Category: Conditions

Influenza: a deadly risk in schools before COVID

The Washington Post published an interesting article in its weekly health section on March 2. 2021. The article had an impactful graphic using data from the Centers for Disease Control that showed the number of pediatric deaths due to influenza over th…

When is it ethical to stop a vaccination program?

There is fear in the air. Fear that the COVID pandemic may not get under control because the virus is mutating so fast. Fear that the vaccines may not be effective against these new variants. But fear should not be the driving force behind public healt…

The pandemic plight of CHF: one center’s response

We swore an oath: “Primum non nocere”  — First, do no harm.  When pandemic stress began to bear down on our hospitals, we scrambled to manage the burden of volume and simultaneously mitigate the threat of contagion.  In our war effort…

A perspective on herd immunity for COVID-19

On February 18, Dr. Marty Makary published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal which struck an unusually optimistic note as to the stage of the American COVID-19 pandemic.  Dr. Makary predicts that based on the current trajectory, COVID-19 will…

Pediatric patients need appropriate pain management after surgery

Fear of opioid addiction and misuse has been instilled into the American public – in many cases rightfully so. However, we are concerned that new guidelines for opioid prescribing in children and adolescents after surgery recently published in JAMA Sur…

Let 2021 be the year we end the pandemic

I listen to the wind howling outside on this night that’s stranded between the departing season of winter and the coming of spring. I await the arrival of longer days filled with sunshine, days that welcome new growth, new life. During the year t…

The COVID vaccine: Why give two if one will do?

The great COVID vaccine rollout of 2021 is fully underway. Armed with two highly effective products from Pfizer and Moderna, our nation is rapidly advancing toward the immunization of all Americans in hopes of stemming the pandemic. We just can’t get t…

A physician questions the COVID vaccine data from Israel

Bloodletting may be the best-known example of a once widely used, faulty medical treatment, but there are many more. Hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women, famously touted by experts, turned out to be complicated and sometimes harmful. T…

It’s infuriating to encounter discarded gloves and masks in public

Sitting at my “work-from-home” quarantine desk, I heard my alarm – time to change the laundry. Donning a mask, I walked down the hallway and opened the laundry room door. I couldn’t help but fixate on the lone, inside-out, blue glove that s…

The impact of COVID-19 on those with disabilities and mental illness

As early as April 6, 2020, the New York Times (NYT) published an article revealing early pandemic statistics that showed the death rate for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) who received residential services in New York State…