Wordsmith Health Communications

07/03/2023

Wordsmith stands with Pride. 🏳️‍🌈

06/11/2022

03/30/2022

Bravo to the WHO for rejecting Quebec's Medicago COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use due to the company's ties to big to***co.

No one is denying the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed more than six million people around the world over the past two years. And yet, we still allow the to***co industry to function and profit from a product that kills seven million to eight million globally EVERY YEAR.

Quebec's Medicago vaccine could still be considered for emergency use, says the WHO, pending policy discussions on dealing with potentially valid health products that are linked to the to***co industry.

02/08/2022

As I get older, I can relate to the term "graceful degradation." Until writing this article for the CSA, I didn't realize that it is also relevant to the Rover technology that is being used to explore the surfaces on the Moon and Mars.

Given the many known and unknown travel impediments for Rovers, vehicle damage is inevitable. On Earth when we blow a tire, it's game over. We stop everything and fix it. That isn't possible on the Moon. Rover wheels need to be able to withstand some breakage and yet continue to function. In other words, they need to be able to "gracefully degrade."

Canada continues to lead the way in developing practical, on-the-ground applications for space exploration.

12/09/2021

Although race correction such as the eGFR equation used to measure kidney function is extremely problematic, it is still important to recognize diversity in medical practice. 

A Nigerian medical student's illustration of a Black fetus in utero was shared by a McMaster University assistant professor from Hamilton and has gone viral. It's also led to questions about the lack of diversity in medical drawings.

08/12/2021

I'm excited to announce that Wordsmith will be writing a series of articles for the Canadian Space Agency. Here is the first one about robot "swarms" where many robots work together in the same way as swarms of bees, flocks of birds or schools of fish.

Understanding swarm AI can help us on Earth in situations where small, agile robots are useful. They can be sent into dangerous places to find and rescue survivors from collapsed buildings or even buildings that are on fire. They could also be useful in agricultural settings to find and treat crop damage and even find birds nests in fields to allow farmers to plow around them; or by archeologists exploring underground sites.

A group of Canadian students supervised by Dr. Giovanni Beltrame at the Polytechnique Montréal will be testing a “swarm” of robots that may some day explore planetary surfaces on the Moon and Mars.

05/18/2021

Extending the interval between doses may be frustrating but is proving to be effective at least for the Pfizer vaccine. Peak antibody levels were 3.5 times higher in those who waited 12 weeks for their booster shot than were those in people who waited only 3 weeks.

Parry, H. M. et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.15.21257017 (2021).

Older people who waited 11–12 weeks for their second jab had higher peak antibody levels than did those who waited only 3 weeks.

12/10/2020

The timely arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the German company BioNTech in partnership with U.S.-based Pfizer is no fluke

11/17/2020

I have learned over the past 20 years as a professional writer that providing quality work is the key to success. I have also learned that it is impossible to offer high quality that is fast and cheap.

I love how FuzeBranding has presented this concept. At best, you can offer two of three. . . take your pick.

10/06/2020

British scientist Michael Houghton, who works at the University of Alberta, and Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.

10/01/2020

Decision aids that U.S. physicians use to guide a broad range of patient care are racially biased, researchers reported Wednesday.

09/12/2020

A group of nephro-epidemiologists, aerosol scientists and virologists have put together this information on the current evidence for cloth masks for community use, which includes a plain-language website.

As public health organisations around the world seek to slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 in the COVID 19 pandemic, there is a growing interest in the possibility that cloth masks may reduce community transmission.