Small thread on conspiracy theorists - it's tempting to dismiss such individuals as crackpots, but this misrepresents societal impact of what they do. Conspiracy theory is one of my research interests, so I thought it'd be useful to share some insights.. (1/n) .. firstly, what do we mean by conspiratorial beliefs? These refer to narratives that postulate events in a given sphere are due to the machinations of some sinister cabal Stealing from one of my old papers, we might say.. (2/n)

As a cancer researcher & science communicator, I have very mixed feelings on proposed #alcohol cancer labelling for drinks. I'll try here to elucidate why, and you can tell me whether you agree or not (1/n)

https://twitter.com/SimonHarrisTD/status/1044188587804295168

...so firstly, is alcohol a carcinogen? Almost undoubtedly, yes. IARC grade it a class 1 carcinogen, alongside asbestos, ionizing radiation, & smoking. We even know some mechanisms of damage. So labels should be a no-brainer, right? (2/n)

Short thread on #CervicalCheck (CC) - there's an abundance of emotive misinformation doing the rounds that needs to be challenged. There's an ugly story here of a disconnect between evidence, politics, and law. It's confusing but important to understand. So, let's delve (1/n) ...I wrote an explainer on this for the @IrishTimes way back in May, and while the facts haven't hugely changed since then, the rhetoric has. Firstly, CC saves lives. It has pushed down the national rate of cervical cancer, and as a screening programme has been a success (2/n)

Thread: Sweltering in this heatwave? Me too. And as this article makes clear, it's largely down to climate change. But here's how climate change 'skeptics' are going to try and play it - and how to not let them (1/n) theguardian.com/environment/20… ..the go argument of climate change 'skeptics' (more on that term later) is to argue that 'computer models' are basically toys with no predictive value, a blackbox that means nothing. They'll fixate on paragraphs like this. So why is that wrong? (2/n)

Where to even start? This kind of nonsense is extremely damaging to patients with cancer & their families- and to medical professionals treating them. I'll try list the major points of contention here in a whistle-stop tour.... Firstly, medical professionals not recommending cannabis for cancer patients NOTHING to do with lack of med. knowledge - it's been studied to death (>10k studies , see my previous piece here: health.spectator.co.uk/the-rise-of-th… ) and the reality is that it has limited efficacy..

No, screw this - join me on a rant. The ketogenic brigade make these claims as their business model. So let's puncture it shall we?! (1/n)

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..so what is the Warburg effect? The observation that cancer cells rely much more on inefficient glycolysis rather than healthy cells (2/n)