David Miles

How did a slave, a witchfinder, an aeronautical pioneer, a tanner's son and countless scientists save our lives? Answers between the covers: littlebrown.co.uk/titles/david-m…

Getting into practice to talk about whooping cough vaccines in Lincoln on Tuesday. Always nice to discuss the reason why millions of children haven't died. #vaccines lincolnartscentre.co.uk/event/cafe-sci…

@DrsMeena @TheLancet @YouTube And 15 years later, there are still people who think the Wakers and Walkies paper is gospel. Not that any of them have read it. But yes, let's take a moment to dance on its grave.

#HappyRetractionDay! Today @TheLancet retracted the fraudulent article saying vaccines cause autism. Since then, we've had hundreds of studies showing NO association between vaccines & autism. SPREAD THE WORD. Retraction Day 2025 youtu.be/BdirJCYYh_0?si… via @YouTube

Heading to Yorkshire to talk influenza with Beverley Cafe Sci tomorrow. If someone could distract the train gremlins, it would be much appreciated. #Science #influenza cafescientifique.org/uk/beverley

@AtomSociety Many thanks for hosting. The ATOM crowd always come up with the most interesting questions.

Thank you once again to @Variolator for a wonderful talk on the history of the influenza vaccine last night. Judging by the capacity crowd it was obviously of interest to lots of people!

Looking forward to heading back to Abingdon next week. Hope the ATOM crowd isn't too tired of my talks by now!

How Vaccines Work is finally available in the USA and Canada. So far, paperback and kindle editions only. Audio version to come. It's the sort of book that RFK Jr really doesn't want you to read. amazon.com/dp/B0DS19PXHF

Finished last year by making fun of Del Bigtree on the Think This Through channel. What else can you do with his fantasy that Bill Gates is going to tell him he's a genius for not being vaccinated except point and laugh? youtube.com/watch?v=0mv9Q0…

@Kit_Yates_Maths Never understood how 'just' could be applied to the most dangerous infectious disease in Europe pre-2020. Perhaps we can argue that the footballers with the least flu and covid will win the world cup. Nothing else seems to get the message across.

"This phrase, ["Just the flu"] aimed at normalising pandemic harms, effectively benchmarks flu, which causes 1000s of UK deaths annually, as “normal”. This is despite available vaccines, drugs, and hard-earned population immunity against the flu virus." buff.ly/48qmOAS

One week away from returning to the town I was born in. Hope I'll get a better view of it than I did then.

How one popular movement gave us whooping cough vaccines and another gave us our whooping cough back. I’ll try to make sense of it at the Barbican Library @barbicanlib 12:30 Tue 8thOct. #vaccines Free tickets: eventbrite.co.uk/e/whooping-cou…

@Kit_Yates_Maths Why is this even a question? Mervyn Gordon demonstrated airborne dispersal by declaiming Shakespeare in the House of Commons in 1905. How are we still arguing about it in 2024?

Entirely unsurprising that many of those in positions of responsibility still have trouble accepting #CovidIsAirborne

@TRyanGregory Isn't the problem that the answer to the question is virus specific but classroom air isn't. With PIVs and MPVs, yes, probably best to get the first infections as children than adults. With covid, no because any infection is dangerous. Difficult circle to square.

Do most immunologists and epidemiologists actually believe that kids need to get infected repeatedly with pathogenic viruses in order to build up their immune muscles, or is that a fringe position reserved for a handful of loud pandemic minimizers on Xitter?

@RDGGeekNight @ZerodegreesBeer I'm looking forward to emerging from that backroom.

Join us 4 this month's #rdggeek (Tue 10th Sept@7pm) upstairs @ZerodegreesBeer (Reading). Come & listen to David Miles (@Variolator) talk about - 'Tales from the backroom: four forgotten pioneers of medicine'. Followed by a pub quiz. Everyone welcome! Info: rdggeeknight.wordpress.com

@MamaWeasleyy Nucleocapsid antibody test is probably you best bet. Over 90% positivity by 500 days after infection so it's not perfect but it's the best around and fairly easy to get done. Alas it won't be free! academic.oup.com/jid/article/22…

@mrmickme2 There are already cases in multiple countries so what matters now is how it's contained inside those countries. Border closure is an extreme measure and mpox is far less transmissible than SARS-CoV-2.

If the WHO is so suddenly concerned about the global proliferation of a supposedly novel or fitness enhanced existing Mpox clade, then why are they not recommending the immediate closure of international borders to contain its spread?

@Kit_Yates_Maths Any idea how functional mpox contact tracing is in the UK? It should be possible to contain it the old-fashioned way but not if we use the newfangled policy of public reassurance and private hand-wringing.

“Planning is under way to prepare for any [mpox] cases that we might see in the UK.” - UKHSA Shouldn’t we be a bit beyond the stage of “Planning to prepare”? buff.ly/3WGkArC

@Saffiya_Khan1 @UKHSA @GwynneMP Whenever I hear we should act more like Sweden, I think that's great, let's financially support people taking sick days so everyone can afford to isolate when they're ill. Then I realise they think that's a bit too Swedish.

With mpox on the rise and Covid still an issue, we have Jenny Harries of the @UKHSA taking a libertarian approach to Public Health. Which basically means no Public Health. It’s time to let her go @GwynneMP You won’t do that though, will you?

Many thanks to @plutopia for inviting me as a guest. It was a fun conversation!

@garwboy And then they're more interested in the page with the Tanzanian visa on it than the identity page. Which happened to me once. When I pointed out what they were photocopying, they said they knew exactly what they were doing but strangely, didn't tell me why.

Submitting an invoice to a UK university It's like submitting a tax return by shoving your receipts in a sealed bottle and optimistically flinging it into the sea Then, months later, another bottle washes up where you're standing, with a note demanding a copy of your passport

@Catherineoscopy Someone obviously needs a copy or three in their departmental library. I'd love to know who thinks it's a good idea to vet their citations. Are they publishing in the Journal of Classified Stuff? Things that Didn't Happen Quarterly?

I cited a paper in my book. The author emailed demanding I was legally obligated to share with them the text. I sent a screenshot of the one place they were cited. They wanted more context. If you're so curious, BUY THE BOOK stop wasting my time.