Politics, Science, and Other Assorted Musings
I love helping people understand issues and look at them from a different perspective. In this blog, I hope I can offer you some new insights—bridging the gap between basic science and your medicine chest—as I am still a practicing physician, as well as having had broad clinical research experience. I'm interested in developing new medicines and treatments, as well as caring for patients—and explaining these topics for you.
As medicine has evolved, so have my interests. I have also become increasingly interested in health disparities, social justice issues, and ethics. I invite you to join me as we explore a variety of territories. I hope that reading these posts will encourage you to learn, engage, and above all, work for the forces of good.
If there are topics you'd like to see me cover, please let me know—I welcome your input as to what you would like us to discuss in this column.
Coronavirus - COVID19
Please note that I will be posting Coronavirus Tidbits of news here. You can sign up for updates by clicking the box at the right and subscribe to Covid, Politics, and Science. All Covid posts will go here, and I will upload back issues as I have time. Please share w friends. Thanks!
I’m going to have a reference file here for articles I have found particularly worthwhile, and will update this here as we learn new information. Click on the COVID-19 Resources, below, to expand that.
If you see something terrific, please share. We’re all in this together.
Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. ~ ~ ~ Special announcement – a GoFundMe request Sierra Reckley is a close friend of a good friend. She has recently been diagnosed with a rare spindle cell sarcoma of her clavicle, a rare and aggressive bone cancer. She is just 30…Sierra works and supports a permaculture farm, planning and growing a community food source. She strongly believes in community and caring/supporting others. She is in pain, unable to work now and needs help even getting to/from Johns Hopkins appointments, each one being an expensive and wearing 6-hour roundtrip drive. Her aunt has started this GoFundMe on her behalf. Please support her if you can, if only by sharing the…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. News Covid: COVID survivors with depressive, cognitive symptoms show signs of brain inflammation Patients with persistent symptoms of depression and cognitive impairment after a mild to moderate COVID-19 infection had elevated levels of a protein indicating inflammation of the brain, finds a Canadian case-control study published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. The team led by researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto used positron emission tomography (PET) to compare levels of translocator protein, a marker for gliosis (inflammation of the brain), in 20 participants with persistent symptoms of depression and cognitive impairment with those of 20 healthy controls. The study was conducted from April 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022. Average participant age was 32.9 years, and roughly 60% were women. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-survivors-depressive-cognitive-symptoms-show-signs-brain-inflammation ~ ~ ~ More than 1 in 6 unvaccinated people…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. New Post: Infections From Medical Tourism And How To Protect Yourself https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2023/05/23/infections-from-medical-tourism-and-how-to-protect-yourself/ ~ ~ ~ My LTE on #Masking Hospitals throughout Maryland have been lifting their mask mandates to varying degrees. UPMC announced that masking is now only “required in specic patient care areas where patients are particularly vulnerable to infection.” The Women’s Action Coalition objects to this decision. Our group focuses on social justice issues affecting our community. We believe that protecting each other and looking out for our neighbors’ well-being, particularly for the most vulnerable among us, is crucial to improving health in our community. The WHO, President Biden, and others have declared the pandemic emergency is over. This does not mean that COVID has stopped. There are still 88,330 new COVID cases (12,619/day), 1,402 new hospitalizations, and 1,052 (150/day) new…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. News Clotting in arteries in STEMI w Covid The findings show patients with an ST-elevated myocardial infarction, or STEMI, and COVID-19 had a significant amount of clotting in their arteries both before and after intervention. Importantly, clots were seen in multiple arteries in close to 30% of patients, a phenomenon observed in less than 5% of patients with heart attacks who do not have COVID-19. In the United States, someone experiences a heart attack every 40 seconds (CDC). Of these patients, more than 25% will experience a more severe type of heart attack, an ST-elevated myocardial infarction, or STEMI caused by the sudden, total blockage of a coronary artery. Pre-COVID-19 mortality in STEMI patients…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. News Covid: Brace yourself–lots of big changes this week! CDC data and reporting: See https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7219e1.htm#T1_down for details. With the end of the Public Health Emergency, the CDC is drastically reducing the data it collects and reports. As of May 11, 2023: –COVID Data Tracker will display hospital admissions, deaths, and emergency department visits data as primary surveillance metrics for COVID-19. –test positivity data from COVID-19 Electronic Laboratory Reporting has been removed from COVID Data Tracker and archived at healthdata.gov. After May 11, the National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System will become CDC’s new source for testing data. –COVID Data Tracker is no longer reporting aggregate cases and deaths, COVID-19 Community Levels,…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. New post: The Buzz On Preventing Insect Bites: How To Repel Ticks And Mosquitoes https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2023/05/06/the-buzz-on-preventing-insect-bites-how-to-repel-ticks-and-mosquitoes/?sh=787eb92f4d58 News Daily Update for the United States New Cases (Weekly Total) New Deaths (Weekly Total) New Hospitalizations 88,330 (12,619/day) 1,052 (150/day) 1,402 ~ ~ ~ WHO Ends public health emergency Tedros declared “Covid-19 over as a global health emergency” though the pandemic is not over. “WHO recorded 2.8 million new cases globally, and more than 17,000 deaths, from April 3 to 30, the most recent numbers available. As many countries have reduced their testing for Covid,…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. New post: Why Antibiotics Fail-And How We Can Do Better https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2023/04/27/why-antibiotics-fail-and-how-we-can-do-better/?sh=650aaf6ffd87 News Covid: US: New Cases (Weekly Total) 88,330 New Deaths (Weekly Total) 1,052 (150 per day) New Hospital Admissions (Daily Avg) 1,541 https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home ~ ~ ~ COVID-19 vaccine appears more effective if received around midday see below for details ~ ~ ~ Long-COVID patients show abnormal brain activity on MRI while doing memory tasks Long-COVID patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms such as brain fog showed abnormal brain activity on magnetic…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. News FDA authorizes second bivalent COVID boosters for seniors, other at-risk groups The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized second bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 booster doses for people ages 65 and up and for those with weakened immune systems, a step designed to shore up immunity in the most vulnerable groups until fall. In its announcement, the FDA also simplified the immunization recommendations for all age-groups to focus only on the bivalent vaccines. It said the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech monovalent (single-strain) vaccines are no longer authorized for use, though their full licensing remains intact for future supplemental actions. COVID still a real risk for many people The FDA said people ages 65 and older may…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. Reminder, Resilience: One Family’s Story… is increasingly pertinent, as some of our politicians shift rightward. All proceeds go to Holocaust education. Available here. Latest post: It’s Tick Time! What To Know About The Growing Risk Of Infections From Ticks https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2023/04/12/its-tick-time-what-to-know-about-the-growing-risk-of-infections-from-ticks/?sh=6c48def966ff News Covid: Overview from WHO [In case you think Covid is over and we can go back to normal], globally, 3 million new cases and over 23 000 deaths were reported in the last 28 days. As of 9 April 2023, over 762 million confirmed cases and over 6.8 million deaths have been reported globally. ~ ~ ~ Biden terminates the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This closes lavish funding streams for COVID tests, free vaccines and other emergency measures thrown together-starting in January 2020-to try and free the world’s biggest economy…
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Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that. ~ ~ ~ News: Abortion: No surprise: A federal judge Kacsmaryk in Texas has ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s initial authorization of the abortion pill Mifepristone was improper and has suspended the pill’s FDA approval. The ruling will take effect in 7 days if not stayed by the 5th circuit or SCOTUS. ~ ~ ~ Our very conservative local news paper had this remarkable editorial about the new abortion clinic due to open here in this “abortion desert” to serve WV, W MD, Ohio women: Noting that this is a red state, they wrote: “Given the radical and deeply personal opinions on the topic, it may be hard, but we would encourage everyone to use decency. Don’t harass people who use the clinic as we do not know the nature of…
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