@karag

Science/medical writer & media relations @umichmedicine & @UM_IHPI with focus on #healthpolicy #mentalhealth #aging & #primarycare . Fellow of @aaas. J! bronze

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linkedin.com/pub/kara-gavin/1/568/8
Joined February 2009
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Finally found the entire original quote that I promised during the #ComSciConMI18 career panel! It's from a book review way back in 1994 but it made such an impression on me that I copied it and printed it for my office wall. Now here it is in Twitter form... #scicomm
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Few cancer patients eligible for genetic testing complete it. A study in @JAMANetworkOpen found an online resource + phone-based coaching both helped increase rates of genetic testing, suggesting innovative ways to deliver info can help move the needle. michmed.org/8v3ne
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This is the most serious 48 hours in cybersecurity history. "Black October" they're calling it It seems every *hour* there's a new incident, that in a typical year, would be one of the biggest incidents of the *entire year* SUMMARY OF THE LAST 48 HOURS: YEAR-LEVEL INCIDENTS (In a typical year, these would be among the biggest incidents of the year): 1. PHP2Shell: a hole in the software behind ~70% of websites. Governments took sites offline. 2. eMudhra: the master keys that prove websites are real were cracked. One was the number 4. 3. California: data on every public school student since 2023 stolen, including disability status 4. Railway: hackers stole customers' secret keys from a hosting platform used by millions of developers 5. Zeabur: 321,810 accounts breached. The company is shutting down. 6. LiteLLM: an AI tool downloaded 3.4 million times a day was poisoned with a password stealer 7. GitLab: a 10-out-of-10 severity hole in every version since 2014 8. Cairn: criminals used an AI hacking tool to break into 100+ companies 9. Ahold Delhaize: hackers knocked the owner of Food Lion and Stop & Shop offline 10. Onamae: malware planted on up to 26,739 customer servers in Japan MONTH-LEVEL INCIDENTS (In a typical month, these would be among the biggest incidents): 11. Signal: a bug could leave your mic and camera on after you hang up 12. NGINX: 3 critical holes in software running ~1/3 of websites 13. HTTP/3: a single connection can crash 7 of the 10 web server types tested 14. Plex: hackers breaking into home media servers 15. SafePay ransomware: FBI warns it has hit 600+ critical infrastructure organizations 16. Palo Alto: ransomware gangs breaking in through company firewalls 17. Bullhorn: platform used by 10,000+ companies knocked offline 18. Medi-Cal: 970,000 patients' data stolen 19. WordPress: hackers stole a plugin maker's keys and used them to plant backdoors on websites 20. AOMEI: backup software's update server handed out a backdoor 21. Meta Muse: Meta's AI agent exposed users' personal and business secrets 22. Tor: 333 relays hijacked to steal logins 23. TiDB Cloud: database company's cloud breached Also serious: 24. State Bank of India: India's biggest bank confirms a data breach 25. OVHcloud: hackers slipped a password stealer into a cloud company's official tool 26. Siemens: a software hole being used to spread malware 27. North Korea: state hackers launch a new attack campaign on South Korea
Archer
@4rcherhumeOct 21
Guys I’m scared the takeoff is starting. I swear any one of the ~10 CVEs that dropped in the last 24 hours would’ve been “one of the worst in recent years” except a new one is dropping every hour
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The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Wednesday reported 1,317 measles cases in the state, up 31 cases since its previous update on Monday, as the outbreak of the highly contagious disease continued. reut.rs/488q708 reut.rs/488q708

Pennsylvania measles cases rise to 1,317, state health department says

The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Wednesday reported ​1,317 measles cases in the ‌state, up 31 cases since its previous update on Monday, ​as the outbreak of ​the highly contagious disease...

reuters.com
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As of 5 pm the shelter in place order was lifted and the evacuation zone was reduced to a half mile. And as of January 1, Toledo will be a newspaperless town unless someone buys The Blade…
Kara Gavin@karagOct 21
A sliver of Michigan is included in a new shelter-in-place zone around a hazmat incident in north Toledo Ohio that previously prompted an evacuation zone. Official city info page, updated regularly: toledo.oh.gov/news/2026/10/2…
Image from City of Toledo showing evacuation and shelter in place zones around hazmat incident as of 4:25 am October 21 2026

ALT Image from City of Toledo showing evacuation and shelter in place zones around hazmat incident as of 4:25 am October 21 2026

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A sliver of Michigan is included in a new shelter-in-place zone around a hazmat incident in north Toledo Ohio that previously prompted an evacuation zone. Official city info page, updated regularly: toledo.oh.gov/news/2026/10/2…
Image from City of Toledo showing evacuation and shelter in place zones around hazmat incident as of 4:25 am October 21 2026

ALT Image from City of Toledo showing evacuation and shelter in place zones around hazmat incident as of 4:25 am October 21 2026

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City of Toledo press conference: facebook.com/share/v/1DmRuJq…
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What a treat to be part of a live audience today for @1a as Jenn White returned to Ann Arbor to talk Michigan midterm politics. Take a listen or read the transcript if you missed it (that's me yelling "whooo!" at some point) the1a.org/segments/if-you-ca…
View of the stage as Jenn White host of NPR's 1A speaks into a microphone at a live broadcast of the show in Ann Arbor Michigan with two journalists at a table opposite her

ALT View of the stage as Jenn White host of NPR's 1A speaks into a microphone at a live broadcast of the show in Ann Arbor Michigan with two journalists at a table opposite her

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At the @crainsdetroit Healthcare summit this morning I nearly stood up & cheered as the @CorewellHealth President called for more effort around helping patients do advance care planning, in part to reduce the massive $$$ that our nation spends for futile end-of-life care. Amen.
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We need to reach people more with information about #advancecareplanning in ways that will spur them to act on a topic that’s not comfortable to discuss. ihpi.umich.edu/news-events/n…

7 things every family caregiver should know – but many don’t

Whether you’re helping a spouse, parent, another adult relative or a friend with a disability, health need or medical crisis, you don’t have to go it alone

ihpi.umich.edu
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I challenge anyone with employer-based insurance, where you get 5 choices if you're lucky, to try to figure out in <1 hour what Medicare coverage you would want if you were eligible. Yet that's what our new @UMich poll shows 60% of people do. My latest: michmed.org/gybN5

Many older adults make Medicare decisions quickly and most don’t change plans, poll finds

Sixty percent of older adults spend less than an hour choosing their Medicare coverage during Open Enrollment, a new poll finds.

michiganmedicine.org
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Kara Gavin retweeted
U-M IHPI@UM_IHPIOct 15
As #MedicareOpenEnrollment begins, our new poll shows that 60% of enrollees take an hour or less to choose coverage for the next year, and 80% stick with the same plan. Many haven't heard of major #HealthPolicy changes affecting their coverage. Details: michmed.org/nMzGW
Two women looking at the Medicare Plan Finder site

ALT Two women looking at the Medicare Plan Finder site

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Beware the Medigap trap!
Larry Levitt@larry_levittOct 14
There’s still one insurance market where people with pre-existing conditions can be denied coverage: Medigap. 74% of Medicare Advantage enrollees have a pre-existing condition that could lead to a Medigap denial if they switch to traditional Medicare.
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The @UMich has received a $3.9 million award from the @NIH's Ultra-rare Gene-based Therapy Program to develop a novel antisense oligonucleotide medicine for CLN3 Batten disease, a rare, fatal genetic disorder. myumi.ch/X8Q4X

$3.9 million NIH grant to fuel U-M effort to develop first targeted therapy for fatal childhood...

A team led by Dr. Michelle Hastings will advance a new RNA-based medicine for the most common form of CLN3 Batten disease toward clinical trials

michiganmedicine.org
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Now that voters have cleared the way for the western suburbs of #Detroit to pay for access to regional public transit for the first time in 30 years, what comes next? Here’s my story, which I wrote as a volunteer for the Plymouth Michigan library’s paper: plymouthlibrary.substack.com…
Map of Wayne county Michigan showing the results of the August 2026 transit millage vote by precinct, with the percentage voting in favor indicated by color. Precincts above 50% are in shades of blue; precincts below 50% are in shades of red

ALT Map of Wayne county Michigan showing the results of the August 2026 transit millage vote by precinct, with the percentage voting in favor indicated by color. Precincts above 50% are in shades of blue; precincts below 50% are in shades of red

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Here’s my story from back in June about the current state of transit in Detroit’s western suburbs - home to hundreds of thousands of people. There’s also a link to a historical timeline about the streetcars and bus lines that once linked our communities. plymouthlibrary.substack.com…
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Kara Gavin retweeted
The Associated Press
@APOct 8
The U.S. is experiencing its worst measles outbreak since 1991. These graphics show the scale of the crisis. apnews.com/article/measles-i…

Measles is surging in the US. These graphics show how bad it has gotten

The U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991. Since the beginning of last year, large outbreaks have been reported in several states, including Texas, Utah, South Carolina and, now,...

apnews.com
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Urinary catheters have been a hospital #PatientSafety focus for 20+ years, thanks to work by a @UMIntMed @VAAnnArbor team that has helped drive down catheter-associated #CAUTI rates. But their new study in @JAMANetworkOpen shows there's still work to do: michmed.org/zdXd9
Urinary catheter

ALT Urinary catheter

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Zhen Xu, @UMEngineering professor and a co-inventor of the soundwave-based cancer treatment histotripsy, has been named a 2026 recipient of the Golden Goose Award by the @AAAS. myumi.ch/9J3nE
photo of Zhen Xu working in the laboratory, fabrication and teaching space at the University of Michigan Histotripsy Center text: “The early research and development of such a new, disruptive technology was viewed as too high a risk for investors and companies, such that we could not get funding from industry or investors early on. The initial research on histotripsy—as well as its early development for treatment of cancer, brain diseases and cardiovascular diseases—was largely funded by the NIH.” Zhen Xu Li Ka Shing Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering

ALT photo of Zhen Xu working in the laboratory, fabrication and teaching space at the University of Michigan Histotripsy Center text: “The early research and development of such a new, disruptive technology was viewed as too high a risk for investors and companies, such that we could not get funding from industry or investors early on. The initial research on histotripsy—as well as its early development for treatment of cancer, brain diseases and cardiovascular diseases—was largely funded by the NIH.” Zhen Xu Li Ka Shing Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering

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Kara Gavin retweeted
U-M IHPI@UM_IHPIOct 6
Many hospitals still aren't taking key steps to prevent UTIs and other infections from urinary catheters, despite decades of #PatientSafety efforts, a new study from our members in @JAMANetworkOpen finds: ihpi.umich.edu/news-events/n…
image of the legs of a hospitalized patient with a urinary catheter

ALT image of the legs of a hospitalized patient with a urinary catheter

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Nice to see the Physics prize announced by a woman for the first time in its history... #NobelPrize
Screenshot of the livestream of Ellen Moons, the first woman selected to serve as Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since its founding in 1739. The academy awards the Physics and Chemistry Nobel Prizes, and the Economics prize also named for Alfred Nobel

ALT Screenshot of the livestream of Ellen Moons, the first woman selected to serve as Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since its founding in 1739. The academy awards the Physics and Chemistry Nobel Prizes, and the Economics prize also named for Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize
@NobelPrizeOct 6
BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Physics to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”
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