He’s gone to do research at Oxford. Is it because the English allocate more resources to research?
I went to Oxford because of Dani Prieto-Alhambra’s team: it is a leading research group and it is a great opportunity for my training. And yes, they allocate much more money to research there. Previously, he had carried out an internship with Clara Prats, a researcher who works at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, on the tuberculosis and malaria epidemic. When Covid-19 arrived, they applied their knowledge to study the virus, which projected their work into the media. Now the group is better known and has more financial resources.
Let’s talk about Covid-19. Many people think that vaccines have side effects.
We know that they have side effects, all medicines can have them. In the case of Covid-19, risks caused by Covid itself and not by vaccines have been found. Those who are vaccinated can have myocarditis, but the percentage of people who have had Covid and who have suffered cardiac effects and thromboembolism is higher in the unvaccinated. Vaccines, although they have adverse effects, protect against cardiovascular and thromboembolic complications.
In a world where everything works quickly, are medical decisions made without contrast?
Sometimes poorly contrasted studies come out. For example, in the United States, hydroxychloroquine was recommended as a medicine to cure Covid based on a poorly verified study. However, it was approved and for 3 months it was administered to hospitalized patients with Covid. I believe that there must be scientific ethics, especially when working in public health. During Covid-19 there may have been specific exceptions due to the urgency of investigating the virus.
What are you doing at Oxford?
I will spend two years working with a multidisciplinary team focused on epidemiology. We analyze health data to investigate. When you go to the doctor in the CAP it is recorded and also what he prescribes for you. Through studies, we can access this anonymized health data and assess whether there are adverse reactions to medications, whether they are prescribed appropriately, and the number of people taking them. With this data we do research to inform and promote better public health. In the group there are physicists, doctors, data analysts, statisticians, pharmacists. That is, you have many points of view when it comes to getting input, designing work, and obtaining complete results.
Who sets the research priorities?
The State and also private investors who bet where they can obtain benefits. Now a lot is invested in artificial intelligence to apply it to technology.
When you finish in Oxford will you return to Catalonia?
We are many Catalans and we all have that dilemma. For now, I will be at Oxford as a research assistant, and in the near future I would like to do a PhD.
What will the doctorate do?
Epidemiology, cancer research. I would like to investigate methods to reduce time and resources in cancer treatment research. Using data from patients undergoing treatment in hospitals, results and new treatments could be compared. This way we wouldn’t have to recruit so many people to do experiments, which would save time and money.
2024-03-30 04:30:05
#vaccine #reduces #postCovid #thromboembolic #complications
