H275Y mutation in Canada's H5N1 poultry strains is a red flag.

This mutation, linked to Tamiflu resistance, doesn’t typically show up in North American wild bird influenza strains.

And it's likely driven by human intervention.

1/ H275Y cripples the effectiveness of our main antiviral.

In a pandemic scenario, we lose one of the only tools to slow the virus in humans.

2/

The 1918 flu wiped out 90% of adults in Brevig Mission, Alaska. 🧵

It carried a key mutation: PB2 E627K.

Now, H5N1 is showing signs of similar adaptation.

The strain detected in a Canadian teenager also carries PB2 E627K.

1/ In 1918, this mutation was pivotal in the virus’s jump from birds to humans and its ability to spread rapidly.

Despite lacking other mutations (Q226L / G228S) commonly associated with avian viruses adapting to human-like receptors, the 1918 virus exploited the mutations it had to devastating effect.



2/wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/9/…

The real threat posed by Mpox 🧵

I believe that diseases that disproportionately affect marginalized groups cannot be left to burn out on their own.

1/

https://twitter.com/joshuamcclure/status/1849424911908888781

The social and moral costs of neglect far exceed the apparent savings in resources.

Failure to act reinforces a hierarchy of value.

Some lives are considered less worthy of protection.

2/

Let’s cut through the nonsense.

This isn’t about some noble fight for individual liberty.

The question, “When can I take off my mask?” is pure self-interest masquerading as a legitimate ethical concern.

1/

https://twitter.com/michaelmindrum/status/1848786116528284034

Let’s call it what it is.

An excuse to dodge responsibility.

You’re not genuinely worried about some profound moral principle.

You’re irritated that you still have to inconvenience yourself for the sake of others.

The real motivation here is to find a convenient moral loophole that lets you prioritize your own comfort over everyone else’s safety.

All while pretending to engage in some deep ethical debate.

2/

The pandemic pulled back the curtain on a brutal reality.

Our healthcare system is like a short-term investor that only cares about next quarter’s profits

1/ We’ve been treating health costs like a sprint when it’s really a marathon, and we’re now feeling the burn from all the times we didn’t stretch properly.

If anything, COVID-19 has shown that our focus on immediate, up-front costs is like budgeting for a vacation without considering the credit card bill that hits when you get home.

Spoiler alert: the real expenses pile up once the hangover wears off.

2/

The normalization of disaster is eroding our willingness to demand meaningful change 🧵

1/ We’ve come to see mass culling, market shutdowns, and disrupted supply chains as a normal part of life in the 21st century.

2/

Just as in the past, it’s not rational decision-making driving change.

It’s a slow, painful reckoning with the cost of ignoring evidence.

Overwhelming evidence rarely leads to change without a drawn-out, brutal fight against stubborn tradition.

1/ In the mid-19th century, Joseph Lister revolutionized surgery with his introduction of antiseptic techniques.

It reduced infection rates dramatically.

2/

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

The historical inertia of medical knowledge 🧵

1/ SARS-CoV-2 has introduced an unprecedented level of uncertainty into the medical field.

One of the central challenges in medicine is how doctors handle uncertainty.

Medicine, by its nature, is a discipline that strives to reduce uncertainty as much as possible.

2/

Risk understanding is fundamentally flawed when systems are designed to respond rather than anticipate🧵

1/ The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the SARS outbreak of 2002 all shared a common theme.

Systems were slow to recognize the full extent of the threat.

2/

For decades, we’ve had the knowledge.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic wasn’t an isolated event that caught us unprepared.

It was the culmination of years of ignored science, negligence, and overconfidence.

1/ We knew about sarbecoviruses.

SARS-CoV-2 was not a virus that came out of nowhere.

We failed to act because we chose to forget the lessons of the past.

2/

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92467/

About the erosion of the social contract of medicine 🧵

1/ Physicians occupy a unique role in society.

One rooted in an ethical commitment to protect.

Not just their patients but the public as a whole.

2/

The erosion of the line between fact and fiction in public health is not a failure of individuals to discern truth.

It is an indictment of our society’s most complex and fundamental systems 🧵

1/ The misuse of information to shape public health outcomes can be traced back to early human societies.

Throughout history, misinformation has been used as a tool to control the masses, and the consequences have often been catastrophic.

2/

Imagine a Europe where one in every two people you know are dead within a matter of months.

The Black Death was not just a plague.

It was a catastrophic force of nature.

1/ The Black Death is believed to have originated in the plains of Central Asia, possibly in the region now known as modern-day Mongolia.

From there, it moved through the Mongol Empire’s vast network of trade routes, including the Silk Road, which connected Asia to Europe.

2/

The fallacy of Immunity Debt 🧵

Are we, as societies, more concerned with resisting short-term biopolitical interventions than addressing the long-term structural issues that perpetuate poor health outcomes?

1/ The argument that our immune systems have been weakened by protective measures is a distraction from the reality:

Before the pandemic, millions of people were already experiencing poorer health due to inequitable access to resources and healthcare.

2/

The sociological cost of forgetting 🧶

What we now recognize as post-viral fatigue syndrome had a name a century ago.

As a society, we have not learned from history because we are seduced by the fallacy of immediate recovery.

1/ Our focus remains relentlessly fixed on short-term goals.

Economic revival, political stability, and a return to normalcy.

2/

SARS-CoV-2 has drawn comparisons to many past pandemics.

Perhaps one of the most instructive parallels lies with the HIV/AIDS crisis.

1/ While these two viruses differ in their modes of transmission, their long-term health impacts, and the ways society has responded to them, they share a key characteristic.

Both have challenged our understanding of viruses and their lasting effects on the human body.

2/

SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seek out the weak.

It manufactures them.

1/ Vulnerability is not a static condition.

The vulnerable population is not a fixed group of individuals to be expunged in some misguided pursuit of societal health.

2/

Thinking out loud about SARS-CoV-2 and cancer again.

We’ve been sitting on a ticking time bomb for decades, and now the alarm is finally going off.

Epstein-Barr Virus + SARS-CoV-2 = ?

1/ EBV has quietly embedded itself in the bodies of nearly 90% of the population.

We’ve let this virus slip through the cracks for years, never fully addressing the catastrophic potential it carries, and now, thanks to COVID-19, that negligence is coming back to haunt us.

2/

I’m seeing people discuss the oncogenic properties of SARS-CoV-2

It reminds me of something

It took humanity decades (far too long) to understand the brutal truth that Cytomegalovirus, this seemingly unremarkable virus, could be quietly nurturing the seeds of cancer.

1/ Discovered in the early 1900s, CMV was first seen as just another infection.

Something dangerous only to the vulnerable, the sick, the newborn.

2/

A grim reality for SARS-CoV-2 survivors

Severe and lasting damage to their immune systems 🧵

1/ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/al… Ten months post-infection, patients exhibit drastically reduced levels of crucial immune cells, including T, B, and NK cells.

2/

The evidence points to a concerning outcome 🧵

A generation marked not only by the immediate fallout of a pandemic but by the lingering specter of accelerated neurodegeneration.

1/ This research elucidates a brutal aspect of SARS-CoV-2’s pathogenesis:

The ability to enact molecular alterations that precipitate synaptic dysfunction and neurodegeneration.

2/