In people age 50+, the Covid booster halved hospitalization and deaths. Waning of benefit after 3-6 months For the mRNA BA.1 booster vs no shot after initial vaccination www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Powerful video from @nikki-s.bsky.social on 6 years of #LongCovid. Tens of thousands of others are approaching same anniversary in UK alone - millions worldwide. A very long tail from the pandemic. #CountLongCovid #CareForLongCovid #ResearchLongCovid

Our NHS staffing tracker shows there were just under 30,000 full-time equivalent GPs in England at the end of 2025. 🧑‍⚕️ It marks a long‑awaited return to 2016 levels, after earlier targets for substantial increases have been and gone. Here's what the data shows... (1/4)

📣 6 years ago I had my first Covid-19 symptoms. Despite various debilitating symptoms still impacting my life, I was discharged from my #LongCovid service in 2024. Like thousands of others with chronic illness, I have no ongoing care. Take a look at my video ⬇️ #CureLongCovid

8/ You can read the paper here www.bmj.com/content/392/...

🧵1/ England’s 2026 national cancer plan sets ambitious goals. Earlier diagnosis, personalised care, and faster access to innovation. But our new @bmj.com piece with Bernard Rachet & Ajay Aggarwal, argues that it reads less like a health strategy and more like an industrial strategy.

⭐ Episode 29: Vitamin B12 - Could it help me? ⭐ Long Covid Clinic: Fireside Chat Series 📍 YouTube live 📅 Wednesday 11 February ⏰ 18:00 GMT 🎥 This session will be recorded for those unable to attend live.

Plenty of press coverage tonight for one of the most important papers I’ve been involved with… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Bottom line: “PRISMA-compliance” can mask questionable practices. For complex evidence, we need better training/oversight, methods + topic expertise, and new synthesis approaches designed for complexity—combining formal tools with interpretive, context-rich judgment. 9/

Short thread on our new paper. We use face mask efficacy research as a “stress test” for systematic review methods. We analysed 66 systematic reviews of face mask efficacy; they reached widely different conclusions (~half said they work, half said that evidence of efficacy was lacking). 1/

What an interesting piece of research. “A new study from the Sheffield Addictions Research Group (SARG) has found that public health policies which reduce spending on harmful products can actually provide a significant boost to UK jobs and the wider economy.” sarg-sheffield.ac.uk/news-media/n...

@erictopol.bsky.social maybe you can cover this issue (66 systematic reviews of mask efficacy, half conclude they are effective, half conclude that evidence is lacking; the phrase “PRISMA compliant” obscures a multitude of sins) in your podcast?

A good piece of research here. Some industries claim regulating products like tobacco is bad for the economy. It isn’t. People change spending to other things, usually in their local economies. Welcome news, but not to tobacco industry . sarg-sheffield.ac.uk/news-media/n...

Is life expectancy still increasing in the UK? A short thread on why experts have come to different conclusions in recent years but why I think the latest data clearly shows an underlying trend of increasing #longevity. 1/6

We're asking MPs in the Thames Water area to sign an open letter to Ofwat telling them to reject Thames Water's rescue bid - a bid that if signed off would permit them to pollute our rivers until 2040. 2,000 of you have written to them. But >100 MPs have still not signed the letter. 1/2

For one month only, my book 'Are you the F**king doctor? Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine,' will be discounted to GBP 0.99 in a Kindle Great Savings Deal which runs until 28-Feb-2026 www.amazon.co.uk/Are-You-king...

Lots to think about in my annual roundup of peer review research: - AI, mostly bad; some suggestions of ways it may help - Evidence on financial rewards for peer review - Influence of editors' biases More on equity & diversity; librarians & systematic reviews absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2026/02/02/5...

Lots of news in my latest next generation Covid vax update: - Self-amplifying mRNA vax Kostaive approved in the UK - New trial for mucosal vax starting in Finland - Results from AstraZeneca phase 1 trial for mRNA vax ... absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2026/01/31/a... 1/2 #Vaccines #Covid #Covid19

Wow?! BBC News homepage has just significantly downgraded the placing of its "Climate" section on its menu bar Climate is now ranked last, lower than Tech. Earlier this month "Climate" was ranked above World, UK, US&Canada, Business and Tech

The PCR positivity map is out, and UKHSA are reporting a rise to 2.2% nationally in England. Adjusted for non-reporting we make that 2.88%. Scotland's seen a larger rise from 2.16 to 2.8%. jamestindall.info/skeuomorphol... 1/7

In follow-up of a randomized trial of low-dose aspirin in >19,000 older adults, cancer was not prevented and mortality related to cancer was increased jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Full livestream of the #UpHellyAa procession from 7.00pm on uphellyaa.com #shetland

My latest column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Get vaccinated (even if you or children you look after have missed out) www.nhs.uk/vaccinations...

The Shingles vaccine has outperformed all expectations. Why? erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-...

Good Substack from Rob Wachter: The week that AI crossed the line (into prescribing drugs). open.substack.com/pub/robertwa...

This isn’t my area of expertise at all, so I’ve been fascinated to read more today about the Fast Forward trial for radiotherapy in patients with early breast cancer. 🧵 1/n #MedSky #Research #BreastCancer #Covid #MedicalTrials From @thelancet.com www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"The short answer is that the Treasury took no action at all." At the UK Covid Inquiry (Module 9), the Long Covid Groups were clear: the economic impact of Long Covid was foreseeable and ignored, leaving many people without support. Watch our closing statement: www.youtube.com/watch?si=ikR... 🧵 👇

Centre for Evidence and Values in Healthcare - 5th Feb in St Andrews. Screening can be confusing, numbers, ethics, communication....PSA, whole body scans, influencers telling you to get bloods for 'wellbeing'... low cost, non profit, no sponsorship medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk/centreforevi...

🤔We asked the DHSC who has ultimate decision-making power to use private finance in new neighbourhood health centres, and whether communities would get a say in decisions to use private finance in their health facilities. 1/3

When UK announced a deal with US on Pharma, @elstorreele.bsky.social & I were sceptical @bmj.com (not least because there is no text). Now we have the US interpretation and it’s not good 👇 www.bmj.com/content/391/...

The Guardian has a good summary of the campaigns and debates around building tunnels in Shetland and the Western Isles www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

A major milestone for next generation Covid vax: The first clinical trial for a pancoronavirus formulation of an existing vaccine was registered. With more news incl trial results & 12 preclinical reports—in my monthly update @plos.org absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/12/31/m... #Vaccines

The year's last light #Shetland #happynewyear

Thank you to everyone who made our work possible this year! Here's a thread on some of the highlights from PLRC's research, advocacy and education efforts in 2025. All of this work is carried out by a team living with #LongCovid 🧵 /1

STRENGTHEN PRIMARY CARE. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Here’s ten of the best papers I published this year (thread). 1. A rapid systematic review of the UK literature on physician associates. With @martinmckee.bsky.social www.bmj.com/content/388/...

Over a week ago @elstorreele.bsky.social & I raised serious questions about the still unpublished (if it actually exists) U.K. US Pharma “deal”. Pleased to see that @chionwurah.bsky.social has written to DHSC asking the same questions as we did. committees.parliament.uk/committee/13...

The PCR positivity map is out and even where there are hotspots it's (mostly) good news this week. I'll cover covid first, then flu. jamestindall.info/skeuomorphol... 1/8

Reminder, #MEcfs researchers: all consented data from @decodemestudy.bsky.social is available to researchers, including individual-level genotypes and symptom questionnaire responses institute-genetics-cancer.ed.ac.uk/decodeme-the... Summary stats & questionnaires available: osf.io/rgqs3/files/...

Winter light #Shetland

🧵1/ Flu is surging again, & patterns look uncomfortably familiar. The lesson from covid remains unchanged: individual responsibility isn’t enough. We need systemic measures that make protective behaviours easy. @profstevegriffin.bsky.social Stephen Reicher & I offer some thoughts @bmj.com

🧵1/ The Christmas @bmj.com is always an opportunity to use satire as a vehicle for serious health messaging. Borrowing from Jonathan Swift, I ask, if public health is to “work with industry,” why stop at alcohol and gambling? Why not go all the way… and collaborate with organised crime?

Fewer guns; more Ahmeds please: “Ahmed al-Ahmed … took the gun off that perpetrator at great risk to himself and suffered serious injury as a result of that, and is currently going through operations today in hospital,” Albanese said. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

A story about people having to pull their own teeth from @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/society/2025... Getting dental data right might not be glamorous, but it's going to be a key element of solving the problem. www.bmj.com/content/391/...

www.bmj.com/content/391/... An effective public health response to the next pandemic demands learning from past mistakes Public health needs proper funding, effective lines of communication, and support for its workforce to respond to future emergencies @tracyd-ph.bsky.social @fphuk.bsky.social

We are building a resource hub that will support educators of children and young people with Long Covid and overlapping illness. Thanks to all our #volunteers who make this possible. www.longcovidkids.org/education-pr... #Education #Inclusion #EquitableEducation #SEND #Disability

Do clinical trials expire? New heart attack studies show that evidence from 1980s may not apply to patients in 2025. Beta blockers are a case study in how medicine evolves, and how slowly our evidence base often keeps up. My latest Substack: neverdelegateunderstanding.substack.com/p/do-clinica...

1/ "Nisreen Alwan, a public health specialist at the University of Southampton, UK, also wants to see more research characterising the public health burden of post-infection conditions."... #LongCovid www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Good report from @nuffieldtrust.org.uk and @instituteforgovernment.org.uk on the abolition of NHS England. Strikes a sceptical tone about rationale, process and likely impact. I'd probably be more sceptical. Full report at www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/defaul.... I liked this graphic!