recover

Does anyone else tire of getting asked "What's your take on [insert hot topic of the day/week/month]?" Especially when it's something that one political group feels one way about, and another one feels differently about.

In the whole fallout of "science isn't real guy" I've tried to respond to many of the texts I received from people whom I haven't heard from in a long time. While I appreciate that some of those people care what I think, isn't that what we have experts for? Or do we not listen to experts anymore and just fall into our camps so that we have talking points on social media?

I only have so much bandwidth, and I generally in my life have reserved that for things that I think are on the planet changing level. I'll gladly discuss the breakdown of public health, articles about COVID or H5N1, various forms of pollution, etc. because I know about them and don't need to start fresh on research.

There's some things that I see a lot of people talk about that I just don't have a well formulated opinion on, or just don't care about. We have such large-scale problems that I just don't know how you're supposed to have well thought out opinions on other issues. I appreciate that others know more about things than I do, and I'm happy to read their thoughts and leave it at that.

I get asked here sometimes something along the lines of "You post about X, so you must care about Y. Why not post about it?" My response is always that I can care about more things than I post about. I do more things than I post about. I spent 12 hours yesterday doing two hobby-type things to get them ready for moving that I have never typed into a an electronic device in my life. I don't have to micro blog my every thought and move, and I'm not sure, in all honestly, why some people seem to think that it's weird that I don't have a pre-prepared hot take waiting for everything.

For example, the COVID lab leak theory is back in the news, apparently. I've started to dig into it a couple of times, and then realized that if the definitive answer existed, it wouldn't change anything about my life, or what I'm doing. I appreciate that there's experts who can look into it. I don't think that I have to have a half baked hot take on it.

Or, universal basic income. I have my thoughts, and I've enjoyed reading many other people's, and I've learned a lot that I didn't know, specifically because it's not my area of expertise. Am I about to sit down with a ton of case studies, scholarly journals and economics textbooks? Nope.

Am I the weirdo here? Perfectly acceptable if I am :)

Don't worry. Ashish Jha is here to tell your NPR listening relatives(like, all of mine) that the new COVID variants aren't anything to worry about. He's also here to tell you that he might not keep getting vaccinated. You know, it's annoying and inconvenient, but, he'll "probably continue". What stellar leadership

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/03/nx-s1-4986102/new-covid-strain-flirt-ashish-jha