As a building scientist that worked on the design of an award-winning hospital, I am telling you that our indoor air can be as safe as a hospital surgical room if corporations cared enough, and we wouldn’t have to mask indoors 99.99% of the time in order to stay healthy. #OneoftheTwo

You know that runner in Toronto that races streetcars? The City put in dedicated lanes on Bathurst, and he re-raced it “This used to be the slowest route. Now it’s the closest race I’ve done. I never thought I’d say this. But I’m really surprised. There’s hope: for the streetcars and for the city.”

❤️ Happy 79th birthday to Patricia Lee Smith, the Godmother of Punk, born on this day in 1946, Chicago, Illinois 🫅 Photo by Lynn Goldsmith #punk #punks #punkrock #womenofpunk #pattismith #history #punkrockhistory #otd

I expected to read this story and find that public health was monitoring harmful substances and that asbestos was not detected downstream of these pipes but nope! Health Canada says there’s no good quality evidence that asbestos is harmful if present in drinking water. 🙃

Very very slippery on roads and sidewalks right now. Careful out there Toronto. 🧊

Rather than resolutions I’m trying to think of activities, habits and intentions that served me during a difficult year.

Don’t worry everyone, Dr Bogoch said on the news yesterday that we’re already at the peak and flu cases will go down from here. 🙃

Buried in the TTC's 2026 operating budget is a reference to lost funding for "the General Body Repairperson apprenticeship program after the Skills Development Fund provincial funding application was unsuccessful." Obviously TTC did not bribe the Tories sufficiently.

There's a vicious circle between the "Evidence Based Medicine" empire builders working to de-skill medicine and turn it into mindless obedience to their pseudoscientific guidance, and a management class that figures if it's that easy then they can cut staff. Meanwhile COVID burns up the work force.

I just did this again. Happy to extend the life of my 3+ yo iPhone. My dad, who does not use a smartphone but who likes fixing things helped. He could not even see the screws let alone distinguish between the 1.3mm and 1.9mm. DIY repair is resistance against billionaires. #ifixit @ifixit.com

Since medical malpractice is what I want to do (in part motivated by these experiences), I will say that the system is very stacked against patient plaintiffs. The system also tends to prefer to assign blame to individual professionals for mistakes rather than consider systemic issues.

Patient experience study idea: review ignored patient responses from 5-10-20 years ago (if they have been retained) and see if acting on more suggestions would have accelerated good practices in healthcare.

For anyone that gets that disorienting feeling of not knowing what day it is between Xmas and New Years and having very few obligations and things to do - that’s called being relaxed.

12YO girl signed up to do “stand up comedy” at the talent show. 13YO boy decided to heckle her. Teacher started to tell the boy to leave her alone, but the 12YO comedian said “no, no, let him go, this is the closest he’s ever going to get to having a conversation with a girl.”

Manitoba lowering breast cancer testing self-referral age https://www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/article/breast-cancer-screening-self-referral-age-lowering-in-manitoba/ 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗹𝘆 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 ⇢ CanadaHealthwatch.ca/newsletter

While I was in prison, I was the food procurement clerk. It was my job to work with the first cook to design the daily food menu and then make sure the men were fed on a budget of $2.60 per person per day. How I helped make the best Christmas prison meal, a thread.

Policy on health is clearly broken - politicized, out of touch, reactive and slow. My recent keynote at the Canadian Biosafety Symposium took a big-picture look at how and why that's happening, and how we can turn things around. Here's a general-audience version, recorded at the Deep River library.

A few weeks ago I told my family that I’m not buying gifts but rather bringing my sewing machine home for the holidays and will repair something for them. They actually seemed a lot more excited than I expected. 🎁 🪡

A bunch of predators harmed children. The children were not believed and so the predators faced no consequences. Paperwork was discovered that corroborates the testimony of the children but it needs to be redacted to protect the predators while claiming to protect the children. Messed up.

The LEGO Tower on Harbord Street by Toronto artist Martin Reis.

What strikes me about these Epstein materials - there are really no surprises. The 1000+ victims have already named all these men. Even Bill Gates. His wife publicly said she divorced him because of his relationship with Epstein. We just don't believe women, systemically.

It's high time for all hospitals, daycares, public schools and long term care facilities to be taking airborne precautions 24/7 from now until .... well ... forever. Because so many of the nasties out there, are either predominantly airborne or have an airborne component.

Even tho I haven't used my CO2 monitor as systematically as you have, it has changed my perceptions of home & public spaces used for gatherings. The evolution of public understanding of & official policies (private & govt) on IAQ can't happen fast enough. We also need better tools to evaluate spaces

The smell when the water hit my hair the morning after a bar night was so gross.

When I'm accused of naivety for thinking the world can change for the better, I use this very example. I'm not old & in my lifetime, smoking went from absolutely everywhere, to "smoking sections", to the current reality. It took education, new laws, & peer pressure. All of it - no silver bullet.

Does anyone in Davenport get responses to their emails to @maritstilesndp.bsky.social’s office? I get that being leader of the opposition is a big job but a response on local issues from someone in the office is expected.

Clicked the link and it contains good advice on ventilation and filtration. It would be nice if public health could set ventilation requirements for public spaces and report on compliance too though.

“Selling out” was such a huge thing in the early-mid 90s, trying to remember when it stopped being a thing for most.

The city of Toronto has a posting up for a member of the board of health. secure.toronto.ca/pa/decisionB...

TORONTO! Save the date. We'll be coming to what is arguably the birthplace of the war on cars for a live show on February 5th, 2026. Patreoners will get first dibs on tickets. Stay tuned for more details! Doug Ford will not be our special guest. www.patreon.com/c/thewaronca...

Traveling for the holidays? Stay well on your way by wearing a high-quality mask like an N95 in crowded indoor spaces like airports and planes. Also wash your hands frequently, cover your cough or sneeze, and avoid traveling if you’re sick. 📲 Learn more: go.cdph.ca.gov/respiratory-viruses

there was a water main break in my neighbourhood recently and quite a number of people reported their tap water being brown/nasty not a single word for the city or public health (they knew, fire dept/police had to shut down the flooded street) how hard is it to say "don't drink for 24h"

According to the musician who played the piano intro on the recording of the pogues fairytale of new york there is a mistake and I can’t tell what it was. Maybe because I don’t understand music theory or maybe I’ve just heard (and loved) the song for too long. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/l...

I like Pluribus because I also see myself as someone who treasures humanity but dislikes humans

Less than 7% of federal health research funding goes towards women's health in Canada. And waittimes for gynaecological surgery are not tracked while other surgeries are. Should OB/ GYN be separated into 2 different groups? Why does the term OB/GYN “encodes a bias”?

Watching gilded age and searching these people on Wikipedia and I guess it’s a myth that divorce was rare back then.

It’s so interesting that people who did a whole MD and fellowship or whatever in infectious diseases are still talking about immunity debt like it’s a real concept based in science and not something McKinsey made up in 2022 to convince everyone to start spending money again.

We’ve created the perfect sickness storm because whether you have covid or not right now, whatever sickness you have is probably worse because Covid damaged your immune system or other organs. But still we do almost nothing to prevent or reduce multiple Covid infections.

"I'm not in denial, I'm in open rebellion" damn that quote goes hard

CHAIR is offering to fund facility-wide installation of Upper Air UV disinfection to a select number of acute care & long-term care facilities in 🇨🇦 as part of the world’s first large-scale UV pilot project for healthcare. chaircoalition.org

"There are no more free public spaces!" Your library is right there. "I can't afford to subscribe to every media outlet!" Your library is right there. "I have to subscribe to corporate streaming or else I can't watch movies or play video games!" Your library is right there.

I knew about this anti screening stuff and the C19 vaccine turned so many people into cranks but HPV vaccine? The one that has eradicated cervical cancer in vaccinated age cohorts? Good lord these people are so dangerous.

The sole author here, Peter C. Gøtzsche, was expelled from the Cochrane Collaboration for his increasingly extremist screeds against drug company research, breast cancer screening & COVID & HPV vaccines. He started his "Institute for Scientific Freedom" to continue his fringe anti-vaccine views.

I also finished Goliath’s Curse this weekend and it was really good. Did a good job of addressing the threats we are facing.

Looking at the strava global heatmap and the railpath has been closed at bloor for so long that it doesn't even show anymore. 😥

And I'm already finished! Great book, recommend.

I am extremely proud to say, my new book, HOW TO SURVIVE A BEAR ATTACK, is published today. A memoir, an investigation, nature writing, plus a dash of fiction, it's a blend because I started writing with a question -- if I'm attacked by a bear, will I survive? #booksky #naturewriting #bearsky

My TPL hold finally came in for How to Survive a Bear Attack by @clairecameron.bsky.social. I’ve already had to stop and reflect on how close to home it all feels… I even camped on Bates island years ago before I knew of the bear attack.

'You shouldn't criticize Mark Carney because that's how you get Pierre Poilievre' is...exactly how you get Pierre Poilievre. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Our findings redefine SARS-CoV-2 infection as a condition of long-lasting immune compromise." But sure, keep basing your life on the idea that it's fine to get reinfected annually.