Former science reporter at The Washington Post and elsewhere. Disabled by complex chronic post-viral illness. Living on #Kauai#Hawaii. Grew up in Wisconsin. Occasional SCUBA diver.
I have an article out today that's about how one person's determination to solve her own complex health problems led to an extraordinary effort on the part of one lab at NIH & a discovery that could lead to treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome & #LongCovid.
If you have #LongCovid or #MEcfs and are considering filing a long-term disability claim, this white paper by my old lawyer, Barbara Comerford, is a must-read.
Barbara has been helping people win lawsuits against insurers for three decades now.
She took my case against Prudential to federal court & kicked their asses so hard the judge wrote an absolutely scathing ruling against Prudential that set some precedents.
Wow. Jet Propulsion Lab laying off over 500 people due to uncertainty from Congress on funding; memo tells everyone to stay home tomorrow as people are canned.
Physicist Peter Higgs has died. He theorized the subatomic particle that gives mass to matter. One of the great joys of my career was waking up at 3am on July 4, 2012, to report on the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson.
Today is the 2 month anniversary of the death of my partner, Beth Mazur, and it's also the publication day of an NIH study on ME/CFS that I took part in as a patient & that Beth was involved with as an advocate. She supported me during the 21 days I was at the Clinical Center & pushed the scientists to work faster & do better. I'm very happy reporter Jennifer Couzin-Frankel mentions Beth in her #Science article today.
Rumors of Zuckerberg's underground Bond villain lair have been circulating Kauai for a while now...I know someone married to a carpenter who's been going there for years to work on NDAed shit.
Yeah, he's an asshole neighbor and nobody should own that much of this island.
Friend: My visitor has a faint line on her #covid test after 10 days and her doctor told her to stop testing because she's no longer contagious. What do you think, Brian?
Me: Which line is faint, test or control?
Her: Test
Me: Full hazmat suit and I'll bring you a P100 and maybe you should tell her to find a hotel.
(Then I ask how much she wants to hear about how fucked up the whole situation is.)
McCarthy repeatedly broke his word to Biden & other Dems and today they voted him out of the speaker's chair because he is too weak to control his own caucus. Epic loser. First speaker ever ousted from the job.
Just heard from a friend that her uncle on #Maui, Sam Ka'ai, thankfully survived the fire but his extensive collection of Polynesian artifacts from voyages in the 70s and beyond were all destroyed. He had moved this treasured collection from another location upland in just the past few years.
Sam Ka'ai is credited with helping to relaunch the Polynesia voyaging tradition and he collected a great many artifacts from #Hawaii to New Zealand.
Glad to see this. At the end of my father's career at Good Humor/Breyer's, the company acquired B&J and he spent some time at their office & plant in Vermont. So I feel some family affection for the company & glad to see them stop paying EM. May many others follow suit.
This article. Beth was one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on ME/cfs and long COVID. When I added that line to her obituary I asked around if I needed to qualify it. Universal answer: No.
