Rollout of powerful new HIV prevention tool in lower income countries gets a boost Global Fund and U.S. government plan to make injectable lenacapavir available to 3 million people by 2028

www.science.org/content/arti...

What people get wrong about early life infections The confusing reality behind the timing of childhood pathogen exposure

Avoiding infections is good

But some simply cannot be avoided - multiple exposures over the life course are inevitable

In which case, when is the best time to get infected for the first time? 🤔

In Praise of the AI-Drafted Email I’m going to risk sounding contrarian: I like receiving AI-written emails.

(Potentially) unpopular opinion. Too long for BlueSky so please read on Substack.

jdrakephd.substack.com/p/in-praise-...

The System That Decides What Science Gets Published Is Breaking Down The peer review system that validates scientific research is trapped in a self-defeating cycle. A new mathematical model shows why—and what comes next.

@forbes.com picking up the recent work by @carlbergstrom.com & Kevin Gross in @plosbiology.org on the future of peer review.

www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Art Gallery ESCMID Global (formerly ECCMID): an annual congress bringing together experts and specialists in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Nice! You might be interested in entering next year's Art Gallery competition @escmid.bsky.social
www.escmid.org/congress-eve...

Testing menstrual blood for human papillomavirus during cervical cancer screening in China: cross sectional population based study Objective To compare the diagnostic accuracy of minipad collected menstrual blood versus clinician collected cervical samples to test for human papillomavirus (HPV) in the detection of cervical intrae...

This is a remarkable study. A simple sanitary pad could transform cervical cancer screening. Researchers enrolled 3,000+ women (age 20–54) & compared 2 approaches:
Standard clinician-collected cervical HPV test
HPV testing from menstrual blood collected on a sanitary pad
www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Great reminder why we need conferences.

A screenshot of a FB memories post from 6 years ago today, 23 Feb 2020. Emma Hodcroft posts: "So yea. This is it. This is the post. SARS-CoV-2 is extremely likely to become (if not already) pandemic. What's most important right now is getting a handle on how quickly it is spreading and where. This means increasing testing and trying to slow the spread to buy time."

Every year I get to 're-live' the pandemic thanks to FB memories. Re-examining my posts with increasing time is always interesting.

This one though - this one never fails to send a shiver down my spine. When do make a post like this? When are you sure enough? What if you regret it?

Compass says its psilocybin drug helped patients with severe depression in two trials COMP360 could be the first psilocybin-based medicine to win approval.

COMP360 could be the first psilocybin-based medicine to win approval. www.statnews.com/2026/02/17/c...

The battle to save South America’s skull-crushing big cat Farmers and villagers realise that jaguars are worth more alive than dead

The battle to save South America’s skull-crushing big cat
www.economist.com/the-americas...
From The Economist

Rare, dangerous side effects of some COVID-19 vaccines explained “Groundbreaking” study uncovers why adenovirus-based shots caused life-threatening blood clots and bleeding in some people

Five years after the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines started, it seems the mystery of why the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines led to a rare but deadly side effect of unusual blood clots and bleeding has finally been solved. 

It's a fascinating case of molecular mimicry that may help make vaccine safer.🧪

Been there, done that.

Reassuring to see no difference in clinical illness between clade Ib and IIb cases in the same population.

Indicating ongoing local transmission: between Oct-Nov 2025, 8 people were diagnosed with #mpox caused by infection with monkeypox virus (MPXV) clade Ib in the Netherlands - with now multiple #MPXV clades co-circulating in #Europe

#IDsky #EpiSky #MedSky #MicroSky #STISky 🛟🧪 @flahless.bsky.social

Do pediatricians make large profits from vaccines? Vaccine critics like to say that pediatricians profit from vaccines. This report found something very different.

People who oppose #vaccines often claim that doctors push them because they're paid to by Pharma or that vaccine administration is a big revenue source for doctors. The reality: Delivering vaccine puts an economic strain on many pediatric practices. www.statnews.com/2026/01/29/p...

How AI Weather Models Are Making Better Forecasts Google, Microsoft and Nvidia are among the names vying to make forecasts more accurate for longer.

AI weather models are helping make forecasts more accurate for longer ranges than meteorologists have long thought possible.

First evidence in Europe of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 infection in a dairy cow. Antibodies against H5N1 detected in a cow with mastitis and respiratory signs on a Dutch dairy farm at the end of December. A cat on that farm had died from H5N1. www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do...

Yes, Some Vaccines Contain Aluminum. That’s a Good Thing. (Gift Article) R.F.K. Jr. and others have blamed the ingredient for allergies and other illnesses. Scientists say it actually bolsters the immune response.

Aluminum adjuvants in vaccines. Finally an NYT article that doesn’t try to spin a “both sides” narrative. This is one of the most studied ingredients in vaccines, and they have a terrific safety record in all species (except cats). Great #OneHealth trivia—adjuvants were invented by a vet! 1/7

Role of behaviour change in controlling the 2022 Paris mpox outbreak Nature Health - Behaviour changes, rather than vaccination or postinfection immunity, best explained the sudden decline of mpox cases among men who have sex with men during an outbreak in the Paris...

*New paper in Nature Health*

Why did the 2022 mpox outbreak in Paris decline so abruptly?

rdcu.be/eZ24H

She was absolutely right. And she would have been an amazing President.

Carney must act: Canada must join Eurovision

Read the full transcript of Carney’s speech to World Economic Forum - National | Globalnews.ca Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a forceful speech in Davos, Switzerland, on the 'new world order' and how middle powers like Canada can benefit by working together.

The Carney speech is worth reading in full: globalnews.ca/news/1162087...

Dissolve My Nobel Prize! Fast! (A True Story) It's 1940. The Nazis have taken Copenhagen, and physicist Niels Bohr has just hours, maybe minutes, to make two Nobel Prize medals disappear.

Longer version with more detail: www.npr.org/sections/kru...

We've got ISSUES. Literally.

We scraped >100k special issues & over 1 million articles to bring you a PISS-poor paper. We quantify just how many excess papers are published by guest editors abusing special issues to boost their CVs. How bad is it & what can we do?

arxiv.org/abs/2601.07563

A 🧵 1/n

The Age of Academic Slop is Upon Us what happens when AI automates "normal science"?

I just finished a three-year term as an editor at an international relations journal. I began at the start of the LLM era but ended right in the middle of it. Our volume of submissions tripled and our desk reject rate rose to 75%. I have some thoughts.
open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...

Want to get the data out of a PDF figure? As in, the actual data – not a rough trace-along-the-lines version?

I made an app you might like: adamkucharski.github.io/pdf2plot/

It all started a few years ago... 🧵

Please stop calling the circulating sub-clade K strain of H3N2 a "super flu". It is a strain that drifted through a normal evolutionary process from the strains included in this year's vaccine. It means we are seeing more cases of flu and the vaccine may not work as well in preventing infections.

Why are virologists thinking and talking about this year's strain of influenza? We are dealing with a version of H3N2 that is unusual compared to what we might expect year on year. At the same time, it is not as unusual as, say, a novel pandemic strain, far from it.

🧵 Is it a super flu year? Who knows, but I think the current reporting is stupid.

A pissed off thread using data.

Firstly - here are today's headlines and some from the last 3 years... spot the difference. 1/10

The WHO expert group reaffirmed what is already known: There is no link between vaccines and autism.