YOU HEARD WHAT?: Recent Episodes
Nodar Kipshidze
In today's saturated environment of social media posts, tweets, Instagram stories, Clubhouse rooms, or 'news' reports on everything COVID-19 and public health. It may be hard to discern between what is fact and what is fiction. With a background in global health, epidemiology, and clinical trials, I'll walk you through some of those misinterpretations.
Instagram: @YouHeardWhatPodcast
While the name may imply monkeys as the main reservoir behind Monkeypox, the discovery of Monkeypox in monkeys was most likely incidental. In this week’s episode, we dive into the history of Monkeypox from its first identification in captive crab-eating macaques in Denmark to the very first human case of Monkeypox a decade later in Basankusu Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This all occurred as the WHO set out to eradicate Smallpox over a ten-year span. The threat of a new pox virus was troubling, however, Monkeypox remained a widely rare disease only popping up in endemic countries. In 2022, the Monkeypox outbreak has spread to many non-endemic countries with over 500 suspected cases as of early June, with no obvious epidemiological links between cases and travel into or out of endemic countries. Once we cover the history, epidemiology, and basic virology behind Monkeypox, I dismantle 10 Monkeypox conspiracy theories I came across on Twitter. Finally, as always, links to references and show notes can be found here.
A short and sweet breakdown of the recent CDC MMWR report regarding COVID-19 deaths among those vaccinated between December 2020 and October 2021. Unfortunately, the CDC Director, Richelle Wolesnky, was misquoted or taken out of context when referring to the fact that over 75% of COVID-19 deaths (in the study sample) were among those with 4 or more comorbidities -- the full reference was 75% among those who were fully vaccinated (yes, re-read that one), were hospitalized passed away (btw, that was only 36 individuals). As always link to references and show summary can be find here.
Yes, it’s the clickbait episode. This week we’re covering everything vaccines, and by everything, I mean specifically, the pre-clinical, clinical, and post-market work that establishes their safety and efficacy. We’ll break down the studies that went into developing some of the leading COVID-19 vaccines and the post-market work that goes into continuing to understand their safety signals in larger populations. We'll finally clarify the reports of post-vaccine deaths in the CDC/FDA's VAERS and WHO's VigiAccess, and demonstrate how these vaccine-related adverse event surveillance systems are working. As always, the show notes can be found here.
In today’s episode, I sit down with James on a new mini-series called “Asking for a Friend.” We go over some questions James’ friend has regarding Omicron, given all the news and information that continues to be released every day. We discuss the speed at which Omicron may be spreading, the increased transmissibility, whether it is less or more severe, and what the data is telling us thus now regarding the efficacy or effectiveness of the vaccines vs boosting. You can now find all the show notes and references here.
In today's episode, I dive into a paper published this past summer in the Lancet Microbe by Piero Olliaro, Els Torreele, and Michel Vaillant. This paper may be familiar as it was touted on many 'news' and social media channels, pointing out that maybe the efficacy of the current COVID-19 vaccines are not as high as the studies have shown. The authors later published a statement stating that it was a shame their paper was misinterpreted. Perhaps you were one of those people, and that's okay. These types of papers can be tricky to follow, and I walk you through that scientific paper, paragraph-by-paragraph, to explain what the authors are arguing or discussing.
If you wish to follow along, all show notes and references can be found here!