Chris Byrne
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chrbyrne.bsky.social
Chris Byrne
@chrbyrne.bsky.social
Public Health Scotland & University of Dundee.
Interested in the liver, illicit drug use.
https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/persons/chris-byrne-2
Reposted by Chris Byrne
Word of the day is ‘forwallowed’ (15th century): extremely weary from tossing and turning all night.
July 1, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
In this interim analysis of a phase 3 trial involving 800 patients with metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis, once-weekly semaglutide improved liver histologic results at 72 weeks. Full ESSENCE trial results: nej.md/3EVFAFM

#MedSky #EndoSky #GastroSky
April 30, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
“The real crisis is not that public health — which is fundamentally about policies dictating the distribution of resources required to protect human life — has been politicized. It is that it has not been politicized nearly enough,” writes Eric Reinhart in Nature. 🧪
Public-health experts should be more political, not less
Health has always been political, long before Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr took power. Denying this is what’s been killing us.
go.nature.com
March 13, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
The general trend is crazy. Here is Twitter vs Bluesky volumes for the last week. On some days they are equal in volume.
March 10, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
Every year, there are an estimated 833 760 (95% UI 493 716–1 544 395) new HCV infections attributable to injecting drug use globally

The global decline needed to meet the 2030 WHO target is 76·7% (95% UI 71·8–81·3)

#HepSky #IDSky #MedSky #LiverSky
February 25, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
New online! Μetabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: a condition of heterogeneous metabolic risk factors, mechanisms and comorbidities requiring holistic treatment
Μetabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: a condition of heterogeneous metabolic risk factors, mechanisms and comorbidities requiring holistic treatment
Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Published online: 17 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41575-025-01045-zThis Review discusses the link between metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) — a heterogeneous health condition —…
www.nature.com
February 18, 2025 at 3:44 AM
100%.

Publishers’ profits are colossal and these APC figures speak to that.
Imagine what could have been accomplished with $8Bn, if publishing was free.

"...a total of $8.349 billion were spent on APCs between 2019 and 2023. We estimate that in 2023 MDPI ($681.6 million), Elsevier ($582.8 million) and Springer Nature ($546.6) generated the most revenue with APCs."

🧪
Researchers paid $9 billion over 5 years for their findings to be freely accessible.

This is based on a study of the global expenditure on article processing charges (APCs) paid to six publishers for open access between 2019 and 2023. arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551
January 27, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
🚨 New paper: ‘The implementation of safer drug consumption facilities in Scotland: a mixed methods needs assessment and feasibility study for the city of Edinburgh’

harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
The implementation of safer drug consumption facilities in Scotland: a mixed methods needs assessment and feasibility study for the city of Edinburgh - Harm Reduction Journal
Background Scotland currently has amongst the highest rates of drug-related deaths in Europe, leading to increased advocacy for safer drug consumption facilities (SDCFs) to be piloted in the country. ...
harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com
January 14, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
My very last issue (on ♿️) has now come out with BMJ Medical Humanities: I have stepped down from my role as Editor in Chief. There are a lot of factors—after 17 years editing two consecutive journals, it was time. But there’s more, and I feel we should talk about the climate of #academic publishing
January 9, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
Today's OHID data shows the number of deaths caused by alcohol in England have now risen for *five years in a row* and are 40% higher than pre-pandemic.

England hasn't had an alcohol strategy for over a decade.

The case for action has never been stronger 👇
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...
December 3, 2024 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
If you hate statistics like I do, then you'll love my free lectures. Putting science before statistics, 20 lectures from basics of inference & causal modeling to multilevel models & dynamic state space models. It's all free, made with love and sympathy. 🧪 #stats www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
September 19, 2024 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
This is why funders should pay for project managers. For my recent multinational, 5-year project across 4 countries, NIH cut our only 0.5 administrator - so now all admin needs to be done by the researchers. Crazy.
"A study of federally funded research projects in the United States estimated that principal investigators spend on average about 45% of their time on administrative activities related to applying for and managing projects rather than conducting active research"

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
January 5, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
NEW: Is the NHS still good value for money?

Billions of pounds are being ploughed into Britain’s health service — with little noticeable improvement in health since 2019.

Critics say the NHS has become bloated and inefficient. Is it?

@thetimes.com

🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/1130...

1/7
December 29, 2024 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
We're pleased to announce that our LJMU Drug Related Deaths Conference 2025 will take place online on Friday 28th March. Previous events have seen some great discussions and networking so we expect a really worthwhile event. Registration is now open here: ims.ljmu.ac.uk/DRDconference #DRDevent
December 19, 2024 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Chris Byrne
🚨 New review in @natrevgastrohep.bsky.social:
Should you take probiotics with antibiotics?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bottom line: current evidence does not support the common perception that probiotics can facilitate the gut microbiome's recovery from antibiotics. BUT! 1/🧵
December 13, 2024 at 11:34 PM