Thread by @jmcrookston

Here is part of the problem. From a textbook published in 2015, the chapter on RSV. This is just an example.

Says aerosol not likely, citing author's own paper from 1981 (35 years ago).

Says fomite important (touching objects...). Cites nothing.

This similar kind of citation for fundamental principles feeds into papers.

Pic from a paper from 2019. Cites a text book chapter from 2003 and two more papers from same author as earlier, from ~1981. All for the prospect that RSV transmits by touch, only.

The 2003 text book is 5. The other two are 6 and 7.

5 cites to another 1980 paper. Probably one of the 6 and 7 papers.

Yes, 5 cites (as footnote 64) to the paper which is footnote 7, as I thought.

So you develop these clusters of citations, where fundamental principles are being repeated as introductory sentences to a handful of papers.

If you dove into RSV, you'd read paper after paper saying it's all touch. All citing the same papers from the 80s.

If you read those 80s papers (as I have) you'd see they are hospital studies with small sample sizes. They often conclude, well, we cannot tell how RSV jumped the cubicle divider, so it must have been on the nurses' hands or clothes. Most don't control for aerosol.

They accept fomite solely on the basis of "jumped the cubicle" + "lives on surfaces for some time".

Okay, but one of those articles showed that RSV degraded on hands in a matter of TEN minutes, and still this thinking remained.

Hard to justify in light of the constant exhortations that we need to be evidence-based, as for example the naysayers said about
1. masks (oh, they aren't proven to work)
2. aerosol (oh, you need to prove live virus in air)

The most famous of these studies?

Enjoy! It's why you are 6 feet apart today!

14 baby handlers who remained >6 feet away didn't happen to catch RSV.

Therefore, global pandemic 35 years later would make up 6 foot rule.

Solid evidence-based medicine!

https://twitter.com/jmcrookston/status/1334599185937686528

If you think I am exaggerating, in a thread on point I noted that in 2013 a member of the WHO guidance committee on SARS-CoV-2 spread explained that the 1981 study was EXACTLY why we are 6 feet apart. So do not take my word for it.

https://twitter.com/jmcrookston/status/1309915066054082561

I wasn't intending to write this, just moving a PDF when I saw that citation. It's that obvious to find this stuff.

And by the way this is just what happens when people repeat intro statements too often.

That's radically different from the other threads about writing slanted science pieces that I've posted. Those other situations are another world that make me quite upset.