Anti-vax movements cause a lot of harm. By ‘anti-vax’ I don’t mean anyone who raises concerns about harms or possible harms from vaccines. I mean people who *ignore scientific evidence* and perpetuate a distorted and entirely negative message about the benefit-harm balance. 🧵
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Vaccines against covid-19 greatly improve survival and reduce (though they do not eliminate) the risk of long-term complications like long covid and the risk of transmitting the disease to others. [there is much evidence here – example paper linked]
All vaccines occasionally cause harm. But the harms are a) rare, b) usually mild, and c) less bad (in terms of prevalence and severity) than untreated covid-19. There’s a debate to be had about the nuances but OVERALL being vaccinated is far safer than staying unvaccinated.
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🧵The UK General Medical Council has adopted an antiquated position on doctors who spread false & misleading information on social media. This position is putting the public at risk. It must be challenged, or doctors with ‘fringe’ views will continue to have harmful influence.
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In USA, a doctor is not allowed to spread misinformation (inaccurate or misleading information) or disinformation (deliberate lies) about vaccines. US regulators recognise that doctors’ right to ‘free speech’ is not absolute and that they must not abuse public trust. 2/
But the GMC has taken the position that doctors who propagate fringe views on vaccines should not be investigated. They have cited ‘freedom of speech’, ‘scientific debate’ and lack of direct proof linking a particular anti-vax statement with harm to a particular patient.
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THREAD ON GMC CASE
I‘ve made contact with the group of doctors who are pursuing a case against the GMC for failing to address vaccine misinformation by doctors.
Crowdfunder is here (was BROKEN over weekend but now fixed, they think-please try again!) actions.goodlawproject.org/gmc
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The doctors are real, they range from F1/F2s to consultants and GPs. They each complained to GMC about a doctor who (they felt) was propagating misinformation about covid vaccines. They found out about each other, and joined forces to appeal the GMC’s decision.
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The doctors have chosen to remain anonymous because they’ve received abuse (and, in one case, death threats) from anti-vaxers. They have set up an email address which I’ll reproduce at the end of this thread.
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We found that fast heart rate on standing was common and sometimes very disabling in people whose recovery from covid-19 was prolonged. 2/
'Orthostatic tachycardia' means the heart rate goes up (sometimes very dramatically) on standing up, but the blood pressure doesn't drop (the latter is another condition called orthostatic hypotension). 3/
New mask thread. Addresses
- Why so much controversy?
- Airborne transmission
- RCTs of masks - strengths/weaknesses, community, healthcare settings
- Meta-analyses - gold standard or lazy lumping?
- Non-RCT evidence - why is it needed, what does it show?
- AOB
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2.Before I start, here’s the OLD mask thread from July 21, which ran to >100 tweets. Some of that is now rather dated but a lot still holds. I’ll paste the best old tweets into this new thread.
3.WHY IS MASKING SO CONTROVERSIAL?
First, ‘masks’ and ‘masking’ are very broad terms. They cover different technologies (cloth, medical, respirator), wearers (public, patient, healthcare worker), settings (low v high risk) and requirements (mandated v free choice).