Thread by @DrNShenker

🧵 I never saw a future that I'd be sad to see my article published in @TheLancet. But in many ways this feels too late.

When the original paper came out in May, my coauthors and I were stunned. 1/

thelancet.com/journals/lance…

The original article was flawed in methodology and conclusions, while not overtly written as such, indicated to the global health community and policymakers that #covid19 could be transmitted through breastfeeding. 2/

This would have been unlikely - other coronaviruses, including MERS and SARS, are fragmented by the lactating breast's innate and adaptive immune mechanisms. The baby in the report had fed at the breast while symptomatic just before sampling making contamination highly likely. 3/

And the paper showed high Ct values, well over 30, suggesting from the outset that fragmentation was also the case for SARS-CoV-2 - part of human milk's evolutionary selected antiviral mechanisms. And tellingly, two of the four cited papers were non-peer reviewed preprints. 4/

More papers have since supplanted this report. Breastfeeding has been consistently considered safe by the @WHO and milk can contain protective antibodies. But this case report was published in The Lancet. It has been cited over 70 times already. 5/

Bit.ly/30O2M1u

Our response was submitted within 5 days of publication. Others sent letters too. It took 5 months to publish. Damage done by national policies of separating mothers from infants, and the doubt placed in mothers' minds, are becoming clear. 6/

Bit.ly/3lvBwNs

Others with more commercially minded aims have seized on the uncertainty as an opportunity... 7/

Bit.ly/3iLwtXf

Haste to publish has been part of pandemic culture, but at what cost?

Scientists should not act in isolation from the societies in which they live. Being the 'first' may be tremendously exciting, but have consequences that open a Pandora's box nigh impossible to close. End/

@Dr2NisreenAlwan @Prof_AmyBrown @DoctorChrisVT @globalhlthtwit @DrEricDing @LittleDoctorVic