Daniel Furlong, MD, MBA

@adamstatonsmith Adam Smith for Mayor

Portland. It’s time to take risks.

@RRGonzalezMD @SocietyofBPD @ChughtaiMD @Dr_KevinZorn @BladderBud @Endo_Society @HMethodistUro Great topic! Did anyone record this debate? Would loved to have seen this

And it’s a wrap! 🏁@SocietyofBPD Duking it out during the closing debate over management of retention in setting of atonic bladder or detrusor underactivity AEEP /#HoLEP, #CIC, #MIST Navigating a patient’s risk tolerance. @ChughtaiMD @Dr_KevinZorn @BladderBud @Endo_Society @sufuorg

3-5 years? Fallacy here is thinking that surgeons are simply technicians in the OR. Tell me you know nothing about surgery without telling me you know nothing about surgery.

Even if we stipulate—for the sake of argument—that ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is not a call to violence (even though it clearly is), what matters is not the speaker’s intent but how the phrase is received by many in the Jewish community. The far left should try extending to Jews the same empathy and sensitivity it so readily affords others.

@SecKennedy @CDCgov @grok please verify the legitimacy of these claims and then provide a summary of the factual nature of this post

Yesterday, I retired 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, the @CDCgov external panel that wields the grave responsibility of adding new vaccines to the recommended childhood schedule. Over the coming days, I will use this platform to announce new members to populate ACIP. None of these individuals will be ideological anti-vaxxers. They will be highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense. I will also be tweeting examples of the historical corruption at ACIP to help the public understand why this clean sweep was necessary. The most outrageous example of ACIP’s malevolent malpractice has been its stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children. Today, a compliant American child receives between 69 and 92 routine vaccines (depending on brand/dictated dosage) from conception to 18 years of age. This is up from 11 shots in 1986. ACIP has recommended each of these additional jabs without requiring placebo-controlled trials for any of them. This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing. Many vaccine promoters have challenged this assertion. They are always wrong. Last week, @CNN, which has devolved into a shameless propagandist for Big Pharma, triumphantly announced that it had proof that my pronouncement that “there have been no placebo-controlled safety trials for any routine vaccines” was false. CNN gleefully proclaimed that it had found 257 placebo-controlled studies for routine vaccines. So, allow me a moment to deconstruct CNN’s claims. Warning: this post may only be sufferable for science geeks like myself. CNN is wrong. No routine injected vaccine on CDC’s schedule was licensed for children based on a placebo-controlled trial. In instances where a vaccine was used as a control, it too was never licensed based on a placebo-controlled trial. That is not conjecture. It is a fact based on FDA’s clinical trial data. (See sirillp.com/noplacebo). As Secretary of @HHSGov, acknowledging this lamentable truth is part of my promise of radical transparency. The 257 studies cited by CNN unwittingly reflect the lack of safety trials underpinning CDC’s schedule. Despite CNN’s worldwide effort to crowdsource trials with a placebo control (per @US_FDA/@CDCgov, an “inert substance”*), this list, on its face, reflects that 236 of the studies clearly did not use an “inert” safety comparator in a trial to license an injected routine vaccine for children on CDC’s schedule.** For the remaining 21 studies CNN’s list claims used an inert injection, 9 plainly did not: • RCT 251, 252 (Varivax) injected an antibiotic, neomycin – not inert. • RCT 84, 97 (HPV-16 and 16/18) injected aluminum adjuvant – not inert. • RCT 215 (Almevax) injected another vaccine – not inert. • RCT 55 (Lyophilized PedvaxHIB) injected lactose, aluminum adjuvant, and thimerosal – not inert. • RCT 197 (Salk vaccine) injected 199 solution, synthetic tissue culture, ethanol, phenol red, antibiotics, and formalin – not inert.*** • RCT 168 (Dow’s MMR) injected full vaccine minus virus, including all stabilizers, antibiotics, diluent, preservative, and buffers – not inert.**** • RCT 189 (Menveo) injected Tdap+saline or Menveo+saline – not inert. For the remaining 12 listed studies which may have had an inert injection, none was a trial relied upon to license a routine vaccine on CDC’s childhood schedule: • RCT 170, 171, 172 (MMR VaxPro), 228 (PCV11), 136 (Vaxigrip), 242 (Antitetanus), and 122 (Chinese flu shots) trialed vaccines never licensed in the U.S. nor relied upon to license a U.S. vaccine. • RCT 124 (Fluzone IIV3), 102 (WVV/SPV), and 188 (Menveo) trials occurred after each respective vaccine was licensed, hence were not relied upon for their licensure. • RCT 176 (Mumps vaccine) was not relied upon by the FDA to license the current MMR vaccine. (See MMR-II clinical trial report in link above.) • RCT 53 (PRP-D) was for a vaccine withdrawn soon after its introduction and not relied upon by the FDA to license any U.S. vaccine. While these 12 studies were not relied upon to license a routine vaccine on the CDC’s schedule, they do reflect that a placebo-controlled trial of a vaccine is possible. They also reflect what can be learned when a placebo trial is performed. For example: RCT 136 found the vaccine ineffective; RCT 122 found that “severe adverse effects occurred in 69 (0·6%, 95% CI 0·5–0·8) recipients of vaccine compared with one recipient (0·1%, 0–0·2) of placebo.”; and RCT 124 found “the rate of hospitalization was actually higher in the [Fluzone IIV3] vaccine group than in the placebo group.” The unfortunate reality is that placebo-controlled trials, however, do not occur and have not been relied upon when FDA licenses vaccines for injection during childhood or ACIP recommends the shot for addition to the CDC’s routine schedule. CNN would have reached the same conclusion had it reviewed the FDA documentation for each vaccine, instead of relying upon a random, crowd-sourced list from the internet. CNN’s list ironically proves the lack of adequate safety trials for routine childhood vaccines. It is time to stop playing games, such as CNN’s false gotcha. We have gone from 3 routine injections by age one in 1986 (the year the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act passed) to 25 routine injections by age one in 2025 (which now does not include Covid-19 vaccine). Because of the 1986 Act, every one of these products, save one, was developed by companies knowing they would almost never be liable for serious harm. During this same period, chronic diseases in our children exploded, most of which are caused by immune system dysregulation. If we are to identify the exposures that are causing this epidemic of autoimmune diseases, we need to rule out products given dozens of times to young children, specifically to modify the immune system, as potential culprits. Our infants and children deserve the best safety trials possible to keep them safe. We should care as much about every child who could be injured by one of these products as we do every child who could be injured by an infectious disease. We must protect all children. Notes: * fda.gov/media/130326/d… (“Placebos, defined as inert substances with no pharmacologic activity, are commonly used in double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trials.”); fda.gov/media/71349/do… (“the placebo control design, by … including a group that receives an inert treatment…”); cdc.gov/vaccines/gloss… (“Placebo: A substance or treatment that has no effect on living beings, usually used as a comparison to vaccine or medicine in clinical trials.”). ** While the above addresses injected vaccines, CNN’s cited list also includes 10 trials for rotavirus vaccine, given by oral drops, but none of these trials used saline only drops. Instead, RCT 205, 207, 208, 209, 210, 213 (Rotarix) contained dextran, sorbitol, amino acids, dulbecco’s modified eagle medium, calcium carbonate, and xanthan; RCT 211, 212 (RotaTeq) contained polysorbate 80, sucrose, citrate and phosphate; and RCT 206, 214 (Rotavac) included neomycin sulphate, kanamycin acid sulphate, trehalose, lactalbumin hydrolysate, human albumin, potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate, dipotassium hydrogen orthophosphate, and trisodium citrate dihydrate. The list also included three trials of an inhaled flu vaccine; the controls in RCT 104 were OPV+saline or LAIV (a vaccine), hence neither inert; in RCT 106 the control “consisted of normal allantoic fluid harvested from uninfected eggs stabilized with sucrose–phosphate–glutamate”; and, in RCT 109, the control was “intranasal spray of egg allantoic fluid containing sucrose-phosphate-glutamate.” *** Note that the current polio vaccines used in the U.S. are a different product than the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk in the 1950s—which was discontinued in the 1960s—including because the currently-used polio vaccines are “grown in vero cells, a continuous line of monkey kidney cells cultivated on microcarriers.” Hence, the Salk trial was not relied upon to license any current polio vaccine. fda.gov/media/75695/do…; pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6740101/; https://‌admin.phe-culturecollections.org.uk‌media/1222‌49/‌vero-cell-line-profile.pdf; #characteristics" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">atcc.org/products/all/c…. **** Dow Chemical’s MMR vaccine used different strains than any licensed U.S. MMR vaccine and also, after 14 days of safety review, this trial vaccinated all participants.

Congressman, your comment reflects a dangerous misunderstanding of what modern healthcare work actually entails—and frankly, it’s part of the problem. You talk about “devotion” and “dedication” as if those words can power a broken system. As if moral injury, burnout, suicide, and the mass exodus of healthcare professionals are just side effects of a generation unwilling to “tough it out.” But here’s the truth: Doctors today spend more time battling administrative burdens than treating patients. Studies published in Annals of Internal Medicine show that for every hour physicians spend with patients, they spend two hours on documentation and compliance. They’re drowning in red tape, not because they lack dedication, but because the system values forms more than human lives. Your idea of the job—romanticised, outdated, and frankly insulting—ignores that medicine today is not just a calling. It’s also a battlefield of bureaucracy. And those who enter it are not looking for an “easy life”—they’re fighting to keep the profession alive despite the damage caused by poor policy and political negligence. So when doctors and professionals like myself speak up, it’s not whining. It’s a warning. And leaders who dismiss those warnings aren’t brave—they’re complicit.

PREACH

Agreed! Why are we just waking up to this when doctors been screaming about this for years

BlueCross BlueShield does not count chemo therapy towards annual max. Sutter Hill charged $30k per treatment. So a friend with stomach cancer now has a bill of nearly $100k. He also had to wait weeks for insurance approval before chemo despite having cancer. System is broken.

@SenBillCassidy Tell that to your pal @RobertKennedyJr who you confirmed last week 👍🏼

This is a serious measles outbreak in Texas. The measles vaccine has been proven safe & effective since 1963.

@VPrasadMDMPH You trained at NIH and owe your career to that training. This is a purely dishonest take to rile up your base, and you know there is more nuance to this. Also- are placebo-controlled RCTs now NOT ethical? You can’t take both sides.

Over the last 3 weeks you've heard countless scientists say that if we have budget cuts at NIH it will stop cancer cures and clinical trials. This study was funded by the NIH. The control arm should be getting active anti-cancer therapy, many did not get it, and many got it only after the trial, when their disease was worse. The government is funding a study that lets cancer patients die slowly without getting appropriate care. It's unethical. It's disgusting. And worst of all it's an abuse of taxpayer money. Many of the defenders of the current system do not actually understand just how pervasive the rot is. Scientists lost your trust during the pandemic, but the truth is in many fields they didn't deserve it in the first place. This is the kind of stuff they're doing. Side note: this trial also has inappropriate use of crossover. You can learn more about its errors in my book Malignant written in 2020 #doge

Science is under threat.

🧵 Many “hot takes” about the reduction of @NIH indirect grant costs to 15%. Let’s lay out the facts about the university grant management process & accounting. And then use this to project likely short and longer term impacts of the policy.

This is a list of blockbuster drugs in 2024. Guess how many can trace their origins to NIH funded research? All of them.

NIH has announced a cut in the "indirect rate" to 15% across the board, in a move that appears to be retroactive to even existing grants. This is a bloodbath for research institutions throughout the country. Brief explainer for those not in this world: buff.ly/3EtML7D

I ran @USAID health programs for the last 3 years. Trump’s 90 day Stop Work Order on foreign assistance does serious damage to the world and the US. Examples:🧵

Blaming physicians as ‘overpaid’ is not only misguided but also a blatant misunderstanding of reality. Physician compensation has decreased in real terms over the years, even as their workloads and administrative burdens have skyrocketed. Meanwhile, journalists and reporters, like Vox guy below, rarely go after the real culprits—insurance companies and health systems—because that’s where their bread is buttered. Advertising revenue from these entities keeps their publications afloat, so instead of holding the true power players accountable, they target doctors. It’s easier, it’s sensational, and it deflects attention from the inefficiencies and price gouging that make healthcare unaffordable. Physicians aren’t the problem—they’re the ones keeping the system from collapsing entirely. #healthcare

Doctors, don’t ever let a hospital claim they are losing money on your salary. If you’re employed and they are just comparing professional fee collections to your paycheck, they’re trying to trick you. You generate far more revenue than your professional fees. There’s the DRGs for all the hospitalizations. There’s the facility fees for outpatient services. There’s the downstream revenue of every lab test, imaging and PT order. There’s the revenue they generate by having you cover call, allowing them to be a trauma center or stroke center or cardiac center. Doctors have the leverage. They need us. And once we reverse the ban on physician owned hospitals, we won’t need them. @DutchRojas @anish_koka @cscla

Honestly lol that people think the corruption and profit motivation in medicine is at the pediatrician level and not at the insurance and pharma exec level.

@alextatem @RobertKennedyJr Isn’t he the guy with the brain worm that still thinks vaccines cause autism and could not name one safe/effective vaccine? Or was that someone else, can’t remember

Healthcare (especially Men’s Health and regenerative medicine) is about to get a LOT more exciting. 🥳🙌 @RobertKennedyJr