Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre

PhDc, Epidemiology and Biostatistics @WesternU | Global surgery, SR/MAs, COVID-19, Bayesian stats & causal inference

[Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre @KMcIntyre94]

Massive 🧵incoming
This is an idea I've been struggling with. Obviously there are different levels of expertise leading to different qualities of opinions. But expertise is a concept that's hard to define. Where does expertise begin & end? What qualifies someone as an expert? 1/

[Dr. Jonathan N. Stea @jonathanstea]

Unpopular opinion:

Not all opinions are equally valid when it comes to scientific expertise.

[Thomas Piggott MD PhD @twpiggott]

Please don’t revise history. Nobody was “forced” to be vaccinated.

Governments of all political stripes in Canada, and around the world made the best decisions they could to protect vulnerable people. Requirements are part of organized society.

Force means use of violence. This statement is untrue and harmful.

[Dalia Hasan MD MSc CCFP @DaliaHasanMD]

They made COVID vaccines difficult to access
They took away our COVID tests
They never offered respirators or clean air

Call me old fashioned, but I long for the days when public health trumped "personal responsibility"

[Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre @KMcIntyre94]

This is also not accounting for the lack of robust immunity developed through infection nor the underlying damage that an infection can do increasing risk of a whole host of other diseases without obvious symptoms arising surrounding the time of infection.

[Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre @KMcIntyre94]

I mean, it seems like a pretty clear case of survival bias... If you ignore all the people who died from COVID and those who experience negative effects from the virus, then yeah, you can torture the data to say that getting sick is a good thing 🤦‍♂️

[Ashley Winter MD || Urologist @AshleyGWinter]

I am getting trolled and harassed on literally every social media platform for having vaccinated my daughter against COVID so I think this is a great time to announce that I have also gotten my COVID booster while pregnant to pass COVID protection to my fetus. Happily.

[@rnaguru.bsky.social @rnaguru]

And the beat goes on! Ottawa wastewater surveillance🧪📉 will continue @uOttawa thanks to financial support from @HealthOttawa, @CHEO Hospital, and CHEO Research Institute. Thanks @AlexMunter @LabBerman @VeraEtches @RobDelatolla for making this happen!
https://t.co/me1ICSTFtl

[Science Magazine @ScienceMagazine]

A new generation of cancer-preventing vaccines could wipe out tumors before they form.

Learn more: https://t.co/pilczKPfCG @NewsfromScience #ScienceMagArchives

[Journal of Clinical Epidemiology @JClinEpi]

Using Causal Diagrams within the GRADE Framework to Evaluate Confounding Adjustment in Observational Studies - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology https://t.co/eewIPCfD6B

[Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre @KMcIntyre94]

@GirlMeetsStats ❤️
Thanks Emma!

[Kevin McIntyre https://mstdn.ca/@kevinmcintyre @KMcIntyre94]

New in @JClinEpi @karina_tassi Curtis Jeffery @SAVERIOWarwick @janetmartinwho & I discuss how incorporating DAGs into GRADE can help provide more robust, transparent & reproducible evaluations of confounding for observational research in evidence synthesis https://t.co/bdpjvpRlbT

[kt @karina_tassi]

Using Causal Diagrams within the GRADE Framework to Evaluate Confounding Adjustment in Observational Studies - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology https://t.co/1MPZlWETMt

Thank you @KMcIntyre94 for including me in this project! Huge congrats to you and our co-authors!

[David Moscrop @David_Moscrop]

People will die because of this decision. So, no it’s not.

[Tom Parkin @TomPark1n]

If supervised sites are closed, won’t addicts using them move to injecting — and maybe dying — somewhere else, like public places possibly close to schools?

Shutting supervised site doesn’t magically cure addicts, it just moves them to unsupervised sites

How is that better?

[World Health Organization (WHO) @WHO]

Protect yourself and your loved ones from #COVID19:
🛋️ Stay home if you are sick
🤧Test and contact your doctor for medical care
💪 Get vaccinated against COVID-19 & influenza, especially if you are in an at-risk group
🪟 Ventilate

Wear a mask around others.

[Thomas Piggott MD PhD @twpiggott]

Alcohol is a major carcinogen (cancer-causing substance). It’s the second highest substance in annual deaths in Ontario (after tobacco) and costs the most: $7.11 billion currently in direct health and social harms.

https://t.co/eMcFLjMlgo

[United Nations Geneva @UNGeneva]

"#COVID19 is still very much with us. The virus is circulating in all countries.

Governments need to provide their populations with the tools to protect themselves

As individuals it is important to take measures to reduce risk of infection & severe disease."
- @mvankerkhove

[Deonandan @deonandan]

So this unsettling chart will likely be the last piece of COVID wastewater data that Eastern Ontario will ever receive from Public Health Ontario.

[Ted Hsu @tedhsu]

This is the full statement we received:

“Federal wastewater monitoring programs do not duplicate the work done by provincial wastewater program.

While work is underway to expand federal testing in Ontario, the scope of the expansion would not replace the current scope of the Ontario program.

Ontario’s decision to sunset their wastewater testing program was not coordinated with PHAC’s decision to expand its wastewater monitoring program.”

[tern @1goodtern]

If I keep masking for another couple of years and it turns out all the scientists researching it are mistaken and it's actually fine to catch covid again and again, then I'll just have been healthy for five years in a row for the first time in my life for no reason at all. 😕

[Andrew Boozary MD @drandrewb]

We cannot say we have a universal health care system when 2.5 million people in Ontario cannot access primary care.