Anonymous writes:
Hey –
I don’t expect Daniel to know this, because he’s an infectious disease doctor and not a dentist, but there is another option for children in areas without fluoridated water: fluoride tablets.
Recommended by USPSTF too!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34874412
Karen writes:
Hi Daniel,
I’ve been listening to TWIV since early 2020- thanks for continuing to provide top quality information every week! I was very pleased to hear you adding a specific focus on science misinformation and opposition to cuts in federal funding for science to your weekly clinical update. Your reminder to “call your members of congress about this” is a great way to get people to take the next step.
Calling MOCs is sometimes daunting for people who have never done it before. There is a new app called“5calls” (https://5calls.org/) which automatically identifies your MOCs (two senators, representative), your governor and your Secretary of State, brings up a script for the topic you want to call about, and then chooses which ones of the 5 identified individuals should be contacted about your issue. When you click on the phone number it dials the number for you. Then, it asks you to report the results of your calls
Here is a screen shot of some of the issues:
Here is a link to a google doc that provides instructions on installing and using the ‘5 calls’ app: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hb9RI5H_2HFc5RB57Srry1nVPa02o-L6BsCWOG0NI6I/edit?tab=t.0
Thanks again for all you do.
Karen E, MD, MPH
Nancy writes:
Dr Griffin,
Do you think COVID Vaccines will be available this Fall with the Trump administration?
I got a booster in March. Should I get another booster this Summer in case we are not permitted to get them?
Thank you, Nancy
Todd writes:
Hi!
In the last Clinical Update during your pertussis discussion, Vincent commented that the recent cases were mostly in unvaccinated individuals, and Dr. Griffin agreed, saying that pertussis is a vaccine-preventable illness, and that while the vaccine won’t protect you from getting infected, it will protect against the most serious effects of disease. I don’t dispute this, but I wonder if we need a different schedule for pertussis vaccination. Even those who get vaccinated on schedule are at risk of pertussis infection and severe effects of whooping cough.
Last summer, my 18-year-old son tested positive for pertussis after his girlfriend (also 18) received a whooping cough diagnosis. She had the classic symptoms and went to the doctor after getting to the point of coughing fits resulting in vomiting. As soon as her test came back positive, my son went in to get tested. He had very mild coughing at that point and was started on a Z-pak (as was the rest of our family, 11 and 15-year-old children and two parents). His cough lingered, but didn’t worsen. Hers lasted nearly 100 days (hence the name).
Both my son and his girlfriend were up to date on their vaccines. Both received Tdap vaccinations after they turned 11.
My other children and my wife and I had all had Tdap boosters more recently. I imagine that this, along with the Z-pak, protected us from being infected.
This led me to look into the effectiveness of the Tdap vaccine. The recommendation is to get a booster every 10 years, but it appears that aP pertussis vaccine effectiveness wanes much sooner than 10 years.
Waning Tdap Effectiveness in Adolescents
What Is Wrong with Pertussis Vaccine Immunity?
Pertussis resurgence: waning immunity and pathogen adaptation – two sides of the same coin
It would be interesting to see what percentage of the recent pertussis cases were vaccinated, and when their most recent booster was.
With what appears to be solid evidence that the pertussis vaccine effectiveness wears off much sooner than the 10-year booster recommendation of the Tdap vaccine, would it make sense to offer pertussis vaccination on a different schedule?
Thank you for all you do.
Todd
Chicago, IL
Deb writes:
Greetings Drs. Daniel and Vincent,
I have been relying on your updates for several years and cannot express how thankful I am for the lifeline you provide to reality in these dark times.
I hope I am not being like the woman who pushed the room service button just before the Titanic hit the iceberg whose faulty logic led her to conclude she had caused the catastrophe by pushing the button. Providers at the ER this week looked at me as if I too, was engaging in some classic post hoc ergo propter hoc est thinking when I suggested a connection between vision loss and Covid booster.
My 87-year old mother has received all Covid shots and boosters (Moderna) since they became available. She has done very well after all of them, with little more than a sore arm each time. She got the most recent booster last Saturday 5/3. By Sunday night she had a headache, and by Monday morning she was very ill with nausea, body ache, and extreme headache. This seemed within what can be expected after a shot until on Wednesday, she reported loss of vision at the top and bottom of her field of vision. She has glaucoma with Xen gel stent placement (both eyes) in 12/25, and 1/25. (She also has wet macular degeneration in left eye). Her retina doctor found that her good right eye was now worse than the left, in which she receives shots of Lucentis every 5 weeks. I asked if an immune response to the shot could be causing a problem and he did not think so, but said theoretically maybe this could happen. The pressure in her right eye was 40 and left 14. Typically the pressures have been 10-12 since the stent placement.
We were sent to the ER to rule out a stroke. After 26 hours there, stroke was ruled out but no explanation given as to what might be the cause. I asked all providers about a possible connection to the shot and inflammatory response, but all answers amounted to “never heard of that.”
So my question is could my mother’s huge response to the shot this time signal some other process that is inflaming the optic nerve or other areas that could be treated with steroids and possibly get her back to baseline vision (which was quite poor)? Could the issue be the stents being recognized as a foreign substance?
No provider seems to want to investigate the possibility of a connection to the shot. Maybe I am just reaching in the face of a life-changing loss of vision. I was hoping that she could be one of the right patients to get steroids at the right time. If there was some reversible inflammation being caused by the booster maybe some of her vision could be restored.
Any thoughts you have on my mother’s situation would be most appreciated.
with best thanks,
Deb
p.s. My brother, who sails on Lake George, is concerned you will miss this season because of the mast disaster. He would like to extend an invitation to you to sail up there–or the Hudson in Haverstraw bay where he races on the fastest of the slow boats.