Since Grenfell Tower there has been much in the media on the subject of tall buildings and fires.  For us, as a group of 'Skeptics', it's sometimes hard to know where the truth lies so we are delighted that Dr Claire Benson has agreed to come and talk to us.  Claire is a fire and explosion scientist and she'll be sharing an expert's view on issues such as what building fire safety is supposed to do, common areas of failure in tall building fire safety, how we've ended up with a system that 'isn't fit for purpose' (according to the government's own inquiry), and what we need to do moving forwards to stop it happening again.

Based at London South Bank University, Dr Benson has over 10 years’ experience researching and lecturing as part of the Explosion and Fire Research Group.  She has a PhD in chemical engineering, specialising in high pressure oxygen system safety and has conducted research for the London Fire Brigade, Sellafield Ltd and the Ministry of Defence, and collaborated with the British Standards Institution, the Health and Safety Executive, and numerous aerospace and industrial engineering companies.  She initially studied forensics and the investigative skills acquired in this context are now used when she is looking for root causes of fire-related incidents.  With this background Claire has additionally done work with the London Fire Brigade, and has helped assess car fires for health and safety lessons, and completed projects on how arson data is shared with the police.

On Twitter find Claire @PyroClaire

Recent data from the World Health Organisation has indicated a fourfold increase in cases of measles in 2017 compared to previous year (from 5,273 to 21,315 cases) across the European region (www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press- releases/2018/europe-observes- a-4- fold- increase-in- measles-cases- in-2017- compared-to- previous-year). These cases subsequently lead to hundreds of hospitalisations and 35 recorded deaths. While some of these cases were in those too young to be vaccinated, or those that had other health concerns that made vaccination inadvisable, the majority of the cases were in people who had actively made a choice to avoid immunisation.

The reasons why an individual may refuse a vaccine that is backed by extremely strong safety and efficacy evidence are wide ranging and complex. In this talk, Richard will introduce you to the concept of 'Vaccine Hesitancy' and explain how risk perception, uncertainty, social influence and above all trust plays a role in vaccine delay, selection and refusal.

Richard Clarke is a health psychologist and 3rd year PhD candidate with The Vaccine Confidence Project (www.vaccineconfidence.org/) based at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The academic field of vaccination is very wide, Richard's area of expertise focuses on the fluffy social science related to vaccine delivery. For all things vaccine science please visit The Vaccine Knowledge Project at www.vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/