1/11
It may sound counterintuitive to be having a conversation but there are some issues that just don’t have two sides. Nobody is in favor of tornadoes, or cancer, or against pizza – maybe pineapple on pizza, but not pizza itself. #velshi

1/13
On the night of Thursday, May 28th, I was standing in front of a burning liquor store at the corner of E. Lake St. & Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis. 3 days had passed since the killing of George Floyd by police. #velshi

2/13
I had been at that intersection for 6 hours watching the frustration grow. For 90 seconds, I described the scene, in detail, to my colleague Brian Williams, who was anchoring in New York City. But I was concerned... #velshi

3/13
The impression one might get from watching a police station overcome & of buildings burning was that of riot, or that Minneapolis was burning. But it wasn’t & I wanted to emphasize that the majority of the protestors were peaceful & not participating in any violence. #velshi

4/13
So I took an extra 20 to clarify that. And that 20 seconds is the ONLY part of several days of my reporting that right wing media continues to circulate. #velshi

5/13
An inaccurate blending of the events of those days became a regular laugh line for Donald Trump, who repeatedly told rallygoers some version of this story. That 20 sec. clip of my reporting, without context, made it to the floor of Congress as part of a hearing. #velshi

1/10
Three days ago, we saw the putrid runoff of what’s been stoked, distilled & fomented by Trump since the beginning of his term. The riot in service of an attempted coup wasn’t spontaneous. It was planned & encouraged by the President of the United States of America. #velshi

2/10
The halls of our Capitol have only twice seen such insurrection - the last being August 24, 1814 when the British invaded Washington DC, set fire to the White House and breached the U.S. Capitol building before setting it ablaze. #velshi

3/10
The U.S. Senate was unable to meet in the historic Old Senate Chamber for nearly 5 years after that. On Wednesday, Senators returned after just five hours. But what a chaotic five hours it was. #velshi

4/10
Members of Congress were in the building because federal law dictates that the sealed certificates of each state's Electoral votes - which were cast on 12/14 - be transported to the Congressional chamber to be counted. There they were stored in the three wooden boxes.#velshi

5/10
Staffers took those boxes with them as they were ushered out of the House chamber. There are duplicates and, had the rioters taken the boxes and burned them, we’d still be able to account for all of the votes and get this done. #velshi

1/13
"Pay it no mind". It was a phrase that became popular in the '60s and '70s among members of the LGBTQ community. When facing hate, many adopted the mindset: Pay it no mind. #velshi

2/13
In 1969, the abuse against the gay community in America could no longer be ignored. At the time, it was illegal to engage in gay behavior in public - like holding hands, kissing, or dancing with a person of the same sex. #velshi

3/13
So, gay, lesbian, and transgender people flocked to bars and clubs where they could express themselves openly and socialize without worry. #velshi

4/13
The Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village was the hub for New York City's gay and trans men and women. Over time, in response to public pressure, bars like that became the target of violent police raids. #velshi

5/13
Police would storm into the Stonewall Inn. They'd haul patrons and staff out into the street and arrest them. But on a June night in 1969 on Manhattan's Christopher Street, gay and trans New Yorkers had had enough of the harassment. #velshi

1/11
Last week General Motors announced plans to be carbon neutral in its global operations by 2040 & to offer only zero-emissions vehicles even by 2035. #velshi

2/11
I’ve had my share of things to say about GM's poor corporate responsibility & leadership for years but now, it seems, even GM sees the writing on the wall: the future is about cutting emissions, transitioning to electric vehicles or other zero-emissions technologies #velshi

3/11
America is less than 5% of the world’s population, but uses 20% of all the oil produced in the world every day. Gasoline for driving accounts for half of that. #velshi

4/11
General Motors has done the math. Getting to zero-emissions as quickly as it can is where GM can have the biggest positive environmental impact. With this announcement, we may witness an America where gas stations eventually become charging stations. #velshi

5/11
The upside to doing any of this is clean air, a healthier earth, stopping the warming of the earth, moderating the effects of hurricanes & floods & wildfires, all by transitioning away from an energy source that kills the planet to produce it & to burn it. #velshi

1/13
I don’t know how many GOP members of the House and Senate watch @VelshiMSNBC so I have a favor to ask of you: If you know any, or know anyone who knows any, could you pass this message on to them for me? #velshi

2/13
While the GOP is busy trying to tear down democracy, there are some difficult realities facing America right now that could really use their attention. We are starting 2021 off in bad shape, considering that this is the most prosperous country on earth. #velshi

3/13
America is not the most populous nation in the world; it’s only about 4.25% of the global population. Yet America accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s coronavirus cases and deaths. #velshi

4/13
55 million Americans are living in poverty. You’ve seen images of cars lined up at food banks. 1 in 6 Americans are now food insecure, meaning they aren’t certain whether they will have the resources to put food on the table for their next meal. #velshi

5/13
In America, most people’s health care coverage is, stupidly, tied to their job, so 29 million Americans now don’t have health insurance. Up to 40 million renters are far enough behind on their rent to be living in fear of eviction. #velshi

1/14 How do e-cigarettes (ECs) affect cigarette smoking among youth? My new paper with @FloeFoxon simulates each scenario and finds out which one best matches actual trends... https://t.co/dBB7kcnTls @jgitchell @mikepesko @SwitchFinder @jkelovuori @TobPolicy @Clive_Bates

2/14 First, let's talk about why this question is so difficult to answer: COUNTERFACTUALS. We can't know the alternate-reality answers, like which smokers would have never started in a world without ECs, and which nonsmokers would now be smoking without ECs as an option.

3/14 So, the best we can do is use fancy/sophisticated methodologies to estimate what would have happened to youth smoking rates in the absence of ECs. In our case, simulation modeling

4/14 First, we look at the declining smoking trends *that were already happening* before ECs came (~2010), and project them into the present. This is our BASE-CASE SCENARIO about what smoking trends would be if ECs were never invented. Actual trends were LOWER than this base-case

5/14 Side note about terminology: We use the term “catalyst” instead of “gateway,” because “catalyst” is more precise about the claim we are modeling (that ECs are used first, and then causally lead to smoking). Whereas "gateway" can include other mechanisms like renormalization.

THREAD: We filed RTIs on behalf of @no2uid asking the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare questions about how your personal data will be protected while you're using CO-WIN, the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform.

We got answers... kind of. Here's the new info.

1/n

Just like with Aarogya Setu, many Indians are worried that about the potential CO-WIN has to leak your data or threaten your privacy in the name of dealing with a pandemic. So, we asked the MOHFW some questions about data protection under the Right to Information Act.
2/n

In the responses we received, MOHFW said that it cannot provide us with a privacy policy on CO-WIN (?!).

Thankfully it was clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for registration on Aarogya Setu or CO-WIN, and that physical vaccine certificates will be provided to everyone.
3/n

The data it says it will collect will be your name, gender, date of birth, photo ID, and number.

National, State, and District level admins will have access to use the app, but there is not much further clarity on this point.

But most importantly...
4/n

The responses (or rather lack of them) related to your data privacy and protection are completely vague. We received no clear answers on which Ministries/Depts will have access to your personal data, the permissions provided, etc. This is a failure in terms of transparency.
5/n

Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)

@avacta's AVA6000 approved by MHRA. Superb news. First dosing 'around mid-year'; first data to come within 3-4 months after that.

A summary thread on the significance of AVA6000 - and #AVCT's pre CISION platform as a whole - to both the oncology industry and to AVCT itself. 1/10

In very basic terms, #AVCT's pre CISION chemotherapies are essentially reformulated versions of existing, approved chemotherapies that have been used on cancer patients for many years - decades, even.

The pre CISION tech is simply an attempt to improve the safety profile... 2/10

...of the chemo.

Most therapeutics going through clinical trials look for an improvement of at least 20% over the existing industry-standard drug. A 50% increase in efficacy would usually be considered an astonishing result.

In pre-clinical mouse models for #AVCT's AVA6000 3/10

...18 times more pro-doxorubicin was found in the tumour than in the heart. Compare that to the 1:1 ratio of the standard doxorubicin.

What this means is that the pre CISION tech could be used to enable the giving of doses to patients that are multiple times more potent... 4/10

...than standard chemotherapy drugs - either in the form of greater number of cycles of chemo, or in the potency of the individual dose.

For example, in #AVCT's pre-clinical trials, pro-dox (AVA6000) doses were 6x more potent than the standard dox doses.

The results? The...5/10

Thread

"Main jab mar jaun to meri alag se pehchan likh dena,mere lahu se meri peshani pr Hindustan likh dena(After I die,write my identity differently,with blood,write India on my forehead)”- msg on wall in Brijpuri. It's faded.

A year on,we revisit where #DelhiRiots broke out.

Feb 2020 Vs Feb 2021
While the hustle and bustle of the area has returned in severely hit Shiv Vihar, some cracks in the walls, a black smoke patch on the door, a few burnt utensils and a pile of photographs remind the victims of the days and nights they lived in “terror”.

Khushnaz’s daughter Alfiza was six days old on February 25 when the riots broke out near her house. She recalled pressing her palm against the infant’s mouth to prevent her voice from being heard as she cried.

Shawra Begum’s single-storey residence near Medina Masjid has still not been repaired. Looking at the broken and burnt taps of her washroom, Shawra said, “That time reminds me of death.”

Sitting inside his house near Auliya Masjid, Nizamuddin had tears in his eyes thinking about the time. Over 5,000 men were walking and running amok on the streets destroying everything and everyone, he said.