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Blake Murdoch Profile picture
Blake Murdoch
@BlakeMMurdoch
Not here right now: email me. JD, MBA. Health policy academic, bioethicist and science communicator. Senior Research Associate, Health Law Institute, UAlberta.
Jörg 🌻 @j_honegger@swiss.social Profile picture MakeChange Profile picture DellaLuna Profile picture 5 subscribed
Sep 12 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A @UPennDBEI Professor of Biostatistics @takishinohara peer reviewed a highly publicized brain scan study, and allowed it to be published with a title claiming causation between brain maturation and an undefined variable not studied or controlled for, “lockdowns.”

Science™ Image I guess he needs a biostatistics 101 lesson on causation vs correlation.

TBH it’s so bad it seems malevolent.

Sep 10 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The authors and editors of @PNASNews should be fucking ashamed of themselves for publishing this study that is being picked up en masse in the media. It directly misrepresents its methods in its title by claiming causation (not correlation!) with a phenomenon it doesn’t study.🧵
Image So apparently other trauma, like kids watching their relatives die as I was during this time, didn’t stress them out, just “lockdowns.” Oh, and the study doesn’t control for covid infection? Which causes brain aging and is often asymptomatic or milder in children. You fools.
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Aug 20 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
RETRACTION: The @JAMAPediatrics study claiming “strikingly low” incidence of Long Covid (PCC) in kids, retracted due to multiple errors whereby incidence was underestimated by a factor over 2.5. But also it’s methodologically completely invalid anyway.
🧵
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap… Me, @Mark_Ungrin and @GosiaGasperoPhD previously published a response letter in @JAMAPediatrics and a breakdown social media of how the manuscript makes no sense and the methodology claims to use the @WHO definition of PCC but doesn’t at all. See here:
/2
May 13 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
We desperately need better air purifiers for public spaces. The best I’ve seen is the metal box computer fan style using regular furnace filters.

Here I compare a @Vailima1-designed unit (~equivalent to @NukitToBeSure Tempest) to a Winix C535. Listen to the noise difference!

/1 The black metal box is way quieter and FIVE TIMES+ AS ENERGY EFFICIENT. It’s around 75% more efficient than any cleaner certified by Energy Star.

These metal box style air purifiers are effective, BIFL sturdy, quiet, nonadjustable, repairable and inexpensive to operate.

/2
Apr 22 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
My latest in @globeandmail highlights that broken or nonexistent social safety nets can push disabled folks into assisted dying. Also, with far-right ideology rising, language similar to "useless eaters" is now even publishable in a major newspaper.

/1
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl… I submitted this article for publication before the tragic story about Normand Meunier came out. It was already accepted by the Globe, and then modified to mention and reflect on this important new story. My article was in response to this horrible one:
/2
thetimes.co.uk/article/we-can…
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Apr 4 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It's time to clean the germs out of our indoor air.

My latest article in the @edmontonjournal discusses how after four years, the @WHO is finally on board. We have the opportunity to make the greatest advancement in human hygiene since water treatment.

/1edmontonjournal.com/opinion/column… What will be the benefits?

1. Mitigating all airborne diseases at the same time
2. Helping prevent future pandemics
3. Beneficial feedback loops/exponential decay
4. Healthy schools
5. Chronic disease prevention
6. Reducing burden on healthcare
7. Adapting to climate change

/2
Mar 19 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Consider the following:

1. Covid likely can damage the blood brain barrier
2. Covid directly infects neurons and other brain cell types
3. We are reinfecting everyone with Covid over and over.

What range of outcomes could you foresee from this?
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Image nature.com/articles/s4159…
Mar 14 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"At some point we're going to have to have a discussion nobody wants to, one about how repeated COVID infections have left our children with permanent neurological changes / damage and how we are going to adjust our academic standards and expectations"
Signs put up in Brooklyn
🧵
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Image Not a joke. It's based on the accumulating evidence we have about covid causing brain damage. In adults, covid, even mild, causes average of 3 IQ point drop, and 2 more for reinfection. How is this impacting child brain development?

Jan 29 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
This is how bad some long covid research is.

Our new letter in @JAMAPediatrics points out obvious, grievous errors in a recent study claiming “strikingly low” incidence of Post Covid Condition in children.

The study is clearly invalid and should be retracted.

A thread.

/1 Image Here is a link to the open access study, where you can confirm everything I am saying.

And yes, the pic in the first tweet is them citing a WHO definition of Post Covid Condition (PCC) and then completely changing the definition in their Methods.



/2jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
Nov 24, 2023 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
China and now France are having serious epidemics, and the suspected culprit is mycoplasma pneumoniae.

One possible explanation is that COVID-mediated immune damage, leading to lymphocytopenia, is causing opportunistic disease of higher severity.

Thread with citations below:
/1 We know that COVID can cause lymphocytopenia and that reinfection is common. It's in the Merck Manual for MDs. COVID is the only virus other than HIV specifically listed as a major cause of lymphocytopenia:



/2 merckmanuals.com/en-ca/professi…
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Sep 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Alberta finally gets a covid update. Yes, that is mere CASES of RSV and flu being presented alongside HOSPITALIZATIONs for COVID.

Modelling from @MoriartyLab suggests 47,000-65,000 are getting COVID in AB per week RN. Apparently COVID is not just a flu, who would have thunk.
/1 Image Almost all illness right now is COVID or secondarily, common cold. And COVID come with a serious risk of Long COVID, as high as 20% in women according to recent Statistics Canada information.

Link to @MoriartyLab's data:

/2lookerstudio.google.com/embed/u/0/repo…
Apr 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
*Preprint.* Bivalent booster 4% effective vs. XBB infection. CI *-12% to 18%.* Obviously still providing some temporary protection vs severe disease.

The ideological "let it rip" approach is ruining our vaccines. A self-compounding negative spiral.

🧵
medrxiv.org/content/10.110… Image This study had some other unusual findings as well, so we will see how it proceeds through peer review. @Daltmann10 could perhaps comment on the section regarding possible immune imprinting resulting in increased risk of infection for those who are highly vaccinated?

/2 Image
Apr 19, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This thread is for sharing stories of people who died or were seriously harmed after being infected with COVID in hospital. Please share your story.

The removal of masks in hospitals instead of upgrading to respirators will ensure these stories continue to happen every day:

🧵 Every story is a personal and community tragedy, not a number.

My heartfelt condolences.



/2
Apr 18, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Ideology is driving decisions to end masking. Plenty of science shows that masking in hospitals saves lives.

1. Upgrading staff (not even patients & visitors) from surgical to FFP3 masks reduced hospital acquired infection 33% during Delta wave:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

🧵 2. FFP3 respirators provided 52-100% protection from infection for health care workers working on covid wards.

elifesciences.org/articles/71131

/2
Apr 17, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Many people have "forgotten" there were mass graves in NYC in 2020, and without public health measures that would have happened everywhere.

Our new piece in @CMAJ is about a kind of historical negationism @CaulfieldTim and I call "lockdown revisionism."🧵
cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.… Image Lockdown revisionism involves false reimaginings of the pandemic where effective public health measures are wrongly reframed as discriminatory in intent and worthless. It can involve projection of already incorrect present beliefs onto a totally different context in the past.

/2
Apr 16, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
It hurts my brain and heart to see some MDs advocating for policies of minor convenience - ending universal masking in hospitals - that are 100% guaranteed to kill more vulnerable patients. Have they forgotten the purpose of their profession? Their oath? Their codes of ethics? 🧵 For example, the Canadian Medical Association code of ethics is here: policybase.cma.ca/media/PolicyPD…

Under "Fundamental Commitments of the Medical Profession:"
-"Commitment to the well-being of the patient"
-"Commitment to respect for persons"
-"Commitment to justice"

I can go on
/2
Mar 23, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Long Covid & other SARS-COV-2 sequelae are underreported in the US.

1. ~55% of Americans believe they've had covid

2. IMHE estimates 98% of Americans have actually had covid

People who don't believe they've had covid won't attribute new health conditions to it. /1 🧵 About 5% of ALL US adults have activity limitations from their long COVID. This is obviously only counting people in the 55% who believe that they have had COVID. That means the real number will certainly be more. /2
Mar 23, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1. 55% of Americans believe they've NEVER had covid (up from 40%)

2. IMHE estimates 98% of Americans have had covid

Long Covid & other SARS-COV-2 sequelae are underreported in the US.

People who don't believe they've had covid won't attribute new health conditions to it. 🧵 /1 ImageImage About 5% of ALL US adults have activity limitations from their long COVID. This is obviously only including people from the 45% who believe that they have had COVID. That means the real number could easily be double or more, or less than double. But it will certainly be more. /2 Image
Mar 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
@jljcolorado is correct, and this is a huge deal.
Shifting evidentiary standards for NPI's to cumbersome, confounder-ridden evidence-based medicine standards can be intentional.

That's because it is incredibly easy to manipulate data to manufacture and merchant doubt with EBM.🧵 Some EBM experts still don't accept that masks work. This is because they have fallen into the trap of believing their area of expertise is the only true lens of knowing.

Engineers modelled & tested masks, just like they modelled spaceships before sending people into orbit.
Mar 14, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
"High prevalence of breakthrough infections are evidence of us failing in our war of attrition against the virus... increased caseload, hospitalisations... lost days from work, chronic disability symptoms, & an inability to simply return to normal life."🧵 thelancet.com/journals/lanin… Essay from @Daltmann10 & @BoytonRosemary.

"If we now appreciate that even hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection is (differentially, depending on previous immune experience) poorly durable and annual debates on booster strategy are required, how should we move forward?"
Mar 7, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
There have been many reports of people going out knowing they are positive for COVID, denying a known infection is COVID, etc. This is a very interesting essay on some possible mechanisms by which SARS-COV-2 may manipulate infected people's behaviour. /1🧵link.springer.com/article/10.100… These are potential mechanisms and are not proven to my knowledge (paper is 2021). Some of them are based on known potential effects of specific biological interactions. Social factors are likely more powerful than biological ones for explaining behaviour that transmits COVID. /2