Herms Townsley

Man standing up in town hall meme.

"A forward looking government would rename Indefinite-Leave-to-Remain/ILR to Permanent Residency (like other countries) to make it more obvious how abusive and cruel any attempt to mess with that status would be"

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system!

Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

🧵 Our paper out today in @naturemedicine.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On development of #StrepA #Immunity over life course in #TheGambia raising hope for #vaccines on the horizon

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#Immunosky #IDsky #MicroSky #globalhealth.

My pet hate in scientific publishing is the trend of putting methods at the end. What happened to telling a story? Is the idea that the reader will get bored with the methods?? I don't know how to understand the results without knowing what was done!

👇💯

If someone invented an AI that could clean bathrooms, I’d be all over it. I don’t need AI to do my thinking, or writing, for me

In the latest video in our partnership with @glaucomflecken.bsky.social, the BALANCE trial comparing 7 days of antibiotic treatment with 14 days of treatment in patients with bloodstream infection is explained. Access the article for free: nej.md/DrG19

Is there a way to subscribe to these alerts?

Having just done another systematic review, I'm getting so tired by the rampant AI writing of papers, and this is clearly another example, given it's an urban design paper which has sited a GWAS 😵‍💫

When your review has one citation and it's this:

Prof de Silva & Dr Keeley speak on Strep A epi & immunity in the Gambia.
🗝️ Hyperendemicity of Strep A
🗝️ Index infections not explained by household contacts
🗝️ Early life immunity develops <2 y/o
🗝️ Ab response to carriage & infection
🗝️ ?protective immunity from SLO, SpyAD, SpyCEP

#LISSSD25 #IDsky

Following because this drives me crazy too! Not sure how it is so bad!

I don't agree with the new anti-immigration plans in general, but things are currently particularly stressful for immigrants like myself, who have made life plans based on becoming settled after 5 years - only for this to be changed with no warning and no details.

Petition: Keep the 5-Year ILR pathway for existing Skilled Worker visa holders Do not apply the proposed 10-year ILR rule to existing Skilled Worker visa holders. Keep the 5-year ILR route for those already in the UK on this visa. Apply any changes only to new applicants from th...

I've been working for the NHS for 4 years, own a house, can vote, but with recent UK govt plans announced, it may suddenly be another 6 years before I can settle in the country I call home.
If you agree that's unfair, I'd be grateful if you'd sign this!
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...

REAL HOPE. REAL CHANGE. PEOPLE NEED PEOPLE Green Party Promoted by Chris Williams on behalf of The Green Party, both at PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

Migrants enrich our culture, contribute to our economy, and become our friends and neighbours.

And cutting NHS waiting times, fixing our social care system and building 1.5 million homes cannot be done without overseas recruitment.

People need people. Britain needs migrants.

Nick Robinson says the UK-EU deal only gets 10% of what the UK lost due to Brexit.
Rachel Reeves said yesterday that
the deal gains £9 billion for the UK.
Nick Robinson confirming we lost £90 billion due to Brexit. Twice the value of the tax imposition required at the budget. Lost.
#r4today

The left going full racist boosts the official racist party. If only we had known from this exact thing happening everywhere it's tried

"The UK's upfront immigration costs now vastly exceed other leading research nations, so the UK is struggling to compete. EU countries can more easily attract talent from the EU due to free movement, and from non-EU countries due to their relatively low visa costs. "Non-EU countries are also attractive to global research talent due to lower comparative immigration costs than the UK." British scientific institutions are having to spend huge sums on visa costs for cancer professionals they wish to attract and recruit. The Francis Crick Institute, one of the world's leading biomedical research centres, is now spending more than £500,000 a year on visas for cancer scientists. Cancer Research UK institutes are spending almost £690,000 a year, up 44% from £470,000 in 2022-23.

Another report on how our high visa costs deter top R&D talent
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

#IDSky

Is there any hope that this actually influences IPC practices and we get to wear gel nails again in healthcare settings? Can we do smartwatches next? (Also - where do I sign up to join 'the Finger Nail Polish Study Group'?!)

www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S019...

Great blog! Super clear and reassuring for non medical readers - I so feel for you guys in the US rn though in this public health climate!!

...to be clear, when I said I'm open to feedback on my draft I meant that you could give me a nice compliment

I don't find this very clear tbh! They seem to class sick day dosing as just ensuring someone is having at least 10mg pred daily... which for most patients is not a change, so it seems strange to still refer to it as 'sick day dosing'

This is, to literally anyone from a first year/FY1 resident doc through to a consultant of 20 years standing, a fairly unhinged referral pathway

This person needs an appointment with a GP, not a kitchen sink approach involving unnecessary ionising radiation in a shopping centre

Jimmy Carter took on the awful Guinea worm when no one else would — and he triumphed Carter targeted diseases primarily affecting the poor in remote areas — notably "Guinea worm disease." Because of his commitment, case numbers plummeted from 3.6 million a year to just 13 in 2022.

Carter used the power of his post presidency to nearly eradicate guinea worm. There were 3.5 million cases when the Carter Center’s work began in 1986. He said in 2015 that he wanted to see “guinea worm completely eradicated before I die.” There’ve been 7 cases this year. www.npr.org/sections/goa...

Almost ready to start writing - just need to quickly read everything that has ever been, or will ever be, documented about this topic

Agreed. When I was in ITU, it wasn't uncommon to hear in handover that a patient had 'flagged for sepsis' so was 'on the sepsis bundle' with no further comment about why they were septic or if there was objective evidence of a specific infection. Sepsis isn't the end point in a diagnostic pathway!

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X-ray of healing ankle fracture

6 weeks post op after what the ortho team keeps emphasising was a “properly nasty” injury - and I put weight on my foot for the first time! So excited to be through the first stage of recovery - now for some hard work 💪

Loved this beautifully written article, particularly the lesson regarding the importance of science for it's own sake - we don't know which discoveries will end up being critically important years down the line.

Opening X more often than not used to end with me feeling angry about something (state of the world, political arguments, the latest medtwitter binfire) - in comparison Bluesky is so positive and collaborative. Good riddance to X + Elon!