Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran USAF medic and Army infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, long-ago kickboxer, oldbat goth, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
Pinned post
Hello, all. I've been around for a few days but haven't yet made an #introduction post. So here we go.
I'm a #bioinformatics consultant with [The Bioinformatics CRO](https://www.bioinformaticscro.com/) working on a variety of small and large projects ranging from fundamental genomics to clinical decision support. Before that, for several years I was a postdoc and ORISE fellow specializing in high-altitude medicine and physiology at the University of Colorado Altitude Research Center. My academic background is a nearly even mix of #biostatistics, machine learning, and biology.
The ARC* has been sadly moribund for a few years, but thanks to collaborations with other groups, we're [starting to get more active again](https://harcsummit.org/). Hopefully I will have more to say about that in the future. Meanwhile, feel free to ask me anything about #altitude medicine---I think I still remember most of it.
Years before _that_, I was an Air Force #medic (after a brief stint as an Army infantryman) followed by a couple of years as a civilian EMT. My time in patient care informs my approach to science: the numbers I crunch represent human lives.
Otherwise, I'm an armchair #paleontologist hoping to be able to call myself an _amateur_ paleontologist again one of these days---by which I mean actually spending some time in the field and/or the prep lab---a too-occasional science fiction writer, and chronically sleep deprived. Also, my life is the internet: it's cats all the way down.
*Fellow #Primeval fans may recognize the jacket in the picture. My wonderful fiancée found it for me when I was hired at the ARC, for exactly the reason you think.
Hi, internet. Whatever your message, scrolling it over a video of you mugging for the camera will not make it more effective. Just thought you might want to know.
A somewhat more amusing exchange from my VA visit: "You are #Lithuanian. I am #Ukrainian. We love our #coffee with cream." Stripped of context, that's totally a coded message from a #ColdWar thriller.
After all the sturm und drang, getting my #covid #shot from the #VA turned out to be not that difficult. But there's a tragic backstory.
The tech told me that when the shot clinic first opened for the season, about a month ago, they were only allowed to give #flu shots, not covid. Then after about a week, they were allowed to give both, but covid only to employees. The week after that, they were allowed to give both to everybody, but patients (unlike employees) had to ask for the covid shot—the clinic wasn't allowed to offer it. Finally they were authorized to offer both to anyone who walks in.
In that window, there were #veterans who wanted the covid shot, didn't know they could get it, and died as a result. I have no proof of this, but also no doubt.
Many #government policies have made me angry over the years, and no doubt will for many years to come. None of them have ever summoned quite the same fury as institutionalized #antivax. It is #treason, not to the country but to all humanity, and the #traitors should pay the traditional price for that crime. Knowing they won't, unless the enemy to which they adhere does the job, is icing on the rage cake.
So I guess I'll keep banging the #vaccination drum. Preaching to the choir, for the most part. But if my words are of any help to anyone, please feel free to use them.
In fairness, I do blame #vaccines for my gray beard and aching knees.
"What do you *want*?"
"I want #antivaxers to live just long enough to learn what actual research is. And when they realize what idiots they've been, I will wave at them ... like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"
The rescue of the #astronauts stranded on the #Tiangong space station was a smooth, well-conducted, low-drama operation. Predictably, it's bringing out a bunch of #nationalist crap from #Russian and #American #fanboys. "Chinese-made garbage" etc.
I'm still enough of an idealist to cheer *any* successful human #spaceflight. If #China turns out to have built a better and longer-lasting space station than the increasingly rickety ISS, or gets humans back to the #Moon before the #US, or is first on #Mars ... well, maybe I'd rather see the Stars and Stripes than the Five-Star Red, but mainly I'll just be glad it's happening at all.
Every spacefaring nation has had accidents, some fatal. The test is in how they react. It looks to me like China passed this one with flying colors. That's all that matters.
"Surrender, then negotiate" is not how #negotiations work.
#Covid causes what we in the biz call "#cardiovascular events," among its other nasty effects. #Heart attack, #stroke, pulmonary #embolism, deep vein #thrombosis. All things you should try to avoid.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49634-x
The covid #vaccine—any of the currently approved vaccines—helps protect against such events. A #mechanism isn't yet clear: the obvious hypothesis is that it works by reducing the incidence and sincerity of covid, and therefore reduces the effects of the disease. Say it with me now: further research is needed. Send me a pile of cash and I'll be happy to get on that, BTW.
(It also helps protect against #cancer, by an entirely different mechanism. I can natter about that if anyone wants.)
But the effect itself is clear. Has been from the start of the #mRNA vaccine era, really. Now a very large-scale study has confirmed it. There will be more studies, as there should be. They will show the same result. I'd bet my fortune on that, if I had a fortune, because then I'd have an even bigger fortune. Have I mentioned lately that #scientists need to eat?
As it is, all I have to pledge is my life and my sacred honor. I take both of those pretty seriously.
Of course this runs directly counter to the #antivax narrative. Based on a transitory and maybe illusory increase in clotting risk from an early vaccine that's no longer on the market (Johnson & Johnson) they've built an entire mythology about "the #clot shot." Lately they've added "#turbo cancer," which is not a thing that exists, to the canon.
So when dedicated antivaxers see any of the large and ever-growing number of studies showing protective effects against more than the #infection itself, especially against the exact same problems they claim the vaccine causes, they react with mockery and/or rage. It's all they know how to do.
Years of bitter experience have taught me there's no point in trying to reason with them. I still hold out hope that at least some antivax sentiment isn't that dedicated, that a lot of people are scared of getting vaccinated out of the general unease brought on by ignorance.
Oh yeah: the Methods section in the linked article provides details on data collection and analysis. It looks good to me, and I have a whole lot of experience in study design. Note that no vaccine manufacturers provided #funding. For a full list of funding sources, see the Acknowledgements.
I don't suppose I have many if any antivaxers left in my audience. If I do, well, I guess there's a reason you're still here. And if you like me or trust me or respect me at all, please pay attention to my words.
For everyone else, if what I've written here is useful, please do with it what you can.
Middle-aged white people on #BadBunny and the #SuperBowl halftime show. One calls him "so famous no one has ever heard of him." I reply, "Don't equate 'no one' with 'no one I know'."
Yes, I am also middle-aged white people. Bast save me from ever being *that kind* of middle-aged white people, okay?
The #KPg is probably the only mass #extinction in Earth's history that conforms to the popular stereotype, and it's our mental model for such events just because #dinosaurs are so charismatic. But yeah. We're in the middle of a sixth great extinction event right now, and the pace makes it frighteningly easy for people to pretend otherwise.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n19/lorraine-daston/kaboom
I laughed. But more and more people believe this dangerous nonsense. Our ability to prevent and treat #disease is under full-scale attack, and millions—tens or hundreds of millions—will die because of it.
Nobody deserves to die of an easily preventable disease. If anyone did, though, the people pushing this insanity would be at the top of the list.
Checklist time!
Good food: #France ✅ #OlympusMons ❌
Good beer: France ❌ Olympus Mons ❌
The Louvre: France ✅ (kind of) Olympus Mons ❌
High peaks: France ✅ Olympus Mons ✅
Highest peak in Solar System: France ❌ Olympus Mons ✅
Cool fossils: France ✅ Olympus Mons ❌ (probably)
Hard decision, really.
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran USAF medic and Army infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, long-ago kickboxer, oldbat goth, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
