Anthony writes:
Hi Daniel,
My wife and I are expecting our firstborn in early December and have had multiple conversations about our views on vaccines for people who want to see the baby, especially within those first six months. We agree that we want everyone to be updated with the Flu, COVID, and Tdap vaccines. After listening to Twiv, I’ve learned that Tdap doesn’t fully protect against whooping cough for the whole 10 years. Would you advise that I request people to get their Tdap updated if it was 5 or more years ago? Should we consider asking people about the RSV vaccine as well?
Thank you for all your weekly updates.
Best,
Anthony
Mike writes:
Hi Dr Griffin,
Maybe I have missed it, but I am curious if you have ever spoken about the low dose naltrexone studies for long COVID? Based upon my layman’s reading the data seems mixed…
However given the other options are fairly invasive/time consuming/expensive (transfusions etc) I was wondering if this is worth exploring?
Also are they ever going to re-run this Webinar? https://longcovidtheanswers.com/recovery/
Have a good weekend, I hope you find an AC repairman!
-Mike
Jennifer writes:
Dear Daniel and Vincent,
I wanted to reach out to thank you for all that you do with TWIV (and beyond), but especially for the most recent episode of Clinical Update. As one of the authors of the (apparently poorly marketed) John Snow Memorandum, your recounting of those surreal days back in October 2020 meant a lot to me amid all of the COVID revisionist history as of late. It’s hard to remember such an “innocent” time, but I remember how earnestly we approached the response to the GBD because we (at least I) thought it was meant to be a good-faith scientific and policy discussion about the best way forward (but I admit I am prone to thinking the best of people).
Of course it didn’t take too long to realize that the GBD authors were not looking to initiate an evidence-based discussion, and in fact outright avoided it, particularly when pressed on basic assumptions or details of their plan. (My turning point may have been a Christmas time twitter exchange with Martin Kuldorff where he didn’t think that the arrival of vaccines had any implications for their strategy). You prompted me to go back to read our memo for the first time in a long time, and I am quite proud of how it held up– as you said we evidenced each claim as best as we could, but also acknowledged the limits to what we could know at that early stage. The GBD and its aftermath really was the turning point of the pandemic for me as a scientist— up to that point it felt like we were all in it together, but when the GBD folks chose ideology over good faith science things took a dark turn that we clearly haven’t recovered from. The irony of people not hearing much about the John Snow memo is that people like Battacharya and Prasad nonetheless pointed to us as an example of their views being “silenced”.
So Daniel– thanks SO much for your candid and refreshing take on the GBD which was extremely validating those of us who lived through it. I am growing increasingly fed up with all of the COVID gaslighting and we need to speak up to set the record straight whenever we can. You manage to do so extremely effectively without any hint of meanness (which I can’t say for the likes of Vinay Prasad). Thanks for being such an inspiring and steadfast example of what science for the sake of good can and should be.
I think I have listened to clinical update every week for 5 years now, so I really can’t thank you enough, and I’m in awe of the consistently high quality content you put out no matter where you are traveling in the world. Your guy’s voices feel like old friends, so hopefully I can stop by and say hello at Columbia someday (and would love to invite either of you to lunch or coffee in London/Oxford if ever that appeals).
I usually listen to episodes on Saturday but was a bit behind this week so only got to it yesterday after I had written this post on the RSV vaccine and dementia paper. I’m not surprised we had quite similar takes, but I still wish I’d listened to your summary first!
Best wishes to you guys and the whole TWIV team, please know I am very, very, grateful for you.
Jenn
_________________________________________________
Jennifer Beam Dowd, PhD
Professor of Demography and Population Health
Deputy Director, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science
Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College
Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford
Blue Sky | Publications- Google Scholar | https://jenndowd.substack.com/
Chris writes:
Dear Drs. Griffin and Racanello,
I first sent this email back in February to Dr. Racanello’s email address at Columbia rather than Microbe TV. I want you to know that there are a large number of practicing food animal veterinarians who listen to TWIV. My TWIV donation to Parasites Without Borders was in memory of one of those veterinarians, Dr. Hunter Lang, DVM, who passed away suddenly in January. I am a veterinary immunologist and virologist, but I am also active in “organized” veterinary medicine. Hunter and I represented different organizations at the American Veterinary Medical Association House of Delegates. Still, it never failed, when we would meet and get around to talking, the subject of one of the recent episodes of TWIV would come up. There are a number of veterinarians that I know who also speak to the importance of TWIV. Hunter’s family went one step further by asking that donations in his memory be given to the American Heart Association or TWIV https://www.avma.org/news/memory-february-27-2025. I think it would be awesome if, on the donation site, you could have a place to comment if the TWIV donation is to memorialize or honor others.
The second part of my email concerns content related to One Health on TWIV. My concern was made more poignant in your June 6 episode by Dr. Griffin’s comments about HSN1 HPAI in regard to depopulation of the poultry facility in Arizona. When the popular press is used as your source (Arizona Republic) and then a quote from an Animal Rights group from the article is used (the organization was misidentified in the podcast- it is Animal Outlook, not Animal Outbreak), the accuracy of the popular press information needs to be verified. Emergency depopulation is an issue that has caused veterinarians and the organization that represents veterinary medicine, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), much anguish between animal well-being and public health. I have included the link to the AVMA policy for your reference https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/avma-guidelines-depopulation-animals It seems a bit hypocritical to lambast the human anti-vax groups and their misinformation (rightfully so) and push for the best science and professional judgement as in the case of vaccination recommendations and then turn around and discuss humane euthanasia with a quote from an animal rights group whose agenda is base as the anti-vaxxers. Veterinarians are unfortunately the only medical profession in the life and death business; not only are we responsible for health and wellbeing, but also a humane death by euthanasia. As outlined in the preamble to the policy statement, this is not a simple solution and is a responsibility veterinarians take seriously. The suggestion in the podcast that we can use CO2 for mass depopulation, and we are not using it because of cost, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the logistics of depopulation euthanasia and worker safety vs. depopulation to prevent HPAI in neighboring flocks. There have been few times that TWIV has hit a nerve for me as a veterinarian, but this misinformation was not up to the standards that TWIV holds itself to be for science-based information.
To continue on this One Health vein and TWIV, I appreciate that you included a veterinarian who is studying to be a virologist on the panel. Still, the panel lacks the expertise of a veterinary virologist (“an experienced person”) familiar with the situation in the field (i.e., Dairy industry and H5N1) and veterinary diagnostics. One faux pas in this area was the TWIV panel discussing rabies diagnostics and assuming it is PCR-based, which it is not, for good reason. TWIV is missing that boots-on-the-ground veterinary virology and immunology. I did not write this to promote myself, but if it comes to the point that you see this expertise as of value, I would be happy to share my background as well as that of other veterinary virologists.
I appreciate when TWIV goes out to meetings. I have attended a couple of TWIV sessions at ASV. One of the major infectious disease meetings in the veterinary world is the Conference for Research Workers in Animal Disease (CRWAD) held in January in Chicago (I realize it is not a great warm weather spot in January): https://crwad.org/. This brings virologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists together for an exciting meeting with many career scientists, graduate students, and postdocs. I think a TWIV event would be highly attended at CRWAD.
Finally, I want to thank you for your fond recollections of the late Dr. Ann Palmenberg. I was fortunate to know Ann well when she began as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Science at University of Wisconsin (before she moved back to Molecular Virology) and I was a graduate student. She was a phenomenal mentor to many and a great cook who made it her mission that being a graduate student more than just living in the lab. She was the Queen of ASV hospitality whenever ASV was in Madison. Thank you for all your dedication to microbiology through your many online efforts
Chris Chase
Professor Emeritus
Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
PO Box 2175
ADR Rm 119, N Campus Dr
South Dakota State University
Richard writes:
Hello Dr. Griiffin,
Re TWiV 1232: I was listening to your discussion of thimerosal in vaccines and kept hearing the word being pronounced as “thimersal” rather than “thī – mer – o – sal” as I have always heard it pronounced and said it myself. Is this a case of “potatoes – potahtoes?”
Just curious,
Richard R. Spaete
retired virologist