Clare Conry-Murray, Ph.D.

A special preview issue of The Lancet Regional Health – Africa. On the cover is a photograph of a doctor examining a Maasai baby. Copyright: Hugh Sitton/Getty Images.

🆕 The first published Comments in The Lancet Regional Health - Africa are now available online!

Topics include cholera, global health architecture, Ebola, & artificial intelligence.

Read the Comments & find out more about the new journal: spkl.io/63329AgQkW

Luckily, I had put a draft in gmail to check the spelling (Outlook had missed several errors) so do I have a more recent draft, no thanks to Microsoft.

I just spent a long time writing an email with detailed feedback in Outlook. After sending it, I got a message saying "the email could not be sent." Only a very, very old draft is saved in Outlook.

I think journalists should make the conclusions of the body of research very clear ("vaccines are safe"), especially in headlines, while still providing info about how we know, and the quality of the research in the body of the article and by citing their sources.

RFK’s Anti-Vax Team Readies Its Next Moves “Their game is, let’s really destabilize trust in the vaccine, and make people really anxious about it.”

It's notable that, even in an article critical of RFK Jr., the reporter hedges, saying "There’s no good evidence of serious, widespread harm from the vaccine" rather than just "vaccines are safe." RFK Jr. has made a career of exploiting the ambiguity of the former.
www.thebulwark.com/p/rfk-anti-v...

I think they do want to do good work that gets read and helps to train the next gen of researchers. Changing incentives definitely would help. But it's also important to discuss so people think about the issues more, includinh the people who help set the incentives.

I have heard people say "that method will take too long" and I heard one very high-status person ask where to publish open access that is still prestigious, when his name on it is what makes it prestigious, not the journal name. So I think people are making judgements and thinking about these things

Talking about these issues and why there's an ethical imperative is really important to getting people to shift their behavior, even in the face of incentives for low-quality research.

I think researchers mostly do care about ethics.l but they may think getting info out there is good. Some may not have thought through the longer-term consequences. Many see themselves as powerless to change the system (and still have a career) but some are higher level and not at all powerless.

Despite Prepublication Peer Review being a core part of science, training materials for it are sparse. This open source guide is very valuable for ECRs!

ecr-reviewers.gitlab.io/guide/

I have noticed that chatGPT has started using first-person pronouns: "my overview" and "I found...."

I also think we need to emphasize that doing low quality research quickly in order to produce pubs is unethical, since it wastes participants' time and can lead future researchers and policy makers down the wrong path.

I would love to see the for-profit publishing industry taken down in my lifetime.

We give our work away for free and then buy it back again. Madness.

References in online articles should let you see the reference and open it without losing your place in the original article.

Media bias

NYT isn’t worth reading because they are in the bag for Trump

Headline from NPR says The CDC revives debunked 'link' between childhood vaccines and autism

This is how you write a headline reporting on misinformation.

How much statistical sleight of hand can you spot in this paragraph on the new CDC website, which is now littered with muddled and flawed claims about vaccines and autism? www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe... 🧵

Yeah, I think the actual old way (based on my memory as a 54 year old) was to lecture, assign homework with little feedback, then test. It's better to lecture, practice with feedback, quiz, then test.

Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.

"Multiple men have remained in senior roles at Oxford for months or years after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged against them, Bloomberg found in a nine-month investigation based on interviews with almost 50 people as well as documents and other records."

I'm so sorry. Dogs are the best

“Ticking Time Bomb”: A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn’t Get an Abortion in Texas. Walker is one of several women ProPublica found with underlying health conditions who died when they couldn’t access abortions.

NEW: ProPublica has found multiple cases of women with underlying health conditions who died when they couldn’t access abortions.

Tierra Walker, a 37-year-old mother, was told by doctors there was no emergency before preeclampsia killed her.

Is salami slicing bad even for early career researchers? If so, why?

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Yes, I got Ms. or Mrs all the time.

Poland suggests Russia is behind railway blast on Ukraine delivery line Polish officials say Russian secret services appear to have ordered the sabotage of a railway line in Poland.

Evidence suggests the Russian secret services appears to have ordered the blowing up of a railway line in Poland over the weekend, a Polish government spokesman said.

Bluesky has finally, quietly posted a position for a one-year remote contract Policy Lead, Trust & Safety position.

Trans people who qualify, apply here: jobs.gem.com/bluesky/am9i...

We need someone competent in this role if this place is going to survive.

Seriously, I did not do that on purpose! 😅

ha hah ahh hah ha hah ha!

How do you feel about single-item scales?