What is the public health equilibrium? It’s a term I coined to describe the balancing act that is public health, which I’ll describe in this blog. This is my perception, vision, thinking and not anyone I work for or consult for. This blog was inspired by one of my recent tweets: I don’t think the […]
Running with Headlines & Headline Science Troubles: For today’s musings in scicomms…What’s in a headline? And what do we do with headlines? To explain, let me share a Running with Headlines experience that happened: I recently had Dr. Shuji Ogino (Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School) on my Causes or Cures podcast to […]
This blog will focus on Credentialism and the Ant-Credential Movement in the realm of scientific discourse, but first, a quick joke: So, what is credentialism? Essentially, it’s equating someone’s degrees and diplomas with his/her intelligence, capacity to do a job, and capacity to understand a particular topic. While traditionally it has been discussed in […]
Even if you reside under a rock, you’ve heard about the problem of online misinformation. While discussions around online misinformation went mainstream during the 2016 presidential election, they exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic. At least for scientific misinformation, which is a reminder that we now have categories of misinformation…political, scientific, health…as if there is […]
While I was out walking my dog Barnaby in New York City, I saw this sign. I might have done something a little different with the signs…, just sayin’. 😉
NYC’s Fentanyl Ad: My friend recently sent me a photo of a NYC health department ad on the subway, with the text, “Can you believe this?” Here is a screenshot of the ad: It reads, “Don’t be ashamed you are using, be empowered that you are using safely.” The small print (which no one is […]
The Caveat of Truth-Seeking: By: Dr. Eeks I posted the following on Instagram and Twitter: “Criticize crony-capitalistic influences. There’s enough legitimate material there. Try to avoid conspiracy theories that will make it harder to be taken seriously and create viable, positive change. If you aren’t sure where something stands, ask more questions.” I don’t […]
By Dr. Eeks This is my hypothesis, not anyone’s I work for. It’s also my dog’s hypothesis, and so you know, he’s quite bright. A recent poll conducted among healthcare workers showed that 72% of them state misinformation negatively impacts patients’ decisions about the vaccine, and 71% of them said it negatively impacts their decisions […]
The Art of the Napkin Risk-Benefit Analysis for COVID and the War on Misinformation: “Dear Bo, Once again, they are trying to get people vaccinated by calling them dumbf*cks. I’ll be here all winter.” Imagine if we were writing letters home from our various perspectives of the war on misinformation? What would yours […]
Misinformation vs Dissent is a topic I’ve been interested in throughout this pandemic. Of course this topic extends to topics beyond COVID-19, but for my line of work, its relation to the pandemic and what/how information is relayed to the public is of most interest to me. If you are new to my opinions on […]
Detox the Vax Recipes are another toxic extention of the toxic communication that has been a hallmark of this pandemic. There are several Detox the Vax Recipes floating around the ‘grams, meaning Instagram and Telegram. Though I haven’t found a scientific basis for any of them, I noticed that they get a lot of comments […]
Natural Immunity…Shh! Don’t Say Those Words! by: Dr. Eeks This morning I flipped through a couple of my Epidemiology books from public health school, trying to figure out why “natural immunity” became taboo. I always just assumed that herd immunity included both natural immunity and if there was a vaccine available, vaccine-induced immunity. […]
To hear the podcast version of this, please click here: Causes or Cures Boosters. But my voice isn’t that great, so you know, maybe not. By Dr. Eeks Whenever I think about the public health response to COVID-19, I don’t just think about the current pandemic. I think about the next one, and if […]