A rare reaction to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine affected 6 people in the 7 million doses given in the US. Here’s what you should know.

The rare side effect may be more common in women. When given a half dose of the influenza vaccine, female mice had an immune response that equaled the immune response of male mice receiving a full dose (Klein, 2016). This may explain why this skews toward women; it may not.

In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 86 cases occurred out of approximately 25 million people who have received one or more doses of…

Threats, Fact Checks, and Reads Newsletter

Covid Update

Vigilance Matters When Viruses Vary

The United States is in the fourth week of an upward trend in COVID-19 cases. This increase could be related to more contagious variants and is likely also, at least in part, related to rolling back measures like mask mandates around the country.

We are doing much better than we were a few months ago, and we are so close. I know you’re tired of all of this, and we are too. Together we can end this nightmare. Wear a mask, do what you can, try not to judge others, and share good information. …

Border Surge: Blame eagerly tossed around but little in the way of evidence-based discussion

A great deal of disinformation on the border situation has gone out and we’re hearing wildly disparate stories. Disinformation related to this subject is at an absolute fever-pitch right now with coordinated messaging, doctored videos, and misleading claims from even the highest of offices.

On one hand, we have people making apocalyptic claims, and on the other, we have people saying there is no situation. Neither is true. We place this under threat, not because the border situation necessarily is one, but because we have people who perceive that it is to an extreme and that can be dangerous.

Here’s…

Let’s have a frank discussion about what happens to Asian women that no one knows about unless they’re an Asian woman. How much could it affect someone like her? She’s sort of White (I’m biracial Asian-American), you may think. Let me tell you.

I was 8-years-old when I learned about the stereotype in the tweet, from boys in my classroom.

I struggled to focus in class for fear of them acting on the things they would say to me. Often, for no reason whatsoever, boys would shout things like “ching-chong” if I was talking. …

the following is from the Women’s Funding Network Signal for Help Campaign

If You See the Signal: Reach Out. Listen. Respond.

• REACH OUT: use another form of communication (text, WhatsApp, social media, email)
• LISTEN: Ask yes or no questions.
• RESPOND: Only call 911 if the survivor asks. Let the survivor tell you what they need, how you can help.

Example of a woman using the signal in video chat:

Example of a man seeing someone use it through a window and during a package delivery:

The increase in domestic violence during the COVID crisis is undisputed and worldwide. …

Disinformation Headlines in Volume 21 Issue 10

The following is a compilation of headlines added in Week 10 of 2021. A few titles from Week 9 have been included. A graphic of the vaccine-specific disinformation headlines through March 2021 included at the bottom of the report.

• MOSTLY FALSE: “The process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House.” — Ron Klain
• FALSE: Don’t trust Moderna vaccine, nothing is known about the company
• FALSE: The coronavirus pandemic: nano-chips might be injected together with vaccines, allowing “them” to…

Just Security wrote on the subject of the troop counts which had been public domain since the 1950s:

Although DoD had routinely reported such numbers for over a decade, across both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the Trump administration abruptly reversed the practice in December 2017, and began redacting these figures from quarterly manpower reports….In late October 2017, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis publicly announced that DoD was adjusting its troop accounting practices to simplify its methodology and improve public transparency.

DoD said at the time that U.S. military success “depends on the support of the American people,” and…