ID:IOTS - Infectious Disease Insight Of Two Specialists

BIOCIDES ARE COMING FOR YOU. 
Find out what they are, what the benefits and harms they have, and what we can do to control their use in consumer products. 
This was a fascinating, wide-ranging discussion on the use of agents that can affect the human/animal microbiome and environmental microbes, and the problems with trying to regulate them (in the UK at least). Hope you enjoy it. 

Bios: 
Natalie Bennett has been a Green Party representative in the UK House of Lords for six years, after being leader of the England & Wales Party from 2012-2016. Her first degree - from the University of Sydney - was in agricultural science, and she can get very geeky about soils; she got tardigrades into Hansard (the parliamentary record) for the first time ever in her maiden speech. Her Consumer Products (Control of Biocides) Bill was introduced to the House in January 2025. Her first book is Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society, and her second (Green Thinking Unlearning Outdated Ideas in Science, Economics and Politics) will be out from Routledge next April. 

Anastasia “Tash” Theodosiou is an Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Glasgow and a Specialty Registrar in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases. Her research explores how the microbiome shapes health and disease, with a particular focus on early life; her PhD produced the world’s first human challenge study performed in pregnancy. She also coined the term microbiotoxicity, a framework for recognising the unintended impacts of antimicrobial products on the microbiome, and is a passionate advocate for embedding microbiome stewardship into clinical practice, prescribing, and policy.

Jame is a podcaster. He works for the NHS on occasion. 
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Flustered by fluconazole? 
An ignoramus on itraconazole and isavuconazole?
Puzzled by Posa? VEXED BY VORI? 
Never fear: You can be amazed at the Azoles, just learn how to use 'em right! That's what this episode's all about! Alyssa and Jame UNITE in the first of our episodes on antifungal drugs! 
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Prep notes for completed episodes can be found here (Not all episodes have prep notes).

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AKA Penicillin Allergy 3: Delabel Hard With A Vengeance
A departure from our semi-annual penicillin allergy episode: one on cephalosporin allergy! 
Jame and Callum are joined by Fionnuala Cox to discuss Cephalosporin allergy in general, and the CEPH-FAST risk assessment tool in particular. 
Ever wanted to know how to deal with cephalosporin allergy? Listen on! 

Paper here: 
Cox F, Vogrin S, Sullivan RP, Stone C, Koo G, Phillips E, et al. Development and validation of a cephalosporin allergy clinical decision rule. Journal of Infection. 2025 June 1;90(6). Available from: https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(25)00089-1/fulltext
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2025.106495

(It's open access, don't worry)
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Yo ho ho, for our listeners dearest
We present an antibiotics tier list 
Ranking drugs from S to D
In a manner oh so Christmassy
So sit back relax and have a drink 
As we discourse in cladist think
And if you rank a different way
We'll forgive you this Christmas day. 

Proper episodes next year. See you in 2026! 
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In which Callum and Jame discuss Brucellosis, named after a Scottish feminist, a disease hard to diagnose but easy to treat, as long as the treatment works which it may not. Listen on! 
Audience survey: Tell us how rubbish we are here! 
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