Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
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tkes.bsky.social
Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
@tkes.bsky.social
Clinical microbiology in LMIC & ID Epidemiology. Concerned about inequities and scientific integrity, yet dyed-in-the-wool optimist. All views my own, but I share because sharing is caring. (he/him/his)
Pinned
🦠💊During #WAAW, #OUCRU, partners, and local authorities met to improve antimicrobial resistance control and microbiology capacity 🧫🔬in underserved areas. 🌏
💡Solutions like MiniLab and Hub-and-Spoke were tested. It works!

👉Read more: t.co/towS7BF3uQ
#AMR #IDSky #MicroSky #GlobalHealth
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Your “growing anger” seems to come from a simple place: belief first, evidence later, if ever.

SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t have supernatural properties. Every claimed “special feature” has been observed in countless other viruses, and the data consistently shows this.
1/3
November 9, 2025 at 7:44 PM
I don't think of a good reason not to cite your own protocol, except if you don't want reviewers and readers to notice that the protocol has been modified...
Doubling down on @steamtraen.eu 's comment. The dataset of this "RCT" shows typical signs of [amateur level] data fabrication. 🥸

@bmj.com the ball is in your court! 🙏

Well spotted @deevybee.bsky.social 🔎
#ResearchIntegrity 🕵️ #FoSci
The dataset for this study has some serious problems: pubpeer.com/publications...
November 7, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
I talk with my Research Methods students about publishing during the semester... and I was had a difficult time explaining why I personally avoid Frontiers similar to MDPI.

I will have less difficulty this coming year.

From: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 1, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
❤️ COVID infection poses a higher heart risk in children than vaccination, according to the largest study of its kind involving 14 million kids in England. Read more - www.thelancet.com/jo...
#COVID19 #Vaccines #HeartHealth #ChildHealth #Research
November 5, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
When sequence databases can unilaterally cut off access to analytic platforms, we are left unprepared for the next pandemic.

In @thinkglobalhealth.org, @colincarlson.bsky.social and I highlight the severity of the situation, and what it means for @who.int negotiations on the Pandemic agreement. 🧪😷🧵
To Finish the Pandemic Agreement, WHO Needs a Trustworthy Viral Database | Think Global Health
Online platforms for sharing virus sequences are in disarray. The World Health Organization has a chance to build something new
www.thinkglobalhealth.org
November 5, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Cureus was a terrible journal. It proudly boasted a lightning-speed peer review process, which obviously happened at the expense of quality... I won't cry for its loss. 🪦
November 5, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Doubling down on @steamtraen.eu 's comment. The dataset of this "RCT" shows typical signs of [amateur level] data fabrication. 🥸

@bmj.com the ball is in your court! 🙏

Well spotted @deevybee.bsky.social 🔎
#ResearchIntegrity 🕵️ #FoSci
November 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
O'DONNELL: So, who pardoned CZ?

TRUMP: The POTUS, certainly.

O'DONNELL: But, who is the POTUS?

TRUMP: That damned Sloppy F***ing Joe!

O'DONNELL: I'm sorry, but you won the election!

TRUMP: I knew it! They tried to overturn it, but I won!

O'DONNELL: I mean, 2024.

TRUMP: Are we already in 2024?
O'DONNELL: Why did you pardon Changpeng Zhao?

TRUMP: Are you ready? I don't know who he is

O'DONNELL: His crypto exchange Binance helped facilitate a $2b purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And they you pardoned him.

TRUMP: Here's the thing -- I know nothing about it
November 3, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
📢 Postdoc position: Cell Biology of Cyanobacteria

in my group, as part of the Excellence Cluster "Microbes for Climate" (M4C) in Marburg, Germany.

More information at shorturl.at/wNnDT (see Project 2)

🔗Apply at shorturl.at/VsEDl
📅Deadline: Nov 16, 2025

Please repost. #Postdoc
November 2, 2025 at 7:13 PM
"Anyone concerned with pandemics and their impact must be concerned with inequality." ⚖️ vs 🦠
#GlobalHealth #HealthInequities #PandemicPreparedness #IDSky #MedSky
Revealed: Inequality is making pandemics more likely, more deadly and more costly. ‘Inequality-pandemic cycle’ must be broken to achieve health security.

Read the report: www.unaids.org/sites/defaul...

Read the press release: www.unaids.org/en/resources...
November 3, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
@bmj.com Please look at PubPeer comments on an article you published last week. pubpeer.com/publications...
I think your research integrity dept shld act swiftly on this one, given clinical significance.
I'm aware of even more evidence of problems so let me know if this is not sufficient.
PubPeer - Prevention of acute myocardial infarction induced heart fail...
There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Prevention of acute myocardial infarction induced heart failure by intracoronary infusion of mesenchymal stem cells: phase 3 randomised clinical trial (P...
pubpeer.com
November 2, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Pratchett ❤️
Discworld QOTD, from Pyramids

“Younger assassins, who are usually very poor, have very clear ideas about the morality of wealth until they become older assassins, who are usually very rich, when they begin to take the view that injustice has its good points”
Discworld QOTD, from A Hat Full of Sky

"... it must be hard, being the best. You're not allowed to stop. You can only be beaten, and you're too proud ever to lose. Pride! You've turned it into a terrible strength, but it eats away at you."
November 2, 2025 at 6:17 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
En ce jour de vote de Taxe Zucman, on n'a jamais entendu autant de patrons chouiner dans les médias.

Les pauvres, rendez-vous compte, on leur demande de payer proportionnellement autant d'impôts que le reste de la population, c'est insupportable.

Stop aux privilèges fiscaux !
October 31, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Dear @erinbiba.bsky.social and @hzeffman.bsky.social,
Can you comment on the fact that BBC is back in Vietnam, please?🙏😊
October 31, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology! I'm very conflicted about the project: proud because it feels like the most important project I've ever been a part of, but also very sad that we found so many problems in our field.

Read the paper here: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Erroneous articles can undermine scientific progress & mislead future research. Rene Aquarius &co show that 40% of articles on early #BrainInjury in animal studies have #ImageDuplication & #ImageManipulation problems, but correction by #journals remains limited @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4p59QzN
October 31, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
How unexpected, Harry Spoelstra, David Joffe and Zdenek Vrozina, fall for this nonsense. Why? Not because they understand it, not because they even read it or checked any of the references. The take it because it fits their Doom ideology. It is a cult.
bsky.app/profile/did...
1/2
October 30, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
October 31, 2025 at 7:06 AM
Rire de tout. Une autre spécialité belge! 🍺🍫🍟🧇🇧🇪
October 31, 2025 at 7:23 AM
🇻🇳🤝🇬🇧 I don't know what #UK 's Starmer said to To Lam, but for the first time since I'm in #Vietnam (5 years) the website of #BBC is accessible...🥳 I just hope that they also unlocked that journalist's fate! 🙏

www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC 'deeply concerned' about journalist unable to leave Vietnam
The journalist has been in Vietnam for several months while authorities have withheld their renewed passport.
www.bbc.com
October 31, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Virological.org is up and running, yes - and should remain so (I foot the monthly $25 bill for @arambaut.bsky.social 😆)! But as Duncan says, not for data sharing.

@pathoplexus.org is the best alternative, although IMO we need data producer-driven focus first, not just data-consumers.
Virological
A discussion forum for analysis and interpretation of virus molecular evolution and epidemiology.
Virological.org
October 31, 2025 at 2:13 AM
#Vietnam 's bamboo diplomacy in action 🇻🇳

The bamboo figures flexibility, but also a way to keep all allies at equal distance... 🎍

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/w...
Is the U.S. Losing in Vietnam? Russia, North Korea and China Are Gaining.
www.nytimes.com
October 30, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Reposted by Thomas Kesteman🦠🧫🔬🌏
Zohran Mamdani suscite, bien au-delà de New York, le même enthousiasme parmi une grande partie de la gauche que celui déclenché par Bernie Sanders en 2016 lors de la campagne des primaires démocrates pour la présidentielle.

📧 La lettre américaine de cette semaine 👉‍ https://l.mediapart.fr/e4S
October 29, 2025 at 9:10 AM