We ’re All In The Hot Seat Now.
BY MIKE MAGEE
It’s not that easy living in the “Big Easy” these days and co-existing with a world dominated by water concerns. When Times-Picayune gossip columnist Betty Guillaud (as the folklore goes) “coined New Orleans’ undisputed nickname” in the 1960’s, it was a lifestyle eponym meant to favorably contrast life in “The Big Easy” with hard living in “The Big Apple.”
That was well before August 23, 2004, when the levies failed to hold back the Gulf waters, and 1,392 souls perished leaving two names to last in infamy – Katrina and Brownie, of “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 4, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Cholera Mike Magee New York City Saltwater Source Type: blogs
Diversity Supplement Program Paves the Way for Talented Researchers
“I hope that one day I’m able to increase our understanding of evolution, and I also hope to increase access to research. I want others to know that this space is open to people who look like me, who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and who are underrepresented in the sciences,” says Nkrumah Grant, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate (postdoc) in microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing.
Dr. Grant’s work receives support from the NIGMS Diversity Supplement Program (DSP), which is designed to improve the recruitment and training of promising researchers from ...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - September 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Diseases Microbes Profiles Training Source Type: blogs
How Can Health IT Help Reform the CDC?
This article summarizes their responses.
Paths to Interoperability
A recent article exposes the woeful silo-ing of public health: Data often has to be faxed and re-entered into new systems manually. I wonder whether the path to complete integration requires adopting a single, worldwide, FHIR-based standard (which is time-consuming and probably requires jettisoning old database systems) or programming these systems to translate data from one format to another.
I heard details about problems with COVID-19 lab reporting at a state level from Dr. Paulo Pinho, vice president & medical director of innovation at Availity Clin...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 28, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Healthcare IT Regulations 21st Century Cures Act Amazon Amazon Healthcare Amazon S3 Availity Availity Clinical Solutions CDC Data Exchange Diameter Health EMPI FDA Gus Malezis Health Gorilla hl7 Imprivata Interoperability Source Type: blogs
TWiV 984: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses the political polarization of COVID-19 treatments among physicians and laypeople in the United States, seven alternatives to evidence-based medicine, Malawi’s cholera death toll crosses 1,300 in its deadliest outbreak on record, impact of coronavirus infections on pediatric patients at a tertiary pediatric hospital, maternal mRNA COVID-19 vaccination during […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - February 18, 2023 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology antiviral coronavirus COVID-19 delta inflammation influenza Long Covid monkeypox monoclonal antibody Omicron pandemic poliovirus SARS-CoV-2 vaccine vaccine booster variant of concern viruses Source Type: blogs
TWiV 984: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin
In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses the political polarization of COVID-19 treatments among physicians and laypeople in the United States, seven alternatives to evidence-based medicine, Malawi’s cholera death toll crosses 1,300 in its deadliest outbreak on record, impact of coronavirus infections on pediatric patients at a tertiary pediatric hospital, maternal mRNA COVID-19 vaccination during … TWiV 984: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin Read More » (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - February 18, 2023 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology antiviral coronavirus COVID-19 delta inflammation influenza Long Covid monkeypox monoclonal antibody Omicron pandemic poliovirus SARS-CoV-2 vaccine vaccine booster variant of concern viruses Source Type: blogs
California ’s Misguided Effort to Stifle COVID Scientific Discourse
Jeffrey A. SingerOn September 12, the California legislature sent to Governor Newsom ’s deskAB-2098, that “would designate the dissemination [by physicians and surgeons] of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS‐CoV‑2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct,” which means they may be sanctioned or lose their license. The bill defines “misinformation” as “f alse information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”At first blush, this might seem reasonable. After all, it ’s considered medical malpractice to violate the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 15, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Public Alerted to Omicron in New Mexico Through Quick Detection
Genetic material inside a virus. Credit: iStock.
Over the past 2 years, you’ve probably heard a lot about the spread of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—and the emergence of variants. The discovery and tracking of these variants is possible thanks to genomic surveillance, a technique that involves sequencing and analyzing the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles from many COVID-19 patients. Genomic surveillance has not only shed light on how SARS-CoV-2 has evolved and spread, but it has also helped public health officials decide when to introduce measures to help protect people.
In December 2021, the N...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 1, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Genes Injury and Illness COVID-19 Genomics Infectious Diseases Viruses Source Type: blogs
More on why we Stay Alive
A couple of days ago I referred to the doubling of human life expectancy in 100 years, and the importance of pasteurization of milk in making that happen. Our next installment is about water. There ' s nothing more basic than good old H2O, but it used to kill city dwellers about as often as milk. People actually figured this out even before Pasteur and Koch came up with the germ theory of disease.Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholera, which is spread through contaminated water or food. The disease causes severe diarrhea that can last for several days. Depending on the strain of bact...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 21, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Will Microbes Finally Force Modernization of the American Health Care System?
Mike Magee MD
Science has a way of punishing humans for their arrogance.
In 1996, Dr. Michael Osterholm found himself rather lonely and isolated in medical research circles. This was the adrenaline-infused decade of blockbuster pharmaceuticals focused squarely on chronic debilitating diseases of aging.
And yet, there was Osterholm, in Congressional testimony delivering this message: “I am here to bring you the sobering and unfortunate news that our ability to detect and monitor infectious disease threats to health in this country is in serious jeopardy…For 12 of the States or territories, there is no one w...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 14, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Public Health Healthcare system infectious diseases microbes Mike Magee Source Type: blogs
Love in the Time of Cholera
Richard Delgado (University of Alabama), Jean Stefancic (University of Alabama), Love in the Time of Cholera, 68 UCLA L. Rev. Online 176 (2020): Uses a famous novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a starting point for a sustained critique of... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - October 7, 2021 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
Could a Spoonful of Sugar Be a Medicine?
Glycans glow red, yellow, and green in this image of a zebrafish embryo’s jaw. Credit: Carolyn Bertozzi, University of California, Berkeley.
Large sugar molecules called glycans coat every cell in our bodies. They can also be found inside and between cells, and they are important for many biological processes, including how our cells interact with one another and with pathogens. For example, glycans on red blood cells determine blood type, and those on the cells of organs determine whether a person can receive a transplant from a particular donor. Scientists have only begun to explore sugars’ complexities and po...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - September 29, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Glycobiology Research Roundup Source Type: blogs
Respect for Science
I vaguely remember discussing some of this before, but anyway . . . Throughout most of the 19th Century, despite the dramatic advances of science in many areas, nobody gained any useful understanding of human health and disease, and effective therapies were largely lacking. In fact, physicians -- medical school graduates -- advocated bloodletting and violent purging with mercury based emetics and laxatives. For obvious reasons, most people preferred other healing methods, which didn ' t work either but at least didn ' t kill you. Hospitals were just places where poor people went to die. So what happened to ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 5, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Pandemics are Not New: What Can Indigenous Worldviews Teach Us?
by Jennifer McCurdy, PhD, BSN, MH, HEC-C
Pandemics are not new to human experience. Stories of the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and waves of smallpox, cholera, and measles have a place in the collective social memory. But something happens viscerally when the experience is first-hand. A witnessing of overrun emergency rooms, dropping oxygen saturations, empty grocery store shelves, and make-shift morgues on semi-trucks stir a common dread. Health care workers and other essential personnel experience waves of exhaustion, anger, moral distress, and a fear of death concurrent with a deep sense of duty toward humanity.R...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - February 4, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Blog Editor Tags: Cultural Ethics Featured Posts Public Health Uncategorized #diaryofaplagueyear COVID-19 Source Type: blogs
Epidemics and pandemics (1): Cholera and Sheffield
Sheffield ' s Cholera Monument stands above the railway station ( " Sheffield Midland " , as some signs and things still call it). The foundation stone was put in place in December 1834 by James Montgomery, the poet, and the monument completed in April 1835. There it stayed till it was damaged in a storm in the 1990s. It was put up again, completed in 2006.A board by the monument records that 402 people died, and were buried in the " grounds " where the monument stands.And that the " total number of persons attacked by this disease " was 1347.Sheffield City Libraries have a research guide, with...
Source: Browsing - February 2, 2021 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: cholera sheffield Source Type: blogs
