The CDC's #ACIP meeting on #mpox/#monkeypox is going on. Some interesting stats! Cases have remained overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men. Cases in kids have been extremely rare. Vaccine uptake has been racially inequitable. 🧵⬇️
The CDC estimates the Jynneos mpox vaccine efficacy based on 9,544 mpox cases among men 18-49 from July 31-Oct 1. Mpox rates were 7.4 times higher than those with 1 dose of the vax and 9.6 times higher than those with 2 doses. No difference based on subdermal vs intradermal. 2/
More mpox stats: 3/
An Israeli study estimated that the Jynneos mpox vaccine reduced the risk of the virus by 86%. 4/
Another study estimated that the Jynneos vaccine was 66% for those fully vaccinated, including 76% of those with no immunocompromising conditions. 5/
Yet another study found the #mpox vaccine was 90% effective among those without immunocompromising conditions. 6/
A New York City study of the #mpox vaccine found it was 66% to 83% effective. 7/
The mpox vaccine is safe according to multiple means of monitoring safety, per the CDC #ACIP meeting.
BREAKING: French researchers estimate the Jynneos #mpox vaccine is 99% effective. Per #CROI2023: of 472 participants in HIV PrEP study, 77 got mpox. Before and after mpox outbreak and July 2022 vaccination campaign, the only factor tied to reduced mpox risk was vaccination. 1/2
The French researchers found that after the mpox outbreak started, the only significant shift in sexual behavior change in the 472 men who have sex with men on HIV PrEP was a reduction in the proportion reporting >10 sexual partners during previous 3 months (45% to 35%). 2/2
@Boghuma analyzed data on military vets and service members, many of whom received the smallpox vaccine between 2002 and 2017. 1,007 were tested for suspected #mpox, 298 tested positive. In this group, vaccination, typically 13 years before, lowered risk 66% to 72%. #CROI2023
I strongly advise people who think that @AlecMacGillis, who wrote one of the finest Covid-era articles critiquing the school closures, is “lying” about their impacts read @DavidZweig’s scathing new book about the lockdowns, An Abundance of Caution.
Zweig makes a very strong case that there was substantial evidence by spring 2020 that lockdowns did not substantially lower COVID morbidity and mortality. And he further makes a very strong case that the lockdowns harmed kids in myriad ways.
I also suggest people stop and consider that Blooskie is just as toxic as X, but in a kind of mirror image.
This is @AlecMacGillis’ heartbreaking article about how the Covid school closures impacted a small town, and how the lack of them in a neighboring town didn’t seem to lead to worse covid outcomes. propublica.org/article/the-lo…
Helping out young people need not be a zero-sum effort. Accurately observing that boys are falling behind in many respects need not divert attention away from the plight of women and girls. The real problem is when people pit the interests of the sexes against one another. Moira Donegan really should go read @RichardVReeves’ work and stop trying to be so divisive and dismissive about a real and serious problem facing boys and young men.
In fact, Moira's attitude, which is essentially, "Screw those boys, the girls need help," is a pervasive bias that is likely part of the reason why boys are struggling! People look at boys and see the patriarchy and something that needs to be pushed down. This is harmful to everyone in the long run, boys and girls alike.
Also Moira Donegan: She made the "Shitty Media Men" list and paid a six-figure settlement to Stephen Elliott over it after he sued her. washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/…
One of the authors of a just published critique of Britain’s Cass Review on pediatric gender medicine and the systematic reviews on which it was partially based suggests that the authors were “bribed.”
It’s unclear what McLamore means by the comparison of how long peer review took for them, since the Cass Review took four years and was not peer reviewed. But the SRs on which it was based were peer reviewed and published in a journal.
Quinnehtukqut McLamore (they/them) is an assistant professor of social psychology in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
“The Cass report’s recommendations, given its methodological flaws and misrepresentation of evidence, warrant critical scrutiny to ensure ethical and effective support for gender-diverse youth.”
Today, I was on a Zoom call by an HIV advocacy group about their efforts to combat the Trump admin's cancellation of HIV research grants. One of the activists presenters said he refused to present if I was on the call, clearly due to my reporting on pediatric gender medicine.
The organizer said he couldn't eject anyone from the call; there were about 80 participants. (This despite the fact that that organizer, a longtime activist, had already ejected me from his HIV-advocacy listserv.) So the activist refused to present and had his colleague present in his place. She made a big point about how he had made an "ethical" stand not to present.
I told everyone via the chat on the Zoom that I stood by my reporting on pediatric gender medicine. Which I do.
The irony is that I am among only a small handful of reporters who maintains a specialty in HIV coverage—I have been writing about HIV for 25 years and started doing work in the field in 1995—and who writes for mainstream outlets. And I just published a major article in NBC News about the cancelation of LGBTQ-related research grants, the very subject of the Zoom call, that was totally sympathetic to the activists' cause.
I see a lot of this in my work, in which HIV activists seek to punish me for my reporting by seeking to stonewall and blacklist me. They go to great lengths. It winds up just being inconvenient for me; I still get my work done. What it does accomplish is it ensures that these activists' voices are not heard in my reporting. And it does not stop me from writing about gender medicine. It boils down to ideological purity on their part. They need to take that stand.
If these activists had their way, I would not publish articles like this that are very critical of the Trump administration and bring attention to the activists’ cause. Some of them tried to get my sources for this piece to join the blacklist against me. nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-ne…
One of the sources for the piece above is a major academic advocate in the transgender space. I’ve interviewed him many times over the years. To his credit, he dismissed the demands from activists to blacklist me and said he’d just ask me himself what the story was with my gender medicine reporting. Imagine that!
This is an apparent contradiction that adults such as myself have trouble reconciling with: that there is an apparent element of adolescent culture today that, at least in certain communities, values and valorizes trans over gay identities.
Erin Reed is thus incredulous at the suggestion in the new HHS report on pediatric gender-transition treatment:
Fact check: There are, in fact, two studies that have found that suicide deaths in gender distressed youths are rare:
The purpose of controlling for specialist psych visits was to determine if having gone to a gender clinic was *independently* associated with suicide death. It was not.
I haven't read this massive tome. But there is a reference to me in it. The footnote in this bit refers in part to a piece Jesse Singal wrote about the time Alejandra Caraballo and Steven Thrasher really came for me.