Clinical

As JUCM News readers know, infectious disease and public health experts have been saying for weeks that we could see a severe flu season this year, especially compared to the last few when people wore masks and practiced social distancing due to COVID-19. Data are already proving them out, and the fact that they’re emerging so early in the season is raising red flags. Not only that, but some of the states with the highest …

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an Official Health Advisory to urge U.S. clinicians to include Ebola virus disease (EVD) in their differential diagnoses for patients presenting with fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal symptoms, and unexplained bleeding. The advisory also recommends taking a detailed travel history for such patients. There is an active outbreak occurring within five districts in Uganda, but at present there have been …

Though ivermectin has been the most widely discussed medication purported to help fight or prevent COVID-19, metformin and fluvoxamine have also been put forth by some as candidates to draw the pandemic to a quick close. And each of them has proven to be highly effective within their approved indications. The problem is that none has been helpful in fighting SARS-CoV-2, according to research published by The New England Journal of Medicine. After randomly assigning …

As JUCM readers know, public health officials have expressed concern that the much dreaded—but previously unrealized—simultaneous spike in influenza and SARS-CoV-2 could overwhelm the U.S. healthcare system, kill unknown masses of patients, and pummel the nation’s economy. Unfortunately, fresh insights gleaned from the start of the U.S. flu season are doing nothing assuage those fears. In fact, Vanderbilt infectious disease professor and highly regarded public health expert William Schaffner, MD told NPR just last week, …

As the business of selling marijuana has grown from your neighborhood dealer to medical dispensaries and stores licensed to sell weed for recreational uses, emergency rooms have started seeing an increase in patients presenting with cannabis hyperemesis  syndrome (CHS). Symptoms include dehydration, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. An article just published by JAMA Network reveals a connection between the commercialization of the marijuana industry and a 13-fold increase in CHS-related visits to the emergency room …

JUCM and JUCM News readers are well aware that the United States has seen a steady increase in the occurrence of sexually transmitted disease for years now. Unfortunately, it appears that the trend will continue for the foreseeable future, leading at least one physician to express concern that we’re in the midst of “pandemic venereal disease.” This is backed up by fresh data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing increases in gonorrhea, …

Public health advocates have been warning since year 1 of the pandemic that a simultaneous wave of influenza and COVID-19 could have devastating consequences to the U.S. population, healthcare system, and economy. To date, we’ve collectively managed to dodge that bullet. As we approach flu season this year, though, some experts are wondering out loud whether our luck might have run out. That concern is bolstered by the fact that Australia “had a very bad …

Typically, on the subject of antibiotic overprescribing, we think of a harried provider being worn down by a patient or parent of a young patient presenting with a sore throat, bad cold, or earache who insists they need an antibiotic even when it’s not indicated. However, a new article published online by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reveals that approximately 13% of ambulatory care visits for acute gastroenteritis result in an antibiotic …

You probably recall reading in JUCM News that a case of paralytic polio occurred in Rockland County, NY recently. It was such an anomaly that the case also garnered widespread attention among national media. As noted in an article just published by JAMA Network it’s likely, based on analysis of the unvaccinated patient’s genomic sequencing, that the virus had “been circulating under the radar for up to a year,” however. Not long after that highly …

For months now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been reminding clinicians of the telltale signs of monkeypox: flu-like symptoms, large pustules on the skin…. However, The New York Times reports public health officials have found that while those symptoms do occur commonly in patients ultimately diagnosed with the virus, some patients have smaller lesions that resemble mosquito bites or ingrown hairs. Others never develop a rash at all. And some experience confusion, …