‘Voting is medicine’: These health professionals want you to vote in the midterms

Your vote matters

By Neha Pathak, Yale Climate Connections

When wildfire smoke drifts over a city or a heat wave blankets a community, doctors and nurses see the results firsthand. Asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, and heat-related illnesses surge.

Dr. Cynthia Mahoney, a retired California internist and nephrologist, helps lead Climate Health • Civic Health, an all-volunteer alliance of health professionals and organizations, alongside colleagues Margie Chen and Karina Maher.

Yale Climate Connections spoke with Mahoney about how climate change affects our health, why data centers have galvanized action, and what readers can do leading into Election Day.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Yale Climate Connections: How does climate change affect people's health?

Dr. Cynthia Mahoney: Climate disruption and fossil fuel pollution impact our health from cradle to grave, and it's going to get much worse unless we change course now.

Think of a worker who collapses in 105-degree heat and ends up in the hospital. That's going to get worse. That's climate change.

What's so unique about climate change is that it's going to impact all of us. It puts us all in this together.

YCC: You practiced in intensive care units. Does that shape how you see this problem?

Mahoney: I was trained as a nephrologist and practiced a lot in ICUs. What I prided myself on was not just treating what I saw in front of me, but asking, "Where is this patient going? How do I intervene now to keep them from deteriorating?"

This is an ICU moment. The health of the people on Earth needs ICU-level care. We see where this is heading, and we need to intervene.

YCC: Why do you want people to vote?

Mahoney: Democracy is the way we change direction.

A lot of young people think, "Look what I've lived through. Voting hasn't helped me. Why should I bother?" Some people are cynical: The politicians are just in it for the money. There may be some truth to part of that. But that is furthering the goals of the people who are trying to corruptly extract our health from us. If voting wasn't important, they wouldn't be trying that hard to suppress it.

Trump’s FEMA Head Tells States to Prepare to Handle Disasters on Their Own

We have a federal government to handle problems too big to be managed locally

Trump tells campaign crowd no FEMA support unless they elect Republicans.

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

As the climate crisis intensifies extreme weather events, Donald Trump’s head of federal disaster relief sent a stark message to states: You’re on your own.

Politico reported that Cameron Hamilton, the administrator of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told state officials at the National Emergency Management Association’s annual meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas, that they would need to allocate resources to respond to most disasters without help from the federal government.

“Every state must have the appropriate financial reserves” and other abilities “to ensure that recovery efforts can start immediately and not necessarily be held up simply because of the federal [disaster] declaration process,” Hamilton said, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by the outlet.

“A future that I hope we would shoot for is one where we wouldn’t require as many disasters because the capability of states is so high and so substantial,” Hamilton added, referring to presidential authorizations of federal disaster aid.

Trump has instituted dramatic cuts to FEMA that have hampered its response to disasters. When Texas faced floods last year that killed at least 138 people, for example, the administration’s spending restrictions delayed FEMA’s deployment of search-and-rescue teams for more than 72 hours, while lapsed call-center contracts left thousands of survivors’ calls for assistance unanswered.

Déjà vu all over again in House District 39 as Democratic incumbent faces MAGA Republican

District 39 continues to be a culture war battleground

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

It's work like this that serve as reasons to re-elect Cotter

RI Current Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series on state legislative races, chosen based on competitiveness between candidates and relevant district issues. Of the 113 seats in the Rhode Island General Assembly, all of which are elected every two years, 24 seats feature at least two candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot.  

They are both moms in their 40s who want to lower energy bills and preserve western Rhode Island’s rural beauty.

The similarities between Democratic Rep. Megan Cotter and her Republican challenger Jasmin Roy end there.

Cotter, the two-term incumbent for House District 39, has a record of legislative accomplishments she can point to while canvassing the 100-square mile district, spanning Exeter, Richmond, and Hopkinton: adding more money to the green bond for forest and farmland preservation, spurring — and leading — a newly begun legislative panel to study how housing developments affect water supply in rural communities; and limiting self-checkouts at grocery stores to preserve jobs.

About House District 39

Represented by Rep. Megan Cotter since 2022

Geography: Richmond, Exeter and a small piece of Hopkinton

Population: 14,828 residents; 11,382 registered voters 

Partisan breakdown: 59% unaffiliated, 21% Republican; 20% Democrat

Demographics: median age: 41.1, 88.6% white; $127,552 median household income (2024)

Roy, a member of the Hopkinton Town Council, has focused her legislative campaign on denouncing various Democratic officials, including Cotter, for promoting “communism” and government overreach, including in education.

“I don’t coparent with the government,” Roy proclaimed in a June 1 episode of local conservative podcast Cumberland Unfiltered. 

A vocal Trump supporter who touts Second Amendment protections and parental rights in education, Roy’s views, as shared on her campaign website and social media, are likely to resonate with many of the voters in the district, which backed Trump in the last three presidential elections. Cotter’s predecessor, Republican Justin Price, attended the Jan. 6 rally outside the U.S. Capitol, though Price said he did not participate in the riots. 

Trump sells out

Trump adds Norway to his enemies' list and wants to ban immigrants from Norway (around 400 a year)

Trump's new position on Norway:

Trump's former position on Norway:

My position on what Trump thinks:

Favorite No Kings rally sign

Scientists Say the Secret to a Happier, Healthier Society May Begin in Childhood

How children are raised may matter for social well-being worldwide

By University of Nottingham

Psychiatric professional Mary Trump, Donald Trump's
niece, blames Trump's father for son's mental problems

At home, a child seeking comfort depends on a caregiver’s response, while time for free play offers room to explore. A University of Nottingham-led study linked these experiences, along with a positive emotional atmosphere at home, to well-being years later. 

Positive childhood experiences were generally stronger predictors of adult well-being than the absence of negative ones, suggesting that avoiding harm captures only part of what matters.

Across the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan, adults’ reports of supportive childhood experiences were associated with better health, greater happiness and life satisfaction, and lower anxiety. 

The connections extended to how people felt about those around them, including their satisfaction with social relationships, sense of belonging in their neighborhoods, and trust in others. Published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, the findings were consistent across substantial cultural differences and remained statistically significant after accounting for demographic factors such as income and education.

Plea from a father who lost his 5 year old daughter to flu

Sometimes it’s not ‘just the flu’

Zachary Yaksich

Alana Yaksich. Photo courtesy of JoAnna Yaksich

In 2003, my life was completely shattered. My daughter, Alana, was 5½ years old when she died from complications of influenza.

My family and children had received all of their childhood vaccinations on schedule and as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but in 2003, the age recommendation for influenza vaccination was 6 months through 59 months. 

Alana was older than that. She had not received a flu vaccine, nor had her pediatrician ever recommended one to us or explained the dangers that influenza could pose to a child.

Until Alana died, I had no idea that the flu could kill. Like so many people, I thought of influenza as a miserable but relatively routine illness—something that would make you feel awful for a few days and then eventually pass. I was wrong. It often is that way, but far too often for grieving parents and families, it can be much worse.

A new study changes the conversation

A recently published study in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics, titled “Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Against Pediatric Death in the United States: 2016–2025,” provides some of the most compelling evidence yet about what influenza vaccination can mean for children.

Conducted by CDC researchers, the study examined pediatric influenza deaths in the United States over nearly a decade. Its conclusion deserves the attention of every parent: Influenza vaccination reduced the risk of fatal influenza among children with and without known underlying medical conditions. Influenza vaccine was 80% effective in preventing deaths overall, with 77% among children with underlying medical conditions and 87% among children without such conditions.

Why is this more important than ever?

The internet and social media have made it easy for misinformation to spread. People can find almost anything online to reinforce what they already believe, including information that contradicts decades of scientific evidence.

If these horrible billionaires control everything we see and hear in the media and on social media, they won’t have to spend a penny on elections to keep their candidates in power.

US Billionaires Compete for ‘Most Awful Human Being’ Award

Dean Baker in Beat the Press

Our billionaires seem to be in a competition for most awful human being alive. We have Larry Ellison, along with son, taking over CBS and immediately destroying its prized news show, 60 Minutes. They appointed Bari Weiss, a right-wing apparatchik, to oversee CBS’s entire news operation. She has immediately sought to make the news more Trump-friendly. 

This has led to many reporters being fired and threats to others to make their reporting toe the Trump line or risk being fired. Many of the network’s longest-serving reporters just quit.

The fun doesn’t stop here. The Ellison clique is also getting control of CNN through Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Presumably we can look forward to more Trump-friendly reporting there also.

To be clear, neither of these networks was a paragon of objective reporting before the Ellison family takeover. Both networks regularly marginalized and belittled progressives in the US and around the world. But they did at least have an ostensible commitment to objectivity, unlike, say, Fox News.

Then we have Mark Zuckerberg, who seems to view the huge Meta social media platforms as important mechanisms for pushing his political agenda. Last Saturday, the Instagram site for the No Kings march went down for four hours, exactly when it was being most widely used. Meta claimed there was no political motive; it was just incompetence.

We might be more inclined to accept the incompetence story if there wasn’t a comparable picture in Brazil in the lead-up to its presidential election. Lula, the incumbent president, is locked in a tight race with Flavio Bolsanaro, a right-winger who is openly allied with Donald Trump. It seems that the sites of supporters of Lula and his supporters have repeatedly run into the same sort of technical difficulties with Meta.

Then we go to everyone’s favorite evil billionaire, Elon Musk. Musk bought Twitter with the explicit intention of using it as a vehicle to support his politics. He not only opened the gates to all sorts of racist, sexist, and harassing material; he has throttled the accounts of many progressives so that their comments are less widely viewed.

Trump says high prices for gas, diesel and heating oil are great because “We’re making a freaking fortune”

Question for Trump: who is this “We” you’re talking about?

Olivia Rosane for Common Dreams

Add "We're making a freakin' fortune" to this list

If there was any doubt, Donald Trump made it very clear Saturday evening that he cares more about wealthy oil and gas executives than ordinary people.

During a midterm campaign rally in Perry, Georgia, Trump acknowledged the high price of oil and gas, but said that the US fossil fuel industry was “making hundreds of billions of dollars.”

His advisers, he told the crowd, had instructed him not to mention this “because people are paying a little higher,” he said in a condescending voice. “That number’s going to come way down,” he continued, “but what we’ve done for this country, we’re making money like this country has never made before,” seemingly conflating the fortunes of wealthy oil and gas companies with the US as a whole.

“Trump to people who want lower gas prices: ‘Fuck you, I’m making money!’” Melanie D’Arrigo, the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, posted on social media. “Just run this as an ad.”

Nation writer Jeet Heer made a similar point, saying that Trump’s remarks were an “amazing closing argument—for the Democrats. They just need to run this clip.”

Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim noted the tone of Trump’s voice.

“Trump here does a widdle baby voice to mock people who are complaining about high gas prices, explaining that the oil and gas industry is making ‘hundreds of billions, trillions,’” Grim wrote on social media. “It’s never been clearer how much he hates the people who voted for him.”

Gas prices for Dummies

New data shows Charlestown is still unaffordable

You need an annual income of $216,356 to afford a median-priced single-family home

HousingWorksRI factbooks - CLICK HERE.

And there's this from GoLocal with a slightly higher median home price:

Researchers Discover What Reading for Pleasure May Be Doing to Your Brain

If you love to read, reading will love you back

By University of Cambridge

EDITOR'S NOTE: My favorite recent new
book read for pleasure. - Will Collette

Reading for pleasure may do far more than provide entertainment. A scientific review published in Psychological Medicine links the habit to better mental health, stronger cognitive abilities, and a lower risk of dementia. Research also suggests that reading is associated with measurable differences in brain structure, although scientists are still investigating whether reading directly causes these changes.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and The Queen’s Reading Room examined evidence spanning childhood through old age. Their findings suggest that reading for enjoyment, whether alone or with others, may support brain health in several ways, with some benefits potentially appearing after just a few minutes.

Reading Early in Life Is Linked to Better Brain Development

Some of the strongest evidence comes from a study involving more than 10,000 young people. Children who began reading for pleasure at an early age tended to perform better on tests of attention, memory, and executive function, the mental abilities involved in planning, decision-making, and controlling behavior. They also showed stronger academic performance, fewer mental health problems, healthier sleep habits, and less screen time.

Reading is closely associated with literacy development, but its relationship with learning extends to mathematics. Both activities rely on overlapping cognitive processes, including working memory, language comprehension, and executive control. Despite these potential advantages, surveys indicate that recreational reading among children and teenagers has fallen to its lowest recorded levels, particularly among adolescent boys and children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Reading may also provide psychological benefits throughout adulthood. Surveys associate reading for enjoyment with lower stress, greater relaxation, stronger empathy, and more openness to different perspectives. In one survey, nearly two in five adults (38%) identified reading as their preferred way to unwind.

A neuroscience study commissioned by The Queen’s Reading Room in 2024 reported that just five minutes of reading fiction could reduce stress by up to 20%. The research also identified improvements in concentration and problem-solving, alongside reduced feelings of loneliness. These results suggest that even brief reading sessions may offer benefits, although the size and persistence of those effects require further investigation.

Head-to-head comparison of three mRNA vaccines reveals differences in their stability in human blood

mRNA vaccine development to fight cancer

By Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

A study by Australian researchers compared three mRNA-LNP vaccine platforms in human blood samples, generating findings that could advance cancer treatment and vaccine design.

mRNA-lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) transformed the way that vaccines are delivered to humans when they became widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

mRNA-LNPs are tiny parcels, ~800 times smaller than the width of a human hair, made of fatty acids (lipids) and containing cargo (messenger RNA) that needs to be delivered inside the body to generate a treatment response (for example, immunity to a virus).

Today, researchers around the world are investigating mRNA-LNPs as candidates for "cancer vaccines" that would deliver mRNA cargo to boost the patient's immune system and empower it to kill cancer more effectively.

CVS workers protest in Wakefield against unsafe working conditions

“We’re SICK of CVS Executives!” As flu season hits, Rhode Island pharmacy professionals protest unsafe working conditions at CVS

Steve Ahlquist

As flu season develops, members of The Pharmacy Guild/IAM working at CVS Pharmacies in Rhode Island protested on October 23 outside the Wakefield CVS over unsafe working conditions. The action comes as CVS has repeatedly ignored frontline pharmacy professionals and refused to bargain in good faith over a first union contract.

Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=185siOaKnDM

“We’re here because we’re sick of CVS executives putting profits over people,” said Chris Eggeman, a Pharmacist at the Wakefield CVS. “We’re sick of our professional concerns being ignored while pharmacy professionals are expected to keep up with overwhelming workloads and too few resources. We’re sick of CVS executives trying to bust the union by failing to bargain in good faith and illegally withholding raises we’re entitled to.

“We have a message for CEO David Joyner and other CVS executives: bargain in good faith, and promptly settle a first contract that gives pharmacy professionals the resources we need.”

“I am a member of the bargaining committee. We’re here because we’re sick of CVS executives putting profits over people,” said Chris Desrochers, Pharmacy technician at the Wakefield CVS and a member of the Pharmacy Guild. “We’re sick of our professional concerns being ignored while pharmacy professionals are expected to keep up with overwhelming workloads with too few resources. Pharmacy professionals take our responsibilities seriously and work hard to support our patients and our pharmacies. But staffing is stretched, and workloads keep growing. Pharmacy professionals need the time, staffing, and resources to do their jobs well and meet the high standards they set for themselves.

“That’s why we’ve been speaking up about working conditions. CVS executives need to listen to the people who do this work every day and address our concerns.