Bee 🫒🌼✨

Public Health student 🇦🇺 🇫🇮 Plant person. AuDHD. Chronically curious. Alphabet soup connoisseur. ♐⬆️ | ♃ in ♉ @elbecp.bsky.social

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

I'm not sure if this is just my perception of things, so keep that in mind, but I do feel like many people in the US talk about and think about ICE alone instead of connecting to a global struggle against borders as a colonial form of control.

[H @hostbodyhan]

tired of everyone demanding disabled ppl have studies on hand when advocating on disabled issues to be worthy of support. many of these issues & data points are systemically suppressed by institutions. our predictive nature is based on years of experience, not shoddy guesswork

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

All those kids getting long covid and falling behind in school? Look how teachers already talk about them. They're just calling them stupid and lazy and that's just the start and the least of the ways they'll degrade these students.

[Danielle Beckman @DaniBeckman]

“If the cells are frequently turning over and they are still detecting viral persistence, what other plausible explanations are there for this other than replication?”

That's a very good question, and it's one of the central puzzles in the field of viral persistence. Let’s see why:

If a tissue contains cells that turn over relatively quickly (intestinal epithelium, immune cells, etc.), and viral RNA or proteins are still being detected months or years after an infection, then ongoing replication is the most intuitive explanation, but it is not the only one. Other reasonable options are:

1. Persistence in long-lived reservoir cells.

The tissue as a whole may turn over, but a subset of cells may not. We know this happens for neurons, some endothelial cells, tissue macrophages, lymphocytes, and others. In this case, the virus isn't replicating continuously, but instead, a long-lived infected cell survives for months or years and continues to produce low levels of viral RNA or protein. This is essentially how the HIV reservoir works, for example.

2. Defective viral genomes.

A cell can also contain incomplete viral genomes incapable of producing infectious viruses, so the genome may still produce RNA transcripts and some proteins. While this stimulates innate immunity (so enough to cause symptoms and pathology), it doesn’t generate new infectious virions.

3. Protein persistence without viral persistence.

The virus itself may be gone but you can have lingering viral remnants like spike protein and nucleocapsid fragments that can persist inside phagocytic cells or in extracellular compartments. In this case, what is being detected is essentially debris rather than an active infection, but their presence is enough to induce immunological responses (and again, enough to produce symptoms/pathology).

4. Continuous release from another hidden reservoir.

The tissue where detection occurs may not be the reservoir. Hidden reservoir can include gut, bone marrow and lymphoid tissue, while the released is being detected in blood or peripheral immune cells. In this model, the virus replicates (or persists) in one location, while viral products continually seed other compartments.

5. Cell-to-cell transfer without productive infection.

Macrophages and other immune cells can acquire viral material from neighboring cells. These cells may test positive for viral RNA or viral proteins like spike, despite never being truly infected. So a positive signal does not necessarily mean productive viral replication.

From a scientific perspective, the most reasonable model may actually be a combination of different situations, like a small reservoir that exists in a long-lived cell, which can induce low-level or intermittent replication. This can induce viral proteins and RNA to be continuously released. These products can then be captured by immune cells and distributed through the body.

That model can explain why viral material remains detectable despite turnover, and why it is so hard for scientists to recover large amounts of infectious virus years later.

One of the key unresolved question is whether the reservoir is producing new virus, or merely old viral products that are being recycled and retained. That's one of the areas where the field is still struggling to obtain definitive evidence.

#LongCovid #MECFS

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

We really need to be clocking alternative explanations for long covid as propaganda and it's subtler than most people think. Obviously, we're getting articles that blatantly ignore science saying LC is made up, but what about messaging about stress affecting your health that...

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

If you're reading this, I really hope you'll support my mutual. Whenever I try to make a post on its own, no one sees it, but this mutual has hardly gotten anything since the latest aggression from isn't real started. Please give and spread this.
https://t.co/1e4uASTrat

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

I am receiving no signals that any orgs left of liberal are even doing so much as listening to people with ME and LC and people with other severe chronic illnesses. I could easily be missing it and I would like to know if I am.

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

We can't even get past that to anything more complex. I'm watching disabled people strategize with no one on our side, with people who should be on our side actively positioning themselves against us. It's like we're in the twilight zone.

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

And the more it disables you, because there are levels to this, the more it'll try to isolate you from your community and target you. It will try to convince you and everyone around you that you're worthless, a burden and don't deserve your own liberation.

[TheDisabilityEnthusiast @twitchyspoonie]

Fascism will disable you if you survive it long enough. Through intentionally spread disease, pollution and environmental destruction, through climate catastrophe, through poverty, war and concentration camps, displacement, famine, etc.

[Bee 🫒🌼✨ @elbecp]

@riikkamariaP @1goodtern @oxbits I remember from 2020-21 the pivot from "it's not coming here" to "it's here but not going to spread far" to "it's pretty much over" x 3 before "it's definitely over, time to live life again". Figured out early they couldn't be trusted. But yes high trust society has its dark side

[Bee 🫒🌼✨ @elbecp]

@riikkamariaP @1goodtern @oxbits I'm so disappointed at how anti-science Finland has been in regards to this! My partner is a big tall Finnish guy and he said he got quite a few hostile stares when he was over there too. People aren't game to do it to him here...

[Nele @NeleHelena]

3. give unconnected and irrelevant general examples of how emotions can cause physical sensations 
4. find a few anecdotal recovery stories
5. label all valid criticism as rejection of a psychological aspect

Sadly, always succesful. 2/2

[Nele @NeleHelena]

The thing about mind-body is that anyone can talk about it. It doesn't require you to have any knowledge of the body and the brain. 

1. pick a misunderstood physical illness in an ableist society 
2. act like you're the first one ever who thinks of a psychological aspect

1/2

[Long Covid Advocacy 💙 @LongCovidAdvoc]

❌ This is an false assumption. There isn't a blanket acceptance on mindfulnesses in medicine.

There are substantial issues contextually & practically.

🔎 Investigated in our Cognitive therapies series: Mindfulness rebranded

To know more 🖇️ 👇

[Long Covid Advocacy 💙 @LongCovidAdvoc]

Part One in our Cognitive Therapies Series.
https://t.co/xrRFE1vWzx

[Long Covid Advocacy 💙 @LongCovidAdvoc]

If you want to look at one of the closest phenomena to a cult in medicine - it's mindfulness.

Pain clinics are notorious for gaslighting patients with a BPS explanation for symptoms.

It is an illogical case of confidence over evidence that offers a cheap, & easy model.

[Sana Saeed @SanaSaeed]

Remember how everyone rushed to use his photo, of his walking toward an IDF tank to advocate for the lives of his patients? Rushed to plaster it everywhere, rushed to make AI edits, art, whatever. That was in December 2024.

How often is he mentioned today? He is alive, he is being tortured and slowly killed - he, alongside every Palestinian hostage, must be freed.

[David Milner @DaveMilbo]

We broke significant national news this week and not a single mainstream media outlet wanted to cover it or follow up.

It isn't surprising, but it is illustrative.

Put simply, they're all owned and operated by Zionist billionaires.

This is why indie media needs to exist.

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

Police removed diabetes scientists from the convention center here in New Orleans today after they attempted to pass out copies of an editorial from a peer-reviewed scientific journal (impact factor = 16.6) that was critical of NIH.