The Next Pandemic And Some Non-COVID Stuff Of Mine
Is an H5N1 pandemic in our future? Should children with obesity receive effective treatment? And a whole chat on the ethical treatment of obesity in adults
When two of our best pandemic beat journalists agree that something’s very concerning, I pay attention, and here is Helen Branswell +1ing Kai Kupferschmidt’s reaction to the news that the H5N1 bird flu, a far more likely to be fatal virus than COVID, is spreading from mammal to mammal. If you can stomach the contemplation of more doom, especially given we have squandered 3 years worth of reengineering our indoor air to defend against future pandemics, here’s Kupferschmidt’s coverage of the story virologist Tom Peacock calls “incredibly concerning”.
In some non-COVID writing from me here’s a piece I wrote for Medscape (registration to read any article on Medscape is free and you need not be a medical professional to register) which I’d have titled, How dare we offer children with obesity severe enough to benefit from medication or surgery, medication or surgery? that discusses the misdirected outrage spawned by the recent American Academy of Pediatrics’ childhood obesity treatment guidelines.
And in non-COVID chatting, here’s the chopped up summary version of a longer chat I had with orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Chris Raynor who had asked me to watch a video he’d put up about obesity and where I had some thoughts to explore with him. I’ve done a great many podcasts and interviews over the years and honestly, this was one of my favourites. Chris really came at this from a place of wanting to learn more and I very much enjoyed our chat.
And finally, if Substack has added a button about some future subscription, I want to assure you that I will never charge for any of my advocacy writing on here, though like my friend Bill Gardner, I am pondering whether or not to add a subscription tier where though all articles will be free, whatever funds I raise in subscriptions will be transparently donated to charity.
Have a great weekend!
I loved the video. I think one of the comments captures how great it was:
‘ Holy cow, this guy is a master at his craft and it shows by the way he makes his points.. I have never heard a member of the medical community be so empathetic with people with obesity I just wish more professionals act like that. This guy is great I'm totally sold’
So loved the video! Thank you so much for posting!