Communicating gene drive: The dangers of misleading headlines
November 25, 2019
As some of you know, I am interested in how people communicate about ‘gene drive’, a new biotechnology that can potentially be used to eradicate disease transmitting animals. Wiping out the daughters Some days ago, I saw a tweet that mentioned an article published in The Guardian entitled “Wiping out the daughters: Burkina Faso’s controversial …
Reimaging AMR – beyond the military metaphor
February 1, 2019
Last week the UK government launched yet another ‘action plan‘ on dealing with the rise of antimicrobial resistance or better ‘drug resistant infections‘, that is infection that no longer respond to antibiotics because the bacteria that cause the infections have developed resistance to the drugs used to eliminate them……. This is a guest post by …
Investigating the public’s role in AMR – as represented in the UK news media
November 8, 2018
Today, 8 November 2018, I read the following headline in The Guardian: “Rise of antibiotic resistant bugs ‘could lead to 90,000 death’” (Online version: “Antibiotic resistant superbugs ‘will kill 90,000 Britons by 2050’“). Not: “Adopting simple measures can help to prevent 90,000 deaths from antibiotic resistant infections”…. Why does this matter? Here are some thoughts/findings. …
Phage and fiction
August 23, 2018
We have known about bacteriophages for over a century. I myself became vaguely aware of them around 2004 when I started to be interested in bacteria and antimicrobial resistance and later on when my mother had Clostridium difficile, a health-care associated infection related to antibiotic use. However, I never actually looked more closely at phages until Carmen …
Antimicrobial resistance and climate change: Communication, governance and responsibility
April 13, 2018
Last week I was reading some tweets from an international science communication conference held at Dunedin, New Zealand. As I have blogged and written about hype, I was particularly interested in tweets about a fascinating Roundtable convened by Tara Roberson entitled: “Can hype be a force for good? – Debating the benefits and drawbacks of science …
Eyes, erosion and expertise
October 16, 2017
Over the last month or so I have been struggling with some eye problems. Several times I found myself in Eye Casualty and observed the sun rising over the Queen’s Medical Centre buildings. I am glad they exist just around the corner from where I live. It took a long time to get the bottom …
Making Science Public: 2016 blog round-up
December 19, 2016
This has been a weird and momentous year. For me personally and, even more so, for the world. In June this year we celebrated the almost end of the Making Science Public programme, which I directed between 2012 and 2016. At the end of September I retired, after working for more than 25 years at the University …
AMR and the ‘rhetoric of resistance’
September 21, 2016
Today Helen Lambert, the ESRC‘s AMR champion, posted a blog post under the title ‘Rhetoric of resistance‘ on the AMR Social Science Champion Blog ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (UNGA) meeting about which she also tweeted during the day. “The primary objective of the meeting is to summon and maintain strong …
Antibiotic resistance, citizen science and Daleks
June 9, 2016
This morning I was having my first cup of coffee while listening to the Radio 4 Today programme. At 6.55 an item came on that made me laugh – and guess what: it was about antibiotic resistant bacteria! For a while now I have been worried that in order to raise public awareness about the …
Antibiotic resistant infections in the news
January 22, 2016
In 2015 issues relating to antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial resistance have been widely discussed in the media, by medical experts and policy makers. 2015 ended with reports that antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly difficult to treat and that scientists in China discovered a gene in E. coli that makes it resistant to a class of …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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