What even counts as science writing anymore? Ed Yong

‘The pandemic made it clear that science touches everything, and everything touches science...

‘To the extent that the pandemic has been a science story, it’s also been a story about the limitations of what science has become. Perverse academic incentives that reward researchers primarily for publishing papers in high-impact journals have long pushed entire fields toward sloppy, irreproducible work; during the pandemic, scientists have flooded the literature with similarly half-baked and misleading research. Pundits have urged people to “listen to the science,” as if “the science” is a tome of facts and not an amorphous, dynamic entity, born from the collective minds of thousands of individual people who argue and disagree about data that can be interpreted in a range of ways. The long-standing disregard for chronic illnesses such as dysautonomia and myalgic encephalomyelitis meant that when thousands of COVID-19 “long-haulers” kept experiencing symptoms for months, science had almost nothing to offer them. The naive desire for science to remain above politics meant that many researchers were unprepared to cope with a global crisis that was both scientific and political to its core. “There’s an ongoing conversation about whether we should do advocacy work or ‘stick to the science,’” Whitney Robinson, a social epidemiologist, told me. “We always talk about how these magic people will take our findings and implement them. We send those findings out, and knowledge has increased! But with Covid, that’s a lie!”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/10/how-pandemic-changed-science-writing/620271/

Read here (The Atlantic, Oct 2, 2021)

Covid-19 accelerated the media’s reporting on early, drafty scientific research (for better and for worse)

‘More than 25% of Covid-19 preprints have featured in at least one news article, researchers found, and almost 100% of Covid-19 preprints were tweeted about at least twice...

‘Since the first reported case of Covid-19, cities across the world have shut down, people have stopped socializing and going to work, economies have taken a hit and there have been far too many deaths. But at the same time the scientific community has come together and produced an immense amount of knowledge on the virus, developing multiple vaccines in less than a year.

‘This has been possible because scientists have rapidly shared their research on Covid-19, and preprints — scientific papers that haven’t been formally reviewed — have proved essential in this effort. In a new piece of research, my colleagues and I found that the pandemic has resulted in scientists increasing the use of preprints to release findings, and that these papers are also being read more frequently.

‘This has also produced a cultural shift in how preprints are used and viewed by society. The media and the public are now far more likely to encounter and discuss preprints and their findings on a daily basis.’

Read here (Nieman Lab, Apr 29, 2021)

US National Institutes of Health launch new initiative to study “Long Covid”

Some of the initial underlying questions that this initiative hopes to answer are:

• What does the spectrum of recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection look like across the population?
• How many people continue to have symptoms of COVID-19, or even develop new symptoms, after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection?
• What is the underlying biological cause of these prolonged symptoms?
• What makes some people vulnerable to this but not others?
• Does SARS-CoV-2 infection trigger changes in the body that increase the risk of other conditions, such as chronic heart or brain disorders?

These initial research opportunities will support a combination of ongoing and new research studies and the creation of core resources. We anticipate subsequent calls for other kinds of research, in particular opportunities focused on clinical trials to test strategies for treating long-term symptoms and promoting recovery from infection.

Read here (NIH, Feb 23, 2021)

More than 50 long-term effects of Covid-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis

‘COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, can involve sequelae and other medical complications that last weeks to months after initial recovery, which has come to be called Long-COVID or COVID long-haulers. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to identify studies assessing long-term effects of COVID-19 and estimates the prevalence of each symptom, sign, or laboratory parameter of patients at a post-COVID-19 stage. LitCOVID (PubMed and Medline) and Embase were searched by two independent researchers. All articles with original data for detecting long-term COVID-19 published before 1st of January 2021 and with a minimum of 100 patients were included. 

‘For effects reported in two or more studies, meta-analyses using a random-effects model were performed using the MetaXL software to estimate the pooled prevalence with 95% CI. Heterogeneity was assessed using I2 statistics. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewers and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) reporting guideline was followed. A total of 18,251 publications were identified, of which 15 met the inclusion criteria. 

‘The prevalence of 55 long-term effects was estimated, 21 meta-analyses were performed, and 47,910 patients were included. The follow-up time ranged from 15 to 110 days post-viral infection. The age of the study participants ranged between 17 and 87 years. It was estimated that 80% (95% CI 65-92) of the patients that were infected with SARS-CoV-2 developed one or more long-term symptoms. The five most common symptoms were fatigue (58%), headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair loss (25%), and dyspnea (24%). All meta-analyses showed medium (n=2) to high heterogeneity (n=13). In order to have a better understanding, future studies need to stratify by sex, age, previous comorbidities, severity of COVID-19 (ranging from asymptomatic to severe), and duration of each symptom. From the clinical perspective, multi-disciplinary teams are crucial to developing preventive measures, rehabilitation techniques, and clinical management strategies with whole-patient perspectives designed to address long COVID-19 care.’

Read/download PDF here (Medxiv, Jan 27, 2021)

Covid: WHO team probing origin of virus arrives in China

‘A World Health Organization (WHO) team has arrived in the Chinese city of Wuhan to start its investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. The long-awaited probe comes after months of negotiations between the WHO and Beijing. A group of 10 scientists is set to interview people from research institutes, hospitals and the seafood market linked to the initial outbreak.’

Read here (BBC, Jan 14, 2021) 

Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears effective against mutation in new coronavirus variants: Study

‘Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine appeared to work against a key mutation in the highly transmissible new variants of the coronavirus discovered in the UK and South Africa, according to a laboratory study conducted by the U.S. drugmaker.

‘The not-yet peer reviewed study by Pfizer and scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch indicated the vaccine was effective in neutralizing virus with the so-called N501Y mutation of the spike protein.’

Read here (Reuters, Jan 7, 2021)

Peter Doshi: Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—we need more details and the raw data

Peter Doshi: Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—we need more details and the raw data 

‘Five weeks ago, when I raised questions about the results of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine trials, all that was in the public domain were the study protocols and a few press releases. Today, two journal publications and around 400 pages of summary data are available in the form of multiple reports presented by and to the FDA prior to the agency’s emergency authorization of each company’s mRNA vaccine. While some of the additional details are reassuring, some are not. Here I outline new concerns about the trustworthiness and meaningfulness of the reported efficacy results...’

Read here (BMJ, Jan 4, 2021) 

China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins

‘The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by the AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.’

Read here (AP, Dec 31, 2020)

UK scientists trial drug to prevent infection that leads to Covid

‘British scientists are trialling a new drug that could prevent someone who has been exposed to coronavirus from going on to develop the disease Covid-19, which experts say could save many lives.

‘The antibody therapy would confer instant immunity against the disease and could be given as an emergency treatment to hospital inpatients and care home residents to help contain outbreaks. People living in households where someone has caught Covid could be injected with the drug to ensure they do not become infected too. It could also be given to university students, among whom the virus has spread rapidly because they live, study and socialise together.’

Read here (The Guardian, Dec 25, 2020)

How science beat the virus... And what it lost in the process

“To study COVID‑19 is not only to study the disease itself as a biological entity,” says Alondra Nelson, the president of the Social Science Research Council. “What looks like a single problem is actually all things, all at once. So what we’re actually studying is literally everything in society, at every scale, from supply chains to individual relationships.”

‘The scientific community spent the pre-pandemic years designing faster ways of doing experiments, sharing data, and developing vaccines, allowing it to mobilize quickly when COVID‑19 emerged. Its goal now should be to address its many lingering weaknesses. Warped incentives, wasteful practices, overconfidence, inequality, a biomedical bias—COVID‑19 has exposed them all. And in doing so, it offers the world of science a chance to practice one of its most important qualities: self-correction.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Dec 14, 2020)

Covid: Trials to test combination of Oxford and Sputnik vaccines

‘UK and Russian scientists are teaming up to trial a combination of the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines to see if protection against Covid-19 can be improved. Mixing two similar vaccines could lead to a better immune response in people. The trials, to be held in Russia, will involve over-18s, although it's not clear how many people will be involved.’

Read here (BBC, Dec 11, 2020)

Designing vaccines for people, not profits

‘The Covid-19 crisis is a perfect test of whether a more public-health-oriented approach to innovation and production will prevail in the years ahead. While Pfizer is sticking with the model of maximising shareholder value, AstraZeneca has at least pledged not to profit from its vaccine ‘during the pandemic.’ Yet, despite all the public investment that underwrote these innovations, the process will remain opaque, leaving one to wonder if AstraZeneca is actually ready to prioritise public health over profit and offer its vaccine at cost.

‘While the recent vaccine news has brought hope, it also has exposed the pharmaceutical industry’s broken business model, casting doubt on the prospects of delivering a people’s vaccine and achieving health for all. Business as usual may allow us to scrape by in this crisis. But there is a better way to do things. Before the next pandemic arrives, we must recognise vaccines as global health commons, and start to reorient the innovation system toward symbiotic public-private partnerships governed in the public interest.’

Read here (Social Europe, Dec 2, 2020)

Covid vaccines: Calling the shots

‘The lesson of the coronavirus vaccine response is that a few billion dollars a year spent on additional basic research could prevent a thousand times as much loss in death, illness, and economic destruction. At a news conference, US health adviser, Anthony Fauci, highlighted the spike protein work. “We shouldn’t underestimate the value of basic biology research,” Fauci said. Exactly. But as many authors, such as Mariana Mazzacuto have shown, state funding and research has been vital to development of such products.

‘What better lesson can we learn from the COVID vaccine experience than that the multi-national pharma companies should be publicly owned so that research and development can be directed to meet the health and medical needs of people rather than to the profits of these companies. Then the necessary vaccines can get to the billions in the poorest countries and circumstances rather than to just those countries and people who can afford to pay the prices set by these companies.

“This is the people’s vaccine,” said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. “Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. … It should belong to humanity.”

Read here (The Bullet, Dec 2, 2020)

Revelations in Malaysia’s pioneering Covid-19 study

‘Malaysia has something new to be proud of... Just two weeks ago, a band of Malaysian medical professionals wrote and published Southeast Asia’s first national study on Covid-19 cases, representing an entire country’s experience.

‘It was featured in The Lancet, arguably the most prestigious and influential medical journal in the world. Titled “Clinical characteristics and risk factors for severe Covid-19 infections in Malaysia: A nationwide observational study”, it was written by Benedict Lim Heng Sim, Suresh Kumar Chidambaram, Xin Ci Wong, Mohan Dass Pathmanathan, Kalaiarasu M Peariasamy, Chee Peng Hor, Hiu Jian Chua, and Pik Pin Goh. It provides a detailed picture of the disease’s spread in Malaysia from Feb 1 till May 30, 2020.

Ethnic mix: ‘Malays account for 58.4% of all cases and 70.0% of all severe cases, while the Chinese account for 6.7% of all cases and 12.1% of severe cases and Indians account for 2.3% of all cases and 4.5% of severe cases. The ratio of severe cases to all cases of almost 2 to 1 for Chinese and Indians might be due to their slightly older-skewing population. Other nationalities account for 23.8% of all cases but only 4.9% of all severe cases – a ratio of almost 5 to 1. This, again, could be due to the foreign worker population which generally skews younger and so has a reduced chance of developing a severe instance of the disease.’

Co-morbidities: ‘Those with hypertension are the most at risk at 48.6%, followed by diabetes mellitus at 39.1% and chronic cardiac disease at 14.0%. Surprisingly enough, being an active smoker does not indicate an elevated risk of developing a severe infection. Smokers account for 9% of all cases and 7% of severe cases...’

Read here (FreeMalaysiaToday, Dec 2, 2020)

Clinical characteristics and risk factors for severe COVID-19 infections in Malaysia: A nationwide observational study

Read here (The Lancet, Nov 17, 2020)

AstraZeneca says its Covid-19 vaccine needs 'additional study'

‘The head of British drug manufacturer AstraZeneca said on Thursday (Nov 26) further research was needed on its COVID-19 vaccine after questions emerged over the protection it offers, but the additional testing is unlikely to affect regulatory approval in Europe.

‘Instead of adding the trial to an ongoing US process, AstraZeneca might launch a fresh study to evaluate a lower dosage of its vaccine that performed better than a full dosage, AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot was quoted as saying in a Bloomberg News report.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, Nov 27, 2020)

Why emergency Covid-vaccine approvals pose a dilemma for scientists

‘Immunizations are speeding towards approval before clinical trials end, but scientists say this could complicate efforts to study long-term effects...

‘Once a vaccine is granted emergency approval, there is pressure on developers to offer the immunization to trial participants who received a placebo. But if too many people cross over to the vaccine group, the companies might not have enough data to establish long-term outcomes, such as safety, how long vaccine protection lasts and whether the jab prevents infection or just the disease.

“It’s a real vaccine-development dilemma,” says Klaus Stöhr, who formerly headed vaccine design at the pharmaceutical company Novartis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is now retired. Still, Stöhr thinks that the vaccine should be granted emergency-use authorization, because its effectiveness has been established and there is a dire need.’

Read here (Nature, Nov 23, 2020)

WHO-backed probes move forward to try to shed light on early days of coronavirus

‘Among the work laid out is further investigation into wild animals traded at Wuhan’s Huanan market, where a number of the first known patients worked and shopped. The virus is believed to have originated in bats before passing to humans, likely through an intermediary animal, but it remains unclear whether this crossover happened at the market or outside it, according to the WHO. So far that market has proved a dead-end for animal clues: of the 336 samples from “frozen animal carcasses” that were tested in the market, none were positive for the virus, according to the November 5 report, which updated known figures on animal sampling.

‘Other research will involve looking back before December 2019 to review hospital records, death registers and disease surveillance data, and test stored blood samples to find any cases that appeared before those that are already known. Unpublished government records obtained by the South China Morning Post indicated that Covid-19 cases were identified in Hubei province as early as November 17.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, Nov 13, 2020) 

Who are the candidates in the Covid-19 vaccine race?

‘Almost 200 Covid-19 vaccine candidates are being studied by scientists around the world. Of these, 44 are already in clinical trials, which means they are being tested on humans. The Straits Times highlights some of the prominent candidates in the Covid-19 vaccine race.’

Read here (Straits Times, Nov 10, 2020)

Coronavirus: Fact checks on immunity and related matters

‘A large study out of the UK suggests immunity after a COVID-19 infection reduces fast, especially among older people. This is a quick fact check on the following: (1) How long am I immune after a COVID-19 infection? (2) Why does research on immunity differ? (3) Do people who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection continue to use protective measures? (4) Do some people, who have had a COVID-19 infection, show no immunity?’

Read here (DW, Oct 28, 2020)

Johns Hopkins calls for papers on Covid-19 and systemic racism

‘The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security’s journal, Health Security, issued a call for papers for an upcoming Special Feature on systemic racism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (scheduled for May/June 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on health, economies, and social structures have disproportionately impacted racially marginalized populations. Racial and ethnic minority communities are experiencing elevated COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, stemming in part from ineffective response efforts and longstanding barriers to accessing healthcare and public health programs and services. Evidence-based and peer-reviewed research is urgently needed to examine the root causes and impacts of systemic and pervasive racial and ethnic inequities in the context of COVID-19 as well as how systemic racism manifests in the practice of health security, including in preparedness for, response to, and recovery from COVID-19. The journal is actively encouraging submissions from women, underrepresented minority scholars in health security, and scholars with disabilities.’

Read here (Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Oct 23, 2020)