News
Shah looks a gastric cancer screening demographics
Sep. 4, 2020—New findings point to the severest impacts by race and ethnicity, anatomic site. Non-white Americans, especially Asian Americans, are at disproportionately higher risk of developing noncardia gastric cancer (the most common type of gastric cancer globally) compared to non-Hispanic white Americans. A new study published in Gastroenterology breaks down risk according to specific ethnicities and anatomic sites (cardia versus noncardia). “We...
COVID infections in health workers often go undetected says Self
Sep. 4, 2020—Many COVID-19 infections among health care workers go undetected, likely because many people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have mild or no symptoms, a study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Wesley Self, MD, MPH, shows. The study, released this week in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly...
Talbot studies the effect of PCV13 on socioeconomic health disparities
Sep. 4, 2020—In a major public health success, the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine PCV13, or Prevnar 13, in 2010 in the United States is associated with reduction in socioeconomic disparities and the near elimination of Black-white-based racial disparities for invasive pneumococcal disease. That’s according to an upcoming study in The Journal of Infectious Diseases by Rameela Raman, PhD, Helen Keipp Talbot, MD,...
MPH Students Dive in to Support COVID-19 Response
Sep. 4, 2020—Graduates from Vanderbilt’s Master in Public Health (MPH) program didn’t plan to become front-line soldiers against the COVID-19 global pandemic, but several have found themselves putting their training — and their career goals — front and center.
Self awarded grant to lead nationwide convalescent plasma study
Aug. 27, 2020—Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been awarded a one-year, $34-million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to conduct a nationwide study of “convalescent plasma” as a treatment for COVID-19. The randomized, controlled trial will test whether infusions of plasma, the liquid part of blood collected...
Schaffner worries about public trust if a COVID-19 vaccine is rushed
Aug. 27, 2020—After the Food and Drug Administration offered shaky data to justify its approval of blood plasma to treat COVID-19, some scientists are worried the agency could bow to pressure to approve a coronavirus vaccine before it’s fully tested. Pushing a vaccine through without rigorous review could affect the public’s trust in vaccines for years to come, said Dr. William Schaffner, a...
Hartert: Opening schools is an experiment in COVID-19 transmission
Aug. 27, 2020—For parents and teachers, the reopening of schools has been a chaotic mess. Guidelines and procedures seem to change daily. Classroom policies or even whether in-person learning occurs at all depends on where you live and often the politics of who sits in the governor’s mansion. But for epidemiologists, this fall is proving to be...
Little data on new COVID-19 treatments says Schaffner
Aug. 26, 2020—President Donald Trump on Sunday announced emergency authorization to treat COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma — a move he called “a breakthrough,” one of his top health officials called “promising” and other health experts said needs more study before it’s celebrated. There’s been little data on how effective it is or whether it must be...
Dusetzina comments on insurer’s role during COVID-19 treatment
Aug. 26, 2020—If you need a COVID-19 test, that’s covered by insurance. It’s federal law. But when it comes to treatment, that’s another story. A lot of insurers initially said they’d fully cover the cost of care, but a lot of those provisions have or are about to expire. A lot of these coverage provisions were already...
COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed following approval says Moore
Aug. 26, 2020—Operation Warp Speed – the White House-led partnership for COVID-19 answers – is pushing its partners to be ready to distribute a coronavirus vaccine by Nov. 1. No one can say with certainty when the FDA will approve a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine because it’s not known when the results of large clinical trials will be available or whether those results...
Lack of faith in a COVID-19 vaccine is worrisome says Hartert
Aug. 16, 2020—The United States needs to get control of Covid-19 and carefully reopen the country, or the consequences could be devastating, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday. “To think that you can ignore the biologic and get the economy back, it’s not gonna happen,” Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, told actor Matthew McConaughey in an...
Edwards looks at the COVID-19 vaccine timeline
Aug. 16, 2020—In less than six months, Covid-19 has ravaged the globe, infecting more than 7 million people and killing more than 400,000. According to a study in the journal Immunology, more than half the world has been under some form of lockdown as a result of the contagion. People around the world have their hopes pinned on a vaccine...
Dusetzina comments on the possible COVID-19 vaccine costs
Aug. 16, 2020—America’s long-running debate over prescription drug prices feels more urgent than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most people are rooting for the US drug industry — self-styled, and not without reason, as the most innovative in the world — to develop a vaccine or a cure for the disease that has taken more than 160,000 American lives. But...
Nicholson: Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for C. difficile
Aug. 14, 2020—Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is increasingly recognized as a public health threat beyond its prevalence as a cause of diarrheal illness in hospitalized adults. According to a 2011 CDC-funded study, CDI has led to 453 million infections and about 29,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. Forty-one percent of these cases were community acquired. Beyond antibiotics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is used...
Graves finds association between masks and slower growth in COVID-19 hospitalizations
Aug. 14, 2020—In a new analysis, researchers from the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found a relationship between the growth of hospitalizations and masking requirements put in place across the state. Hospitals that have more than 75% of their patients from areas without masking requirements in...