Talking Pandemic

We cannot finish talking about human-animal dynamics without touching on the topic of the ethics of meat eating. Although it is true that moral policing is more often than not linked to controversies and debate – it also defines a culture. We have seen a sharp rise in veganism which has led to polarisations of views on meat eating. I discuss with my guest today (a vegan person) to advocate about veganism as I shower him with tough questions against it. Veganism may or may not dramatically reduce the chances of epidemics and pandemics like this one but it is something we cannot take out of the picture.

We cannot finish talking about human-animal dynamics without touching on the topic of the ethics of meat eating. Although it is true that moral policing is more often than not linked to controversies and debate – it also defines a culture. We have seen a sharp rise in veganism which has led to polarisations of views on meat eating. I discuss with my guest today (a vegan person) to advocate about veganism as I shower him with tough questions against it. Veganism may or may not dramatically reduce the chances of epidemics and pandemics like this one but it is something we cannot take out of the picture.

As India grapples with a recent wave of bird flu along with the ragging coronavirus pandemic a talk on meal/poultry safety becomes more essential. Here me and my guest discuss about the regulations of the meat industry in different countries. An interesting documentary on the Wuhan market: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54&t=4s

Safety checks throughout the chain of meat production and distribution is very essential. Let us get some insight into this avenue of a Human-Animal dynamics from a young veterinarian and vaccinologist.

Are Homo Sapiens superior to other Animals?

We are surrounded by animals and microorganisms all around us yet somehow we manage to ignore the significance of their presence until one day we cannot do that any more. Why is this the case? Can we change? 

The coronavirus “infodemic”, has exposed people to official recommendations but also to potentially dangerous pseudoscientific advice claimed to protect against COVID‐19. In this episode, we will be discussing with Aleksandra Lazic, research assistant, and Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, at the Laboratory for Research of Individual Differences in the University of Belgrade, how vaccine communication and advocacy influence people's willingness to get vaccinated and what strategies from social behavioral change communication could help to incentivize people to get vaccinated and also help in the fight against the infodemic. #JoinTheTalk in our social media, leaving your comments and thoughts on the episode! Links to social media handles are as follows: Instagram: @talking_pandemic Twitter: @TalkingPandemic Facebook: @TalkingPandemic Email address: talking.pandamic@gmail.com Aleksandra Lazic: https://twitter.com/AleLazic Link to the article discussed in the episode: https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3770

We are currently living in a post-truth era, where embellished information is often presented as true in spirit, and truer than truth itself. The "post-truth era" makes reference to the creation of a discourse that is easy to accept by everyone, and place an emphasis on what will satisfy the emotions and beliefs of the audience, instead of real facts; But how is this phenomenon affecting public health confidence, especially in vaccines and in a time when we need to leverage people's trust the most? To discuss this today is joining us Rafael Pegoraro from Brazil he is a biomedical scientist and vaccines specialist, with a Master degree in vaccinology and immunology with proven experience in Public Health and interventions for vaccination confidence, having worked in the Global Vaccine Public Affairs department at Sanofi Pasteur in Lyon France. Interesting articles: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-01039-5 https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/367

In the early starts of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, the World Health Organization issued a warning about an "infodemic," a wave of fake news and misinformation about the deadly new disease on social media. It is abundantly clear that what we see, read and hear online plays a fundamental role in how we view the world. We are now once again confined to spending more time indoors, looking at our screens, and communicating online. This technology we rely on to keep connected and informed is enabling and amplifying an infodemic that continues to undermine the global response and jeopardizes measures to control the pandemic. In this season we will discuss what is this infodemic and why it represents an urgent threat to public health #JoinTheTalkto find out more. Links to social media handles are as follows: Instagram: @talking_pandemic Twitter: @TalkingPandemic Facebook: @TalkingPandemic Email address: talking.pandamic@gmail.com Interesting reading: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1124-9

What are antiviral drugs? How do they function and Why is it to difficult to make them? Join me and my guest to know all this and much more.  Email address: talking.pandamic@gmail.com

What are RNA vaccines? Let's us find out about them, their relevance and their future with our guest.

What are viruses anyway? How do they multiply and which vaccines are best suited for these viral vectors. Join us as me and my friend Lobna Medfai, PhD candidate dive into the fascinating world of these little beings.  

Description: Let's talk about viral vector vaccines and the future of vaccine development from a young researcher who contributed in the development of the ChAdOx vector. Interesting papers: The Hajj Project- https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/23/10/16-1642_article ChAdOx as vaccine candidate - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X17306564?via%3Dihub Vaccine Development - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7177048/

Let's talk about viral vector vaccines and the future of vaccine development from a young researcher - Dr. Eriko Padron Regalado - who contributed in the development of the ChAdOx vector during his PhD thesis. Interesting papers by the guest: The Hajj Project- https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/23/10/16-1642_article ChAdOx as vaccine candidate - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X17306564?via%3Dihub Vaccine Development - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7177048/

Join us as we discuss about how some of the countries in East Africa are dealing with the pandemic.

Join us as we discuss about why we were not as prepared to deal with the pandemic as much as we should have. We also discuss on how different countries dealt with the outbreak and the policies they undertook when the virus entered their territory. Send your Anti-Pandemic "What if" to: talking.pandamic@gmail.com (I am aware of the misspell in the email address, but it is the correct email address and quite functional :)).

In this episode we discuss about immunity and the immune system. We touch upon the subject of how and why the immune system behave differently in different individuals. And some new and wonderful things that are current focus of research related to the immune system. Two paper on trained immunity: https://www.cell.com/trends/immunology/fulltext/S1471-4906(20)30066-1 https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30507-9.pdf

Hello there! Welcome to the second season where we discuss about the immune system and past epidemics preparedness across the globe. This episode revolves around the importance of the subject of epidemiology and how it has been neglected in many developing countries. Links to social media handles are as follows: Instagram handle: talking_pandemic Email address: talking.pandamic@gmail.com Youtube URL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqDaD9xNPgdQElTwrfhNzmg/

Description: What will happen when we finally have a vaccine? How can we curtail the spread of the virus with minimum immunization coverage? How are producing these vaccines and how infrastructurally prepared are we in receiving these vaccines? Know all these answers and much more in this episode. Also, know more about GAVI through this link: https://www.gavi.org/our-alliance/about

We have been hearing about various vaccines entering clinical trials this year. Some are entering phase I and others have gone upto phase III. But why are there so many phases and what do each of them mean while testing the vaccine. My guest joins me today from Mexico to discuss this. After today's episode I would urge you to look through a paper published in Clinical Infectious diseases Journal in August 2019 and was titled “Principal Controversies in Vaccine Safety in the United States”. It provided a comprehensive view on the controversial theories associated with some of the key vaccines and investigate the weight of these theories. This should give you an idea on the safety profiles of the current vaccines and also on what are we expecting out of the coronavirus vaccine. Link for the mentioned article: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/69/4/726/5316263 Also a quick update: This episode was recorded about a week ago and hence does not include the discussion on the pause of the phase III clinical trial of the oxford vaccine.

In this episode the guest joins me from Spain. We discuss about vaccines and specifically about the oxford vaccine. The paper titled “Safety and Immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 CoV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: a preliminary report of phase ½, single-blinded, randomised control trial” was published on the Lancet journal on the 20th of July 2020. Link to the paper: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2931604-4 I have attached the link of the paper with the description. It is based on the results of the Phase 1/2 clinical trial of the oxford vaccine. It would be wonderful if you can have a look at the paper. We have a special episode for our patreon members where we discuss about the results of the trial in more detail and it will get published on patreon page by tonight. In this episode we discuss about the vaccine itself and on how the oxford vaccine group managed to get forward with the vaccine so fast. We also discuss about the results in brief and explore the safety profile of the vaccine. And neither of us are experts in the field of vaccine making but both of us find this process to be very fascinating and would love to share the fascination with all of you. I would also like to request you to send huge applauses to the Jenner Institute and the Oxford vaccine groups and specially the authors of this Lancet paper for such an incredible work. They are real heroes. Let's find out why!

Here I discuss about the motivation and planning of the show. Links to social media handles are as follows: Instagram handle: talking_pandemic Email address: talking.pandamic@gmail.com Youtube URL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqDaD9xNPgdQElTwrfhNzmg/

Trailer of the show