Listeria in Dole Lettuce? Salad will never look the same… at least salad made from Dole Lettuce. The CDC recently posted an update on an ongoing epidemiological (outbreak) investigation into cases of Listeria monocytogenes reported in 13 states. Outbreak investigations work in reverse to try to figure out the common culprit amongst sick people. […]
Measles in Afghanistan: Kills 74 kids. You might have noticed that I’ve been writing more about Measles and featuring guests on my podcasts to talk about topics related to Measles. It’s because I could see Measles making a comeback in a variety of ways, partially due to fear over COVID vaccines. Most recently, Blima […]
A highly transmissible HIV variant was recently discovered in the Netherlands. Scientists expect it arose in the late 1990s and has been infecting people for years. We are bombarded with news about different variants of COVID-19 and whether new variants will be more deadly or more infectious. This recent discovery gives us more insight into […]
COVID vaccines, transmission, death & public health policy: The CDC recently published a study as part of its MMWR to assess how well the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters impacted case numbers, deaths, and incident rate ratios (IRR) during the pre-Delta time period, Delta emergence (June ’21), Delta dominance (July-Nov’21) and during the emergence of Omicron […]
By Dr. Eeks A recent CDC study looked at COVID-19 cases as related to COVID vaccination status and recovery from previous infection in the states of California and New York between the period of May’21-Nov-21. Four cohorts of adults over the age of 18 were considered in the analysis: Unvaccinated with no previous COVID-19 […]
Another model for COVID vaccines- what did this one show? A recent study published in JAMA assessed how effective the COVID-19 vaccines were in the US during the vaccine rollout across a portion of the pandemic (October1’2020- June 30’2021) Researchers at Yale University’s Center for Infectious Disease Modeling built a predictive model that included transmission […]
The rabies deaths in 2021 are the highest they have been in a decade. 5 people died of rabies in the US in the Fall of 2021. While that may not sound like a lot, it IS significant considering that it’s the highest number in a decade. One wonders why all of a sudden […]
OverDose Deaths: Just another expanding tragedy taking young Americans to their graves. Drug overdose deaths are on the rise, as highlighted in a December’21 report released by the National Center for Health Statistics. I follow the opioid epidemic closely as one of the public health initiatives I work on has to do with opioid abuse […]
COVID’s effect on sperm: By: Dr. Eeks A recent study in Belgium looked at the sperm of 121 men, average age of 34, who had recovered from a validated COVID infection. The goal of the study was to determine COVID’s effect on sperm, if any, since the receptors COVID binds to (ACE-2 receptors) are […]
By: Eeks Prental exposure to COVID and Neurodevelopment Issues: A preprint study (not yet peer-reviewed) shows that prenatal exposure to COVID-19 may lead to neurodevelopment issues in the baby. Obviously wait till this is peer-reviewed before you run with it, but it’s still interesting research to consider. What happens when there is prenatal exposure to […]
What we can do to improve our health during a pandemic and beyond: My top health tips This is not medical or public health advice. This is information only, though things that I myself do. By Dr. Eeks A lot of the news is about things we can’t do during the pandemic. There are […]
By: Eeks Black Fungus in COVID patients in Arkansas: In a recent CDC MMWR it was reported that in September of 2021, 3 doctors notified the Arkansas Department of Health of many patients with mucormycosis following a bout of COVID-19. What the heck is mucormycosis ? Also called black fungus in the general public and […]
There is a measles outbreak in Cameroon, mostly in kids of fighters fleeing Boko Haram terrorist, causing the country to ramp up vaccination. Approximately 100 vaccination teams have been deployed to try to vaccinate 67,000 at-risk kids. The government said that several dozen measles infections have been reported in the past 2 weeks, but most […]