Give It Your Best Shot — The Magazine

the-magazine.org

Pediatric penicillin allergy labels raise mortality, staph colonization risk

Among pediatric patients, the risks for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization, surgical site infections and all-cause mortality were each heightened if they had penicillin allergy l...

healio.com

Experts: Measles is top infectious threat this summer, not Ebola or hantavirus

Infectious disease experts say measles — not Ebola or hantavirus — is the biggest infectious threat to the mega-events that will be held in the Unites States this summer.Ahead of the World...

healio.com

A New Beginning

Hi folks, it's been a while! I've been busy. You've been busy. We've all been pretty busy. Let's catch up! The last time I wrote a blog post was in 2014. Since then, a lot has happened… In the world, uh, well, COVID-19--that's a big one! I think anyone reading this lived through that in some way or another.[1] I'll have more to say for sure in future posts about what that experience was like for me (and for us all) and what we might be able to learn from it—with regard to current infectious disease events like Hantavirus and Ebola, and with regard to the broader concern of simply being humans. In my personal life, my children are older, with one about to leave for college this coming fall. That’ll be a hoot, definitely going to be some tears…and maybe some blog posts! In my professional life, I left Stony Brook Medicine in 2021 and started a position at Albany Med in pediatric infectious diseases and am now in the division chief role there. You can read an updated version of my bio in the About page on this site. This new leadership role has given me plenty to think about and write about. And in the United States, it seems like public health is in free fall. Following a rise in distrust during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, we now have an administration that, regardless of how you voted, I think we can all agree is making a lot of cuts: defunding NIH research, defunding the [CDC and public health], defunding international medical cooperation and aid, and the list goes on. Whether you agree with those cuts on a personal political level or not is not really important[2]. But what is important is that the medical and scientific community nearly unanimously agree that these policy changes will make us less safe from outbreaks and diseases at home and abroad. So while I wait for Americans to get sicker and my workload to go up, meanwhile, it’s already not a great time to be a pediatric infectious disease doctor. Pediatricians are not trusted right now (shall we talk about vaccines and Vitamin K?) and neither are infectious disease specialists (see COVID distrust above). So being both? As my kids would say, it’s lowkey not great rn. But you focus on doing what’s right, and what you know the science backs up. And sometimes you get to be a punching bag. It’s not right, but it’s the job right now. And really it’s the job as it’s always been. Because, while I said a lot had happened…and it has…things are worse only by degree; they are not worse by kind. In 2026, as in 2014, the medical field is still contending with fear about injections, people using a computer to look things up, and conflicts over science vs religion & tradition among many other issues. And so, now, as then, in addition to focusing on doing what’s best for my patients, along with a healthy dose of escapism, I figured shouting into the void via this blog might be of some use. Talk to you all again soon. --- * For those who didn’t, well, hello to my toddler readers! Look at you being all precocious! Or hello to my ghost readers. Spooky! ↩︎ * Okay, I lied. It’s profoundly important. The fact that Americans either don’t understand the impact of the loss of public health infrastructure, or do understand but don’t care, is a symptom of the larger problem of media bubbles and an uninformed electorate—which will in turn lead to inability of both people and government to fulfill either side of the social contract both as regards public health specifically as well as the larger public good in every way. But I digress. ↩︎

infectious-ideas.org

Infectious Ideas

Taking (Live)stock: Antibiotic resistance, farm antibiotic use, what we can do about it Antibiotic resistance is a topic that is increasingly in the news and on the minds of our patients, providers, and even our government . We all know we… Read more → Originally Published at https://the-magazine.org/36/script-doctor/index.html Long before I wanted to admit it out loud, or even just to myself, I knew my grandfather was losing his mind. Not in any sort of crazy sense. Just that literally,… Read more → Doctor Who? Doctor Geek! How our geeky interests may become our geeky careers I recently wrote a piece on my origins as a physician-writer. In it, I explored how writing allows physicians and other health professionals to understand our… Read more → A couple of months ago I wrote a piece for The Magazine entitled Carry On , also located on this blog [[Blogging/The Magazine Pieces/Carry On|here]]. In it, I discussed how some of the devastating genetic diseases actually persist because… Read more → To say that vaccination remains an extremely hot-button issue is an understatement. Thirteen years after Andrew Wakefield began a controversy over the MMR vaccine and autism, and 2 years after the author of that controversy was discredited… Read more → Originally Published at https://the-magazine.org/28/a-separate-peace/index.html Shivering in the brisk October air, I stood clutching a small pudding cup, licking the plastic spoon. Standing — no, hiding — on the roof with a friend and… Read more → There are times that medical school and residency feel like a sheltered island. When you start medical school, what you will eventually choose for a residency seems an eternity away, but by 3rd or certainly 4th year, most of you will have… Read more → I recently came into contact, through Twitter , with an aspiring doctor and former journalist named Chantal Mendes who was interested in interviewing me about what it was like to be a pediatrician and an infectious disease doctor. My… Read more → Originally Published at https://the-magazine.org/24/carry-on/index.html When my mother was pregnant with me, she and my father underwent screening for Tay-Sachs disease. She was an Ashkenazi Jew; he was not Jewish. Common in Eastern… Read more → Much has been written so far today about Jenny McCarthy joining The View as host, replacing Elisabeth Hasselbeck (who will apparently be joining Fox News in a not entirely surprising turn of events). Excellent pieces by Seth Mnookin ,… Read more → The question a story like this prompts, is why? Why, in the face of easy, accessible vaccination do people still not vaccinate their children? There are currently 34 reported cases in a Measles outbreak in Brooklyn, NY. All were… Read more → It's that time of year again: the birds are singing, the sun is shining, it's getting warmer... You know what that means—yes, its Lyme disease season! What's that? You didn't learn about the two seasons in school growing up? Lyme season… Read more → Autism and Lyme Disease? This is a thing?? Apparently I just moved out from a rock that I've been living under since 2008, when a paper was published linking Lyme seropositivity with autism in a cohort of children. I'm astonished, given… Read more → In the days since my article on vaccines I have received a lot of feedback. Many readers have been very supportive but some have taken issue with some of my arguments, my mode of presentation, or raised questions that I did not answer.… Read more → Originally Published at https://the-magazine.org/15/give-it-your-best-shot/index.html During my pediatric residency, I took care of a three-week-old girl who went deaf from bacterial meningitis due to Haemophilus influenzae type b , an… Read more → Just a very short post today with some food for thought. I spent a good portion of my day yesterday struggling to ascertain whether insurance would pay for certain specific testing on a post-mortem specimen from a patient--that is, a… Read more → Another week, another post; this one on Jewish ritual circumcision...wait, what? How is this an infectious disease issue, you may ask? I’m not spoiling the ending...you’ll have to read to find out. First, a meta-post: my apologies for the… Read more → A recent article by Jane Brody earlier this week in the New York Times discussed the overuse of an antibiotic group called fluoroquinolones . While she had the right idea, I think her approach and some of her data are at best flawed and at… Read more → Today’s post isn’t about medicine, or infections, or antibiotics; rather, it’s about children. 11 years ago today, a horrific act of terror robbed the world of almost 3,000 people. Those women and men were mothers and fathers to children… Read more → As I have discussed in a [[Blogging/On Cows...|previous post]] here, Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is increasing in prevalence. There are outbreaks this year across the country, building on previous outbreaks last year and in… Read more → Just a quick post tonight. Anybody who has any awareness of or interest in the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or “Obamacare”, which pretty much means anyone who has ever received medical care, hasn’t been living… Read more → It can be all too easy for those of us who work in the medical field to forget why it is we do what we do for a living. And when we do remember why , it can feel difficult to understand how we face what we face on a daily basis. But during… Read more → Today’s topic is vaccines and vaccination. And you thought I’d be writing about farm animals ... From the Latin for “cow,” vaccination owes its name to the first virus used in a vaccine: Cowpox or Vaccin ia virus. Edward Jenner first… Read more → Call me old-fashioned, but I thought an introduction would be in order. My name is Saul Hymes. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at Stony Brook Long Island Children’s… Read more → I had never really seen the point of blogging [1] . So why am I here, you ask? I think it just comes down to it being the right time. Which is not to say it is the first time... The internet is littered with the corpses of the… Read more →

infectious-ideas.org

South Carolina Measles Outbreak Becomes Largest In U.S. History Since First Elimination

789 cases have been reported so far

forbes.com