Jason Nickerson
Respiratory Therapist 🫁
Trail runner and adventurer🏃♂️
Public health, emerging infectious diseases, health systems researcher focusing on older adults ☣️
Humanitarian aid worker and former Humanitarian Representative to Canada for MSF 🌍
- Horrific. Medical staff are working under impossible circumstances to provide care to patients during an ongoing genocide, where much of the health system has been systematically destroyed. Warring parties have an obligation to protect medical staff. The fighting needs to end immediately.
- Lots of potentially good work being done here to improve the affordability and thermostability of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine which currently (1) is, I believe, the most expensive vaccine in use in global health; and (2) requires resource-intensive ultra-cold chain that is not ideal.
- If you're in Ottawa, join me tomorrow night at the Bronson Centre where I'll be moderating a panel discussion featuring @heathermcpherson.bsky.social and a remarkable group of human rights advocates to talk about Canada's place in the world.
- I just learned that you can buy a premium metal inhaler case for your MDIs. Also comes in fun colours. I'm down for zuhz-ing up medical devices that you have to carry around every day (as long as health professionals can still read the label so we know what medication it is!).
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- This is a good update on the state of tobacco use in Canada, with surprisingly positive results. In 2024, 13% of Canadians were using tobacco, that's down from 29% in 2001. Good progress. Smoking among youth hit a record low in 2024: 2% among 12-17 year olds. www.canada.ca/en/health-ca...
- Reposted by Jason NickersonThe final Calvin and Hobbes, which appeared in papers 30 years ago today.
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- Today I learned that NORAD’s Santa tracker started in 1955 when a Sears store in Colorado Springs ran a newspaper ad with a phone number for kids to call Santa that was, accidentally, the NORAD top secret phone line to be used by the US president, but instead had kids calling asking for Santa.
- I’ve come to think of AI as being a pretty-good-intern on my team. I don’t trust it with anything important and it definitely shouldn’t do independent work. I find AI helpful for organizing my thoughts in a way I might not, but key point is these are my thoughts, my work, my analysis.
- 👀
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- Oh my God just go read the papers, do the research, and learn the stuff you need to know. I realize the incentive structure in academia is bullshit, but have some integrity - and some interest in learning things and producing quality work!
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- Some potentially groundbreaking and life changing medicines and vaccines are on the horizon, including for major public health threats (Lassa fever, rabies) and respiratory disease (the most promising Tuberculosis vaccine in a century). 🧪
- Canada's governments need to take action to ensure Canadians have access to respiratory therapy services in acute care, primary care, critical care, and home care. Supporting the Canadian and international respiratory therapist workforce is essential. Read our recommendations:
- Lots being written about a need to reorient global health, but this statement refreshingly honest: “Global health is now seen by many as a rarified world occupied by elites making decisions that are out of touch with everyday realities.” This is correct. The Global Health Country Club needs to end.
- Thank you to every one of my health professionals for your text messages between 8-8:30AM today wishing me a happy birthday. Good to know my optometrist is thinking of me on my birthday. 👍
- This is a great paper by @jocalynclark.bsky.social and Tina Purnat, highlighting something that I don't think is being said often enough: "The challenges of health misinformation go beyond countering false claims." We need to give people credible answers to their real questions and problems.
- Look, this is an absurd stunt and I am here for all your hot takes taking the piss out of it. But it is offensive and unjust that there are thousands of people actually working to create peace and restore dignity in some of the most horrendous conflicts on the planet who get no recognition at all.
- I agree with this, but I also worry that large parts of the medical community and the anti-misinformation health advocates are massively out of touch with many people's daily realities & questions they have that are being answered by online influencers and others in the wellness space. What I mean:
- Medical advice from influencers is vexed by their lack of expertise, financial interests & industry influence What to do?! NEW @bmj.com some answers. We are not paying enough attention to the complexity & nuance of information environments where trust can grow www.bmj.com/content/391/...
- France has identified two cases of MERS in travellers returning from Saudi Arabia. Both are reported to be in stable condition in hospital, no additional chains of transmission identified.
