Headlines about countries like Iceland and Isreal seeing large rises in COVID-19 cases despite having a large percentage of their population vaccinated sound concerning. Headlines usually say things like, “60% of cases were vaccinated.” That sounds pretty scary. Some headlines have even offered doomsday predictions. If you look closer at the numbers, I think these […]
Medicine and Media
Johnson and Johnson Coronavirus EUA Vaccine FAQ
Does this Vaccine use Genetic Material Too?‘ Unlike the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna (you can read that FAQ here) , the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine uses DNA to tell our bodies to make the spike protein. The J&J vaccine is an adenovirus based vaccine. That means that scientists took a human adenovirus, […]
COVID-19 mRNA EUA Vaccine FAQs
There have been a lot of questions about the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. I thought I would put together an easy FAQ with some referenced answers. I’ll keep adding to it as I get more questions. I have a FAQ about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine too. Is it Going to Alter my DNA? If you […]
What Makes a Good Vaccine? (Part 1)
There has been much discussion about vaccine expectations because of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Many people think that a good vaccine will completely eliminate the disease. That is the lofty goal of vaccination. We eradicated polio because of vaccines. We would love it if all vaccines eliminated the disease entirely, but that’s not the reality for […]
COVID ONLY Caused 6% of Reported Deaths? That Headline Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means.
A few of my friends have been throwing around that the CDC “quietly” updated its statistics in the middle of the night, without telling anyone, to say that only 6% of COVID deaths were real. “All the other reported deaths were caused by PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS.” I’m sure the CDC was dressed in black surrounded by […]
Dissecting a Study: Is Wearing a Neck Gaiter Worse Than no Mask at All?
If anything, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has shown us that we don’t do a good job at interpreting medical literature. I expect news outlets to get the headlines wrong. They always do. Eating chocolate cake for breakfast isn’t going to make you lose weight. Drinking 8 glasses of wine a day won’t make you look […]
Do I Need to Stop My Aspirin?
For decades, American physicians have recommended aspirin to prevent heart attacks, strokes and other vascular events for almost everyone over the age of 40, even those without evidence of a previous heart attack or stroke. Newly released guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association take a more conservative approach to […]
What REDUCE-IT Means to You
A Cochrane review in July of 2018 found no real benefit to fish oil in reducing risks of heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular risk. That challenged the conventional belief that this was one over-the-counter supplement that actually worked. However, a few recent studies have contradicted the Cochrane review and found there may be some benefit […]
23andMe the First to Offer Direct to Consumer Pharmacogenomic Testing
Genetics company 23andme announced that they will be offering the first direct-to-consumer pharmacogenomics test starting this year. 23andMe has yet to say when the test will be available to patients and for how much This is the first authorization of a direct-to-consumer report on pharmacogenomics and came through the FDA’s de novo classification process. With this authorization, […]