"The [OECD] report notes that long COVID has a health system and economic impact that is similar to stroke or multiple sclerosis, but has not sparked the same response."
That cost? $135 billion per year over the next decade, comparable to the entire annual health budget of the Netherlands or Spain.
100%!
💯
JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible
Data published today by CIHI show there were 57,700 hospitalizations in Canada for vaccine-preventable diseases in 2024, more than DOUBLE the rate in 2019.
40% were related to COVID, the largest driver of hospitalizations for vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases.
www.cihi.ca/en/priority-...
If health-related reasons (e.g., respiratory illness, mental health issues, disability) are even partly responsible for this rather dramatic increase in absences, making students' grades contingent on being present could very well make matters worse.
h/t @drjenirwin.bsky.social + @kathrynas.bsky.social
Percentage of Ontario high school students missing 10% or more of their classes:
2017-18: 40%
2021-22: 47%
2022-23: 64%
2023-24: 59.5%
2024-25: 59.8%
ON's proposed policy solution? Award grades for attendance. Forget addressing root causes of increased absences.
globalnews.ca/news/1180158...
“Some of the studies are testing new treatment regimens for drug- resistant tuberculosis,” I explained, hoping I could convey the very real danger in terms that would register with this audience. “Thousands of enrolled patients are at risk now that their lifesaving treatment is stopped. But that’s not the only danger. We only have limited options to treat drug- resistant TB. We’re using our antibiotics of last resort in these trials. Interrupting treatment midstream risks the development of new, even more drug-resistant strains that could be untreatable. For an airborne infectious disease, that is a serious national security risk.” Adam thought for a moment and then responded, noting that the political appointees at USAID were “not health people.” It would be hard, he surmised, for nonexperts to understand this issue. And so he suggested that we draft a simple, “Barney-style” set of slides to help the political leadership grasp the dangers, referring to the purple dinosaur of children’s television. He recommended that we use the term “Super TB” instead of “drug- resistant TB” to describe the mutations that can develop when treatment is interrupted, because it might be more likely to “catch their attention.”
A Trump guy who was part of the team dismantling USAID didn't think political appointees could grasp the concept of drug-resistant tuberculosis so he asked workers to explain it as "Super TB" in "Barney-style" slides.
www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...
RFK Jr.'s apparent contradiction on vaccines and peptides reflects a deeper belief: Americans have a right to try and can choose their own risks. www.statnews.com/2026/04/06/r...
I understand young parents particularly mothers describe themselves as doing "baby jail" time--they can't go out because they can't take their infants out.
Yup just horrible people huh?
The upshot: The FDA demanded new placebo studies in order to approve a 2026-2027 shot for folks aged 50-64 who aren't high-risk.
But Pfizer and BioNTech needed to recruit ~ 25,000 to 30,000 study participants who weren't high risk, & they couldn't get enough...
🧵
www.reuters.com/business/hea...
Ohh this book and @scottlgreer.bsky.social's review look excellent. Thanks for flagging - I look forward to reading them, Patrick!
So thankful for this invitation and opportunity to discuss these important topics with such amazing folks at CAMH! Thanks again for the invite, @danielbuchman.bsky.social
Dr Max smith lecturing to an audience. Windows are half open behind him. The audience is facing forward and sitting in chairs.
Dr Max smith lecturing to an audience. Windows are half open behind him. The audience is facing forward and sitting in chairs.
Side view. Dr Max smith lecturing to an audience. Windows are half open behind him. The audience is facing forward and sitting in chairs.
@camhnews.bsky.social Ethics & Everyday Ethics Lab hosted @maxwellsmith.bsky.social for a talk on coercion and compulsion in mental health & addictions -- timely given involuntary tx for substance use legis emerging across 🍁. Grateful for his journal club on vaccine mandates & inf consent as well! 🙏
Dr. Celeste Jean Thirlwell's medical licence has been revoked. She provided 1,425 letters to exempt patients from COVID vaccination, masking, and testing requirements.
To the tune of $300 per letter, at that. She made $427,500 over a 3-month period.
torontolife.com/city/a-toron...
"The so-called “five-second rule” has been debunked in food safety, yet a similar mindset persists in surgical environments."
Who knew the five-second rule was an IPAC standard?
Ugh if only!
Wouldn't that be lovely!
Post-docs will be appointed @westernu.ca and will be members of the @westernbioethics.bsky.social, with additional opportunities to become involved in @rotmanphilosophy.bsky.social and other units on campus.
Apply: Send an email to maxwell.smith@uwo.ca with your CV and a cover letter outlining your education/training in public health ethics/infectious disease ethics as well as relevant topics in which you are interested and capable of conducting research
Start date: Flexible, but September 2026 preferred
Duration: 1 year + renewable for a second year
Location: In-person preferred but remote possible (Western University, London, Ontario, Canada)
Due date: rolling until suitable candidates hired
More info: DM or email me if you'd like to discuss
...fair allocation of scarce resources; balancing the rights of the individual and the interests of society when using public health interventions; how to effectively translate and integrate research and knowledge in ethics into decision-making during infectious disease emergencies, etc.
Successful applicants will have graduate-level education, training, and/or experience in bioethics + public health and possess methodological expertise suitable for conducting normative + empirical research on ethical questions that emerge in the context of infectious diseases, such as...
I'm hiring multiple post-doctoral fellows in the area of public health ethics (and specifically infectious disease ethics) @westernu.ca
Details 👇
The opposite of what John Ioannidis and friends were saying in 2020.
Yikes
The next ethics director will be VERY busy, investigating:
Was it ethical for NIH leadership to terminate studies on health disparities, including research at Duke on the health of transgender people?
Was it ethical for Bhattacharya to ban our team from using the words “racial disparities”?
1/n
Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.