Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Higginson Professor of Physiology and Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Former Dean of HMS.

Boston, MA
Jeffrey Flier retweeted
🇺🇸 A German officer pressed a pistol between his eyes. Behind him stood more than 1,200 American prisoners. If he surrendered the names the Nazis wanted, more than 200 Jewish-American soldiers could disappear. He answered with five words. His story was nearly forgotten. Follow us and share it so it never will be again. Master Sergeant Roderick "Roddie" Edmonds had been captured during the Battle of the Bulge while serving with the 422nd Infantry Regiment. By January 1945, he was the senior American NCO at Stalag IX-A. On January 26, the Germans issued an order: every Jewish-American prisoner must report separately at morning roll call. Edmonds understood what separation could mean. So he issued his own order: "Every American would report". The next morning, more than 1,200 men stood together outside the barracks. The German commandant demanded that Edmonds identify the Jews. When he refused, the officer drew his pistol and pressed it against Edmonds’ forehead. Edmonds did not move. "We are all Jews here." He reminded the commandant that prisoners were required to give only their name, rank and serial number. If the German shot him, Edmonds warned, he would have to shoot them all, and face trial for war crimes after Germany’s defeat. Then the commandant lowered his pistol and walked away. Not one Jewish-American prisoner stepped forward. More than 200 men had been saved because one soldier refused to surrender them. Edmonds survived the war but never told his family what he had done. He died in 1985. Witnesses later revealed the truth. In 2015, Yad Vashem recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations. On March 2, 2026, his son accepted the Medal of Honor on his behalf. His name was Master Sergeant "Roddie" Edmonds. And when evil demanded names, he answered: "We are all Jews here".
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
A great Friday night read:
NEW: I talked to Joseph Henrich about why he wanted to tackle the issue of politicization in anthropology for the Vanderbilt humanities commission, what he found out, and what he thought of my Q&A with the head of the American Anthropological Association. chronicle.com/article/the-ha…
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
Stating facts. The Cold War-era UN's purpose was to prevent open war between the US and the USSR. Based on time spent, the post-Cold War UN's purpose is to condemn Israel while ignoring or covering up the crimes and terror of Islamist states, groups, and other dictatorships.
Argentina's President @JMilei, addressing the UNGA: “The alleged defenders of human rights have sheltered bloodthirsty dictatorships and regimes that stone women in the streets. They have systematically voted against Israel while remaining silent in the face of Islamic terrorism and the genocide of Christians in Africa.”
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Very interesting new approach to assessing the published scientific literature. Look forward to checking it out.
🧐 The new Linked Discoveries tool accessible through PubMed seeks to help scientists explore how individual research findings relate to the larger body of biomedical evidence. It is a direct reflection of our agency’s commitment to strengthening replication and reproducibility in NIH-funded research.
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
I don't think the New York Times coverage of gender clinic closures is that bad. What's missing, however, is genuine curiosity about why the hospitals agreed to settle. This was not a decision taken lightly. It's fair to assume that gender clinicians and their allies within these hospitals, especially those located in blue states, face little-to-no opposition from other doctors or administrators. It's also known that hospitals went to the mat to fight closure efforts previously. That's Exhibit A. So, what's changed? Why the seeming capitulation now? Enter Exhibit B: mounting evidence of billing fraud, which comes from 3 sources. (1) Inferentially, from billing of puberty blockers for treatment of central precocious (abnormally early) puberty in 14- and 15-year-olds. (2) From gender clinicians and quasi-medical groups like WPATH, which has openly and explicitly recommended using "endocrine disorder" when billing for medical interventions in minors without an endocrine disorder (although they are likely to develop such a disorder as a result of treatment). (3) From court records in resolved qui tam lawsuits (e.g., in Texas) that show evidence of False Claims Act violations. The combination of these easily verifiable sources, together with the unexpected willingness of blue state hospitals to settle with the DOJ, should trigger curiosity about the leverage the DOJ actually had over NYU, Mt. Sinai, and other hospitals. It seems highly implausible that hospitals in New York, with Letitia James and Mamdani paying close attention, would shutter their clinics and pay out millions of $ unless the DOJ had court-proof evidence of billing fraud. Also, it's September 2026, and the New York Times still hasn't done an investigative report on how major medical associations and scientific journals have promoted misinformation and stifled debate on youth gender medicine.
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
The arrogance and ignorance of this statement! I spent years working incredibly hard to effect change in schools by actually doing hard things—getting elected to the school board, building coalitions, writing and passing resolutions and championing real programs—and I did so with other parents plenty of whom have bigwig jobs and titles and money. It’s not that easy. You know a big reason why it’s so hard? The teachers’ union always has more power and more money. She thought she could just show up and the entire school would get better, meanwhile the teachers were not even doing reading assessments on her own kid! And not a single principal, admin, or district superintendent bothered to check on her child — despite her being “a NYT reporter.” She has no idea how schools work and everyone should stop listening to her rancid ideas.
“A NYT reporter in a high-poverty school f-ing changes the school … I can go to that school and say there is a problem and it gets fixed immediately” - Nikole Hannah-Jones
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
This is exactly right:
My takeaway from the NHJ discourse is that America continues to be unreasonably polarized between people who think the only thing that matters is the other students and the only thing that matters is funding. Managing the school is important! slowboring.com/p/why-i-send-…
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
'Piker and Carlson are not the equivalent of your crazy uncle. And El-Sayed and Vance are not regular citizens; they’re political figures whose judgment and choices affect other Americans’ lives. One’s choice of friends is in fact an excellent sign of character, and in this respect, both Vance and El-Sayed have demonstrated a conspicuous lack of it.' @jkirchick theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
I'm a journalist. And I happen to be Jewish. On Yom Kippur I went to a synagogue service in Toronto and was met by protesters trying to taunt and intimidate me from entering the building. 1/5
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Excellent piece by @UChicago President Paul Alivasatos on how to integrate AI into their revised core curriculum. Sounds good to me!
Teach students to think with, without and about AI. UChicago’s revised core curriculum will require both analog and machine-assisted learning, writes Paul Alivisatos on.wsj.com/4hDbck8
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
Bravo Maud. You’re an inspiration
I have some thoughts! Nikole Hannah-Jones interviewed me at the height of woke-1 to champion and virtue signal her “fight for every black child” and disparage and dismiss my fight for all NYC public school students to enjoy the rising tide that lifts all boats of academic rigor and meritocracy. She thought my support of the Specialized High School Admission Exam, the SHSAT, was racist. I thought her school politics were deeply misguided, and well, quite racist. Unlike Hannah-Jones I have nothing to walk back. I knew then what she has just figured out that her identitarian race-based grievance project would not fix anything. And in fact, it has hurt all public school students. Not just in NYC—her Magnum Opus of racial grievance, The 1619 Project, is taught in schools across the country and its reasoning is used to dismantle and stop the creation of the kind of high school that her daughter ultimately chose—the one that finally taught her algebra. NYC Public School students score lower on all academic metrics now than they did when her daughter started school—and we tax payers pay more for it. Enrollment continues to plummet while those in charge dumb down standards and hide results. So much of that is because any solution that challenged Hannah-Jones' race-baiting—endorsed by The Times and Democratic leaders alike—was verboten. Like Hannah-Jones I have a HS junior. My two older kids have graduated from NYCPS and are in college and my youngest is in NYCPS elementary school. I have qualms with parts of their education but also many success stories. Can you get a great education in NYCPS? Yes. But you have to fight for it. And insisting on the schools that grade math homework is a start. Knowing what your child is learning and mastering is a non-negotiable. Standardized tests help with that, but are a starting point only. Blaming phantom racists instead of understanding the role parents play was and is a lazy cop out. There is still an effort–alive and well right now-to dismantle great schools like NYC’s specialized high schools because they use standardized admissions tests. The effort still relies on the same failed logic that Hannah-Jones has peddled for years. She insisted that kids like her daughter who did not score high enough on a test to gain admission were the victims of racism. But she refused to acknowledge that poor Asian kids whose parents had NONE of the resources that her daughter enjoyed (or should have enjoyed) (English speaking parents, resources to pay for prep classes, knowledge of how the system works, etc) were not racist oppressors—but kids willing to work hard and apply their smarts with parents that prioritized subject mastery and took the time to make sure their kids were actually learning. Her daughter is right. She deserved much better. But it is not the cauldron of racist grievances that Hannah-Jones still cannot let go of that failed her daughter. It’s her daughter’s parents that did not figure out for NINE YEARS that their daughter was not learning enough. New York City Public Schools should be among the best in the world because we have so many incredibly talented, smart and hard-working students that could and should learn more by being challenged more–and that means sorting kids into cohorts where they can rise to the level of their abilities and willingness to work. In other words “screening”—the exact project Hannah-Jones fought against for so long and which she has now relied on to rescue her daughter’s education. You’re welcome Nikole. Your daughter’s chosen high school would not exist but for parents like me who fought so hard to keep screened schools.
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Jeffrey Flier retweeted
I still can't believe a president of the United States actually said "there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories."
"The government isn't supposed to like the press. The press isn't there to make the government happy. . . . It is not there to be a mouthpiece of the government. "This isn't Russia. This isn't China. This is America." 🎙️: @CTFitzpatrick 📺: @ThisWeekABC @jonkarl
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