Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests

Simine Vazire, in Wired, on the failings of scientific peer review

Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV2 (tl;dr - wear a mask)

Kate Julian, in The Atlantic, on how to talk to kids about the sad, scary, and unjust issues permeating society today.

Tara Haelle, in Forbes, on why public health experts support Black lives matter protests.

Photo By Mike Shaheen - https://www.flickr.com/photos/63015897@N02/49979513917/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Saturday Stories: COVID And Kids With Disabilities, Racist Statues, COVID Death Mysteries, And Virus Hunters

Hallie Levine, in The New York Times, on how children with disabilities are being left behind while the rest of country slowly reopens.

James Stout, in Popular Mechanics, explains how to use science to topple a racist statue.

Joel Achenbach,  Karin Brulliard and Ariana Eunjung Cha, in The Washington Post, on what we do and don't understand about who lives and dies with COVID. 

Maryn McKenna, in Smithsonian Magazine, on some of the world's foremost virus hunters.

Photo By Quidster4040 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0, Link

Saturday Stories: COVID files

Dr. Stephan Kamholz - Chair of Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center, died of COVID19 on June 11th, 2020. May his memory be a blessing 

Sharon Begley and Helen Branswell, in STAT, spoke with 11 epidemiologists to explore what we need to ensure such that we don't screw up dealing with COVID's inevitable second wave.

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on whether we should all be striving to respond more like Sweden?

Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, with a coronavirus vaccine tracker.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New York Times, moderates a discussion about whether or not a coronavirus vaccine can be produced in record time

Rachel R. Hardeman, Eduardo M. Medina, and Rhea W. Boyd, in The New England Journal of Medicine, discuss stolen breaths and racial inequities in medicine.

Saturday Stories: Some Anti-Racism Resources #BlackLivesMatter

May his memory be a blessing

Corrine Shutak, in Medium, with 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.

A non-bylined Google Doc of anti-racism resources for white people.

Quakelabs' collection of Canadian specific anti-racist resource.

Farrah Penn, in Buzzfeed, with 23 Phenomenal Young Adult Books By Black Authors From The First Half Of 2020

The University of Toronto's Office of Inclusion and Diversity with their collection of recent stories and resources on anti-racism.

@antisocialbritt, on Twitter, with her thread of children's books that discuss racism.

@bronze_bae, on Twitter, with her thread of young adult books that discuss racism.

Photo By Lorie Shaull - https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/49959004213/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Saturday Stories: This Week's COVID Selections

Dr. Earline Austin, 63 yo NYC Physician, died on 4/3. Originally from Guyana, she lived in Fresh Meadows and was affiliated with Staten Island University Hospital. Attended Ross University for Medical School. May her memory be a blessing

Emily Chung, in the CBC, with everything you need to know to understand R-naught values.

Andy Larsen, in the Salt Lake City Tribune, with a breakdown of different locations and events and what we know of their risks in terms of spreading COVID.

Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, and Robert T. Schooley, in Science, on how if you want life to return to some remote semblance of before's normal, if you're not already doing so, you need to start wearing a damn mask

Clayton Dalton, in The New Yorker, on what we lose when we become numb to mass death.

Saturday Stories: The COVID files

Dr.Sudheer Singh Chauhan, Internal Medicine Physician and Associate Program Director IM Residency Program at Jamaica Hospital, New York, died of COVID19 on May 19th. May his memory be a blessing

Tavis Apramian, in the CBC, on why you must discuss how you want to die with your family.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how America's patchwork approach to containing COVID19 is likely to challenge any hope of near term success 

Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, on why only some people are COVID super spreaders 

Natalie Kofler and Françoise Baylis, in Nature, on the perils, pitfalls, and disparities of "immunity passports". 

David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, on what Canada needs to reopen safely and how at least now, it doesn't appear that we have it. 

Ian Sample, in The Guardian, with a rather depressing piece on COVID19 vaccine related challenges and realities.

And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's a segment I did with CTV's The Social on the very real impact these scary times has on our physical and mental well being

Saturday Stories: This week in COVID19

Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, UK RN, 28 years old, died from COVID April 12th. May her memory be a blessing.  

Peter Piot, one of the scientists who discovered Ebola, in Science, with his thoughts on COVID, both as an expert and as a survivor.

Erin Bromage, on her own blog, gives you some advice about your risks in various locations once your location's physical distancing rules are relaxed.

Lois Parshley, in Vox, on the long term complications COVID confers to some of its survivors.

Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how yes, cats can catch SARS-CoV2 and that while infected, spew piles of virus and infect other cats. Unclear right now if they can infect people

Kevin Roose, in The New York Times, wonders what happens if we get a COVID19 vaccine but 50% of the population refuses to take it?

Saturday Stories: The COVID Roundup

Dr. Bredy Pierre-Louis, Family Physician, Brooklyn, Died From COVID19. May his memory be a blessing

Caitlin Flanagan, in The Atlantic, on having stage IV colon cancer during the time of COVID19 (if you only read one piece this week, make it this one)

Orac, in Respectful Insolence, discusses Plandemic.

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on testing and contact tracing.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, covers whether or not we should be currently worried about coronavirus mutations

FREE Help From My New Venture For Ontarians With Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Or Prediabetes But Stranded By COVID19

Are you an Ontario resident recently diagnosed with either type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes where COVID19 has prevented you from receiving comprehensive support to help manage and understand your new condition? If so, my new venture can help, and better yet, for FREE. Built initially to support weight management, Constant Health, our new digital behavioural intervention, is being re-positioned to help people with newly diagnosed diabetes and pre-diabetes who in turn have been left stranded by COVID19.

Constant Health's iOS app (note, this opportunity is currently only available for those with iPhones or iPads as the Android app is still in development), will provide you with 12 weeks of private and secure (PHIPA compliant) access to both a Mayo clinic certified health coach as well as a registered dietitian who together, by way of text messaging and video chats, will work collaboratively with you on your diet and lifestyle to help improve your blood sugar control and teach you about your new condition.

Constant Health's technology includes a robust, open-ended collaborative goal setting engine, a built-in food diary, a searchable and filterable database of millions of the web's most popular recipe sites, along with a proprietary real-time dashboard which will allow our team to applaud and encourage your success as well as to help troubleshoot your struggles.

As with my office's practice (the Bariatric Medical Institute), Constant Health's services aren't limited to any particular dietary strategy, but instead work with you on whatever approach you feel would best suit your life and preferences. From low-fat, to keto, to vegan and everything in between Constant Health can help.

Rest assured, there are no strings whatsoever. Currently, thanks to an unrestricted grant from Novo Nordisk, we have a limited number of spots available to freely offer and plainly, we are not currently accepting paid patients. However due to provincial medical licensing regulations for both MDs and RDs, and the need for physician screening, we can currently only extend this offer to Ontarians.

If you're interested, live in Ontario, and have an iPhone, simply fill out this quick survey and if eligible, our office will contact you to book a consultation with me so that I can explore your medical history and have a peek at your lab results for us to mutually determine if the program is for you.

Saturday Stories: This Week in #COVID19

Arlene Reid, 51, mother of 5 and PSW in Ontario working in LTC, died from COVID19 on April 27th. May her memory be a blessing.

Gid MK, in Medium, with his meta-analysis of reported infection fatality rates for COVID19

Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, in Inside, on the out of control "science" of this pandemic.

Joss Fong, in Vox, with a great explainer on how to understand that graph of all the countries' COVID cases you keep seeing. 

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a spectacular guide on how to make sense of the all over the place that is COVID19.

Caitlin Flanagan, in The Atlantic, with the 2020 commencement speech you're never hear (but you should so read).

Saturday Stories: The Week in #COVID19 And Some Stories Worth Reading

Angeline Bernadel, LPN at West River Healthcare in Milford, died of COVID19 on April 4th, 2020, may her memory be a blessing

Achal Prabhala and Ellen ‘t Hoen, in The Guardian, on our eventual COVID19 treatment and cure and its inevitable control by the pharmaceutical industry.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on why some people with COVID19 get so much sicker than others. 

Ari Feldman, in The Forward, on how Orthodox Jews are flocking by the thousands to donate convalescent plasma in the fight against COVID19.

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on what the world has taught us the dance must look like if we want to open things up. 

Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on the COVID19 dance steps that you yourself might be able to take.

Maryn McKenna, in Wired, on the risk that COVID19 will worsen the existing crisis of antibiotic resistance. 

Colleen Farrell, in The New York Times, on what to say and not say to those working COVID19's frontlines.

Saturday Stories: This Week's Worthwhile COVID19 Reads Roundup

Dr. Huy-Hao Dao, 44,,who worked at Quebec’s Montérégie-Centre Integrated Health and Social Services Centre in Longueuil and sadly the first Canadian physician to die of COVID19, may his memory be a blessing.

Roxanne Khamsi, in Nature, on the incredible challenges we'll face producing and distributing a SARS-CoV2 vaccine if/when we find one.

Michael Specter, in The New Yorker, with a profile of America's real doctor - Anthony Fauci

Apoorva Mandavilli and Katie Thomas, in The New York Times, discuss what serology tests are, and whether they'll help us all get back to work.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on our pandemic summer and how the only way out is through.

Maggie Koerth, in FiveThirtyEight, on COVID's destruction of our medical supply chains and how it's not impossible the entire world's supply of medical grade glass (used for vaccine vials for instance) has already been pre-purchased.

Terrie Laplante-Beauchamp, in the Globe and Mail, with her must-read 3 day diary of her experiences volunteering as an orderly in a Montreal based long-term care facility hit hard by COVID19.

William Hanage, in the Guardian, on why he thinks it's incredibly premature to be discussing peaks, second waves, and getting back to normal.

Saturday Story: Only One, Because For First Time in 15 Years, I Accidentally Deleted The Rest

Dr. Doug Bass, may his memory be a blessing, the first physician in NYC to die from COVID9

Sorry to those who enjoy these reads, but by accident, deleted the lot of them save one

Dhruv Khullar, in The New Yorker, on his work as a physician in NYC during the time of COVID19, and adrenaline, duty and fear.

Saturday Stories: Some Of This Week's Most Important #COVID19 Stories

You can follow Dr. Griggs on Twitter

Italian novelist, Francesca Melandri, in The Guardian, writes you a letter to you from Italy explaining what you're about to be facing.

Psychologist Stuart Richie, in Unherd, on why you might not want to trust psychologists on matters coronavirus

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a characteristically great deep dive on whether or not we should all be wearing masks.

Harlan Krumholz, in The New York Times, needs you to know there are many false negative #COVID19 tests and why if you have symptoms, you should assume that's what you've got.

J. Kenji López-Alt, in Serious Eats, with the definitive guide to food safety and the coronavirus (a must read if you watched that long, scary, YouTube video about same)

Mary Chris Jaklevic, in HealthNewsReview, explains why you need to consider stories detailing #COVID19 scientific studies with caution.

Saturday Stories: Some Of This Week's Most Important #COVID19 Reads

Jennifer Yang, in The Toronto Star, speaks with 3 of Toronto's health care heroes.

Adam Rogers, in Wired, explains what convalescent plasma is and how it might help treat COVID19.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, being Ed Yong and writing an incredible piece on how this pandemic might end.

David Enrich, Rachel Abrams and Steven Kurutz, in The New York Time, on the sewing army rising up to help.

Helen Branswell, in STAT, summarizing all the we've learned to date about the SARS-CoV2 virus.

Daniela J. Lamas, in The New York Times, writing as a critical care physician in Boston on the unfathomable reality she's facing there.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New Yorker, on how the coronavirus behaves inside of our bodies.

Saturday Stories: Still Just Coronavirus Links - Guessing It Might Be This Way For A Little While At Least

Gretchen Reynolds, in The New York Times, answers questions as to the safety of exercising in the face of COVID-19

Cornelia Griggs, in The New York Times,  a critical care physician in New York, explains why she needs you to know that the sky is falling.

Yascha Mounk, in The Atlantic, tries to explain why people aren't staying home despite incredible risks and ramifications of not doing so.

Ashleigh Tuite and David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, both infectious disease epidemiologists, with their thoughts on how we might slow the burn of the COVID-19 forest fire.

Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha, in The Atlantic, with their thoughts on how we can beat this coronavirus.

Pam Belluck, in The New York Times, needs you to know that though children uniformly have much milder cases of COVID-19 than adults, some will become seriously ill.

Manny Fernandez, in The New York Times, with a sobering read on how the coronavirus will impact the already impoverished.

Saturday Stories: #COVID19 #FlattenTheCurve #CancelEverything Edition

7 views on why social distancing is so important right now and why we have to "cancel everything". If you think that #COVID19 isn't a big deal, do take the time to read these pieces to learn why you're wrong (ordered solely by way of the order I happened to read them in).

Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott, in Vox.

Tomas Pueyo in Medium

Yascha Monk, in The Atlantic

Helen Branswell, in STAT

André Picard, in The Globe and Mail

Sharon Kirkey in The National Post

Kaitlyn Tiffany in The Atlantic

Also, here's Wency Leung, in The Globe and Mail, on what you should do if you think you have COVID19, and here is the Toronto Star's infographic on what self-isolation should look like if it's determined that you've contracted the virus.

Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris / CC BY-SA

TikTok Is All About Fat Shaming These Days

I was driving with my 13 year old daughter on Saturday and we were just chatting. I asked her what was trending these days on her TikTok stream (in the past she'd been served up antisemitism)? Apparently it's fat shaming Lizzo.

I asked her to share some videos with me.

She sent over 10 in less than a minute.

Some representative examples to follow, but all this to say, TikTok, while hugely entertaining, is a cesspool of hate and bullying, and if your children use it, probably worth asking them every once in a while what's trending on their streams so that you can take the time at least to talk about it.

@noahswitzer98

Everyone please ##stop making ##lizzo memes ##fyp

♬ original sound - noahswitzer98

@nickring4

When you lose Lizzo while your whale watching 😂 ##greenscreen ##lizzo ##meme ##xyzbca ##xyzcba ##joke ##fyp ##memes ##tiktokmemes ##comedy ##comedicgenius

♬ ITs ANIT new girlfriend of your ex - its_anit

@yaboyg35

##greenscreenvideo ##lizzo ##meme ##tacticalnuke ##mw2

♬ original sound - yaboyg35

Saturday Stories: Elizabeth Warren, Enabling Antisemites, Marathon Cheats, and COVID19

Elie Mysal, in The Nation, with the depressing truth behind why Elizabeth Warren won't be America's next president. 

Sharon Otterman, in The New York Times, with an absolutely shocking story of enabled antisemitism from New Jersey (and I don't shock easily)

Derek Murphy, in Wired, on marathon cheaters and their investigators

[And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's the segment I did yesterday on CTV's The Social where we chatted about many things COVID19 (if geoblocked outside of a Canada, a VPN spoofing a Canadian server ought to work]

Australian Food Industry Launches World's Least Aggressive New Voluntary Self-Regulatory Effort

Waiting for any industry to self-regulate itself is just plain dumb. Honestly, industry's job is to protect and promote sales, and that's of course true for the food industry as well.

Self-regulation tends to crop up not out of altruism or doing the right thing, but rather as a means to forestall legislative regulatory efforts which in turn would prove to be more damaging to sales.

Take this recent initiative out of Australia which will see the food industry not advertising their junk to kids within 150m (500ft) of schools. 150 whole metres! While certainly not likely to do anything at all, it'll be especially useless perhaps in that the school buses themselves will be exempt, as of course will be the bus stops' shelters.

Oh, and as toothless as it is, it's also voluntary.

Really the only thing this initiative will do is provide the food industry with ammunition if and when facing calls for legislated regulation (something we're hearing more and more calls for) and to pretend that they care about anything other than profits.

It's always best to remember, as I've written before, the food industry is neither friend, nor foe, nor partner.