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Rachel Thomas Profile picture
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30 Oct, 16 tweets, 6 min read
As a mother, I can't wait until my 6 year old can be vaccinated against covid. My #1 reason is that I hope to reduce her chances of getting long covid or suffering any long-term effects. I want to share some of my personal thoughts here. 1/
First, in the USA the FDA has approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds. This vaccine has been incredibly well studied and is safe. 2/
theguardian.com/world/2021/oct…
It will take years before we fully understand the long-term consequences of covid, but the studies so far (primarily in adults) of damage to a variety of organs, including the brain, vascular system, and immune system are deeply disturbing. 3/
As @Dr2NisreenAlwan wrote, this is not about alarmism, but about using the precautionary principle. Why would we want to add additional & unknown risk to our children when we have a safe vaccine? 4/

The reports of children suffering with long covid are disturbing to read 5/
timesofisrael.com/more-than-10-o…
Abnormal brain hypometabolism has been found in PET scans of children with long covid 6/

link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Thrombotic microangiopathy (when microscopic blood clots lead to destruction of red blood cells, low platelets, and potential organ damage), and elevated markers associated with kidney dysfunction have been observed in children hospitalized with covid 7/

ashpublications.org/bloodadvances/…
From a study on 9 different types of cognitive dysfunction in adults with long covid. I think it would be easier to miss cases of this in children (who may struggle to articulate what they are experiencing, and who undergo so many changes as they grow) 8/
jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
Many studies of prevalence are flawed, by relying on PCR tests to determine control vs. case groups, even though PCR tests can be wildly inaccurate on children, with only 48% of those who later go on to develop antibodies having a positive PCR test 9/

Read more about the difficulties of accurately determining long covid prevalence 10/
fast.ai/2021/10/17/con…
Research has found that when we overly downplay risks of covid in children, this ends up fueling vaccine hesitancy 11/

While the vaccines are excellent, they are not a panacea, and I hope we can have a #VaccinesPlus strategy that involves good ventilation, rapid tests, and masks as needed 12/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Someone asked if I'm worried about myocarditis. Male teens are 6x more likely to develop myocarditis from covid than from the vaccine 13/

theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…
A 15-year old girl died from covid myocarditis, before she had a chance to be vaxxed (due to UK gov delays, long after other countries were vaxxing teens).

Sharing to show myocarditis can impact girls & that vaccine delays can be tragic. 14/

bbc.com/news/uk-englan…
Some have asked why not give equal weight to unknown long-term side effects of vaccines as to covid.

The "early" evidence on covid is millions dead, millions disabled, & 100s of studies showing multi-system organ damage.

The "early" evidence on vaccines

is that vaccines are doing exactly what they were designed to do, which is to reduce risk of infection, hospitalization, & death. There is no scientific mechanism by which covid vaccines could somehow in the future possibly cause the harm covid already has. 16/

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More from @math_rachel

Rachel Thomas Profile picture
26 Oct
- Millions of people are disabled with long covid (a horrific illness)
- This is going to be VERY expensive
- There are big financial incentives to downplay the severity & prevalence
- Concerted efforts similar to the climate denial playbook

fast.ai/2021/10/12/med… 1/
It is critical for physicians, scientists, & public health officials to realize they are not dealing with an orthodox scientific debate, but a well-funded sophisticated denialist campaign based on ideological & corporate interests -- @GYamey @gorskon

blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/13… 2/
Many of the lessons from climate denialism debates apply to covid as well 3/

Read 12 tweets
Rachel Thomas Profile picture
22 Oct
"It quickly became apparent that daily, close contact with the data was necessary to understand what states were reporting... At first, we just thought you could pull numbers off dashboards. As it turned out, we actually needed to do deep research.”

Valuable data work lesson 1/ The Data Landscape As March...
"Building automated tooling facilitated our manual data collection and was crucial to our ability to verify data. Ultimately, though, human scrutiny was needed to develop a deep understanding of the data." 2/

covidtracking.com/analysis-updat… What We Learned The COVID T...
"States frequently changed how, what, and where they reported data... Had we set up a fully automated data capture system in March 2020, it would have failed within days." 3/ Throughout the pandemic, CO...While the frustrations of s...
Read 5 tweets
Rachel Thomas Profile picture
19 Oct
"The framing of so-called US-China 'AI arms race' is increasingly used to justify expansion of large tech corporations’ AI capabilities, while acting as a defense against critical work calling for restraint, reflection, & regulation of AI tech & firms."

medium.com/@AINowInstitut…
It is critical to hold both Chinese and US actors accountable for the rights violations they perpetuate. Instead, debates around which state’s technologically-mediated harms are “worse” tend to erase efforts to resist technology-related rights violations within China. In this environment, it is critical to hold both Chinese and
"We often see arguments that portray any check on American tech companies as allowing or endorsing China to grow. In this framing, AI (and the Big Tech companies capable of producing it) is conflated with the national security interests of the US." In AI Now’s own work, we take clear positions on regulatio
Read 4 tweets
Rachel Thomas Profile picture
19 Oct
I just read that masks won't be required in Qld once we hit 80% of eligible vaccinated (64% total population).

I really wish we could tie our public health measures to keeping R < 1, instead of solely to vax rates.
UK has shown the disaster (currently >800 deaths per week) that can result from promising in advance that vaccination alone == return to normal

theguardian.com/world/2021/oct… When the Covid announcements were made, they’d say ‘Very
Also, let's not forget ventilation as a very powerful and under-utilized tool.

Setting incentives based on R<1 would be more motivating to use all our options to get there, not solely vaccines (which are great, but in many places not enough on their own)
Read 4 tweets
Rachel Thomas Profile picture
14 Oct
Stories like this are sadly common. When MDs discourage everyone else (even STEM PhDs) from reading medical literature, this really does NOT help us create a society with higher scientific & medical literacy.
Problems with "appeal to authority" arguments:
- many ppl are more motivated when they know the underlying reasoning/mechanism/data
- doesn't build underlying scientific knowledge or critical thinking skills
- science is messy & always evolving
- discourage interdisciplinary work
I value interdisciplinary work, which entails encouraging others to learn about your field & engage with it, and recognizing that their other perspectives/skills/domains that can be relevant & shine new light on your area.
Read 4 tweets
Rachel Thomas Profile picture
14 Oct
It bothers me when doctors, journalists, & others lump together:
- disabled & chronically ill patients who read papers/research their own medical issues AND
- able-bodied anti-vaxxers/conspiracy theorists who use "do your own research" to justify anti-science 1/ #NEISvoid
Patients w/ chronic illnesses & disabilities have 3 types of expertise:
- physical experience of their illness/disability
- how to navigate medical system, which is traumatizing
- in many cases: deep scientific knowledge, from keeping up on relevant research 2/
Able-bodied anti-vaxxer/conspiracy theorists typically don't have any of the above 3 types of expertise, which is why I think we need to draw more careful distinctions when talking about "patients doing their own research" in a derisive way. 3/
Read 8 tweets

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