Results from Dept. of Agriculture's testing of retail ground beef for avian influenza are now out:

- all *negative* for H5N1 on PCR
- 30 samples from states with infected cows
- beef muscle + cooking studies still ongoing

aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poul…

Those two paragraphs pack in a lot of stuff about US politics that I‘ll probably never be able to wrap my head around…

nytimes.com/2024/05/01/us/…

Someone from Piers Morgan's staff asked if I would like to come onto Pier's show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, to talk about the state of his attire. Since he invited feedback, I thought I'd do a thread comparing his style to menswear icon Kermit the Frog. 🧵

Read it. George Stephanopoulos states plainly the very thing media critics have been asking for. Via Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR)

„Although the US Food and Drug Administration has indicated the commercial milk supply remains safe, the detection of influenza virus in unpasteurized bovine milk is a concern because of potential cross-species transmission.“
Interesting read on #h5n1 in cows and cats:…

Out of 33 dairy farms in 8 U.S. states (+1 dairy farm in Colorado), 23 people have been tested for highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 by states. Less than 1 person per farm. This seems a clear answer to the question: “Are we testing enough for H5N1?”
medpagetoday.com/special-report…

The first prime editing clinical trial has been cleared by U.S. FDA to begin: prime editing of HSCs to treat chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). Congratulations to Prime Medicine on achieving this key milestone only 4.5 years after we published the first prime editing paper.

This is an extraordinary amount of work, done in the week since Dept. of Agriculture posted raw sequence data without metadata from the dairy cow outbreaks of #H5N1 #birdflu .
🧵

yes, PCR positive milk is not likely to be a public health issue. But the fact that avian influenza H5 seems to be widespread among a new mammal species is. The gradual ' o, but it is not a human health problem (now, I would add) is typical for current day preparedness

Great take home messages for more humble and nuanced communication for next health crisis by Kai Kupferschmidt. #ESCMIDGlobal2024

Nice overview of transmission and severity parameters for #mpox clade IIb outbreak by Candida Diaz-Brochero #ECCMID2024

“My own opinion is that the most badly needed improvements in drug discovery are in the exact areas that are most resistant to machine learning techniques. By which I mean target selection and predictive toxicology.”
Balanced view from an industry insider! science.org/content/blog-p…

“There are no benefits to reassuring the public about vaccine safety and effectiveness using vague communication.” Kai Kupferschmidt ESCMID #ESCMIDGlobal2024

Not only true for vaccine safety and effectiveness but for communication on public health in general probably.

We weren't good at communicating negative features of the COVID-19 vaccines (e.g., AstraZeneca).

Kai Kupferschmidt #ECCMID2024 Communicating Risk

Cites paper: 'Transparent communication about negative features... decreases acceptance but increases trust'.
pnas.org/doi/abs/10.107…

Perfect summary of Kai Kupferschmidt talk about science communication around the side effects of the AZ vaccine in early 2021.

Importance of building *trust*, and two quotes to live by:

'Try to inform, not persuade'

'It's complicated'

Kai Kupferschmidt

#ECCMID2024
#ESCMIDGlobal
#ScienceCommunication

Great talk at ESCMID conference by Kai Kupferschmidt about #communication challenges around #covid #pandemic .

Key messages for science communicators
- do the hard work of communicating nuanced information
- inform, don’t persuade
- it’s complicated

#ESCMIDGlobal2024