🧵I have spent my life working in life sciences & medicine. I know a lot. I understand a lot. I'm quite good at recognising symptoms of quite a few conditions. I'm well informed on treatment options. I sometimes discuss with my GP what I think we should do with my medications My GPs know my background and often ask me about what the data is showing on new treatments. I studied for 9 years.

But I did not study medicine.
I was not trained in differential diagnosis .
I didn't spend years honing skills of diagnosing and choosing the right ..

🧵COVID. Yes, sorry it's still here. It never really went away tbh, but we've all been getting on with life and living with it. Unexpectedly (to me anyway) , we are seeing a big non seasonal increase in cases, could in part be due to the inclement weather keeping us indoors more So FLiRT KP 3 (I know who makes these names up?!) seems to be accounting for most infections, it's from the omicron lineage,but with some important S protein mutations that seem to make it more easy to spread. There is some concern over vaccine immunity,but I'm yet to see..

🧵The ignorant right will always attack Angela Rayner. In some regards she reminds me of my mum. No qualifications, but a quick & clever mind. No formal education to speak of, but a nack for understanding people and relating to them. Mum went on to be a successful business woman, educated me in English literature especially Shakespeare - she didn't need to be taught how to interpret him, she just knew. From a massively disadvantaged background, even more so than Angela...

When I came back to this platform after a previously torrid time, I was nervous about the reception I would get, so I chose carefully who to follow and the topics I'd cover.
I thought science and covid would be safe, but we all know how that turned out. However this thread ... Isn't about that. It's to say "thank you" to all who have followed me and stuck with me, stuck up for me, supported me when the black dog has hit. I'm going to mention a few, but there are too many to shout out every one, in sorry if you're name doesn't appear below ...

At the risk of getting another flood of questions about shingles, let me clear a few things up. Chicken pox and shingles are caused by the same virus - Varicella zoster virus (VZV) . But you cannot get shingles if you haven't had chicken pox. Why? It is because, in simple terms, shingles is caused by VZV being reactivated, the virus lies dormant after chicken pox, in the nervous system - which is why it's so painful when reactivated as shingles. Why does this happen?

As promised here is the RNA 🧵 I may add to it over time.
What is mRNA? So many of you have asked me various questions about this.

Not the easiest question to answer. RNA stands for Ribonucleic acid. We have two nucleic acids in our cells – the other is DNA – Deoxynucleic Acid – that’s the one most people are more familiar with because it encodes our genes. Both are very important parts of the process in our bodies that makes essential proteins that we require.

🧵We are preparing for Armageddon here in Wales. Tomorrow we legally have to drive at 20mph in areas where there is street lighting, unless signage says otherwise. We won't be able to speed through villages, housing estates and past schools. We are being asked to consider the.. benefits of such measures, like reduced road accident deaths, reduction in severity of injury in road deaths, and reduced air pollution. We are being told these are benefits for everyone. However, with an average journey time of around 20 minutes and distance of 8 miles..

🧵@carolvorders
Let's talk about Carol.
Due to our mutual passion for education & support of Swansea University, I'm in the privileged position to have had some contact with Carol, I'd like to think that will continue for some time and that we will even do some work together..BUT In the meantime we must all support her. From my contact with Carol 'what you see is what you get', there's no act. She shoots from the hip and like so many of us simply cannot bear the corruption in our Government, nor the injustices they do every day.
Carol has a huge platform

🧵If this is true, and it turns out to be legionnaires, the Government has even bigger questions to answer.

#BibbyStockholm
#Legionella

dorsetecho.co.uk/news/23723568.… Their claims to have acted responsibly are incorrect.
The 'paper' trail clearly demonstrates that the legionella risk was recognised on 25th July. It also shows that a +ve result was known on 7th August, the very day that refugees were moved onto the barge.

A short 🧵 on Legionella bacterium and the disease it causes, and why institutions are responsible. Then a comment on the specific barge situation. Any clinical microbiologists etc who know more please add to/correct if I get anything wrong. Looking at you @thesassymicrobe ! Legoinella bacteria are common place. There are quite a number of species of the bacterium, most heard of is Legionella pneumophila that's, the one found. Various species are common in lots of environments & occur naturally in soil & water. Usually they don't make you

Measles a 🧵I wrote this a while ago. It maybe helpful . It's not scaremongering, it's factual. I consider a worst case scenario in an unvaccinated community. Parallels with other diseases that are preventable through vaccination are clear. I've tried to write in lay terms. The rash caused by measles covers both internal and external surfaces.
The rash severely inflames the intestines, and this is manifested as diarrhoea.
The rash also affects the eye, causing inflammation, pain and the characteristic redness.

Short rant a 🧵
Life sciences and medical science isn't easy to study or to understand. And advances in understanding happen every week, if we don't keep up to date with our reading in our specialist areas we are quickly out of date. This is why some professions in these fields mandate CPD. You cannot maintain your registration if you don't demonstrate that your knowledge and practice is up to date. Even though I'm no longer practising, I still keep up to date, my whole professional life is dedicated to helping others do the same.

🧵John Campbell. 'Frankenstein virus'. Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly. This is the latest from Campbell using this 'Mickey mouse' drawing to incorrectly claim that Pfizer have created a hybrid virus. I rarely now watch his videos these days. Watching his videos generates ad revenue for him, so I'm not keen on contributing to his ill gotten gains! But let's look at why he's talking about a 'Frankenstein virus'. To get there, lets look at what else he claims..

🧵having taken time out from combatting covid misinfo it's quite hilarious catching up on some of the nonsense espoused over the holidays, well it would be if some of it wasn't so dangerous. Statistics. Let me start there. I'd need a massive thread to explain detailed stats analysis techniques, but there have been lots of tweets 'cherry picking' stats to fit a narrative. Yes, some SAGE predictions were wrong, but there was a rapidly moving situation that made..

🧵@theresecoffey please comment and retract. If this report and quotes are correct you are proposing and endorsing dangerous practices. There is a reason that we have prescription only medicines (POM) prescribed by a medical professional and dispensed by a pharmacist. If you give other people POMs you won't know their med history or any concomitant meds, or potential contraindications. This is dangerous.

I haven't done a #FollowBackFriday for some time, I tend to just recommend people to follow - but if you want to follow me that's fine too! Here is a select few of my recommendations, there are of course many more!

@OxfordDiplomat - one the very best people I follow @davidjboughton - a new found friend and a downright lovely fellow
@Rachelle_Hulme - I mention her often, she's the person I interact most with on twitter these days - funny & smart
@Sharronhoney2 - I affectionately call her my pink pocket rocket, love this woman so much!

🧵A personal thread on #Covid.
Little did I know when I rejoined twitter that it would be my science training that was most read and that my opinions would be sought and valued - it's a humbling experience when so many trust you. I've tried my damndest to provide factual information, using my training to interpret publications and data, and try and put that in easy to understand terms - not always easy when you're used to using scientific jargon and abbrevs!

🧵On my tweet about the new booster vaccines, as always happens someone came onto the thread spouting nonsense. So just to clarify, 'negative efficacy', means that the drug does more harm than the disease. In this case the claim is that you are more likely to contact the virus if vaccinated.

Where did this notion come from? Well it's been circulating on social media since last year following some people selecting data from a UKHSA report out of context, they then quote this..

🧵There has been an explosion of COVID misinformation on social media lately. I am not going to deal with too many specifics here, I will add more later, but keep an eye on @SwaledaleMutton @DrSusanOliver1 @Debunk_the_Funk as we are do our bit to combat some of the nonsense UK Booster vaccine. It does work, it is proven, there are very good data. Predominantly it is the Moderna bivalent vaccine which targets omicron as well as the original variant. If you are called for the booster, there is no reason to worry about its safety.

🧵Twitter is full of Tory MPs denying that they voted to pollute our waterways. Let's look at that shall we? Yes, it is true, there was not a vote that said 'I agree to pump raw sewage into our rivers and seas'. But as we all know politics is more subtle than that They key is amendment 45 to the original bill, which was proposed by Lord Wellington in the HoL. The Government did not accept Lord Wellington's amendment in its entirety and watered it down significantly. The wording he proposed was....

🧵There's been a recent paper about depression not being caused by low serotonin levels. Now this is not my field, but some people are rushing to the conclusion that antidepressants aimed at addressing a perceived chemical imbalance don't work. There is in fact a lot of evidence That shows these drugs DO work. You'll know if you follow me regularly that I'm an advocate for talking about MH, I suffer from depression myself, and we must keep talking. Drugs are not always the answer for everyone, I managed with CBT for a decade but after a series of life