White House releases pandemic preparedness plan
The U.S. must invest time and money now to prepare for the next pandemic, Biden administration officials said Friday.
"We really need to start preparing now," said Eric Lander, PhD, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, on a phone call with reporters. "We've got to seize the unique opportunity to transform our scientific capabilities so we're prepared for the increasing frequency of biological threats on the horizon. Investing to avert or mitigate the huge toll of future pandemics or other biological threats is both an economic and a moral imperative."
"Five years from now, we need to be in a far stronger position to stop infectious diseases before they become open pandemics, like COVID-19," he continued. "There's a lot that we can do to transform our scientific capabilities for vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostic development, for early warning for public health systems. Importantly, these kinds of advances will not only strengthen our systems for dealing with future biological threats, they will be valuable for everyday public health and medical care for all Americans, and for the world."
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We should be engaging communities, not just studying them
This may be an unpopular opinion, but we need to reevaluate how we examine the impact of researchers. Instead of asking, "How many papers does this scientist have?" We should ask, "How is this scientist actively making sure their research is helping communities?"
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a colleague in my program who was distraught about what we were focusing on as future physician-scientists. She's currently grieving the death of a dear family member who passed away from causes related to her background as a member of a medically underserved community. As a result, my colleague was questioning what is really important -- the items on our CV or actually impacting our communities.
This topic has been plaguing me for the past few months. One day, during my research gap year, I stared at my computer screen feeling hopeless and thought, "Is this even going to help anybody?" I became more and more distraught as I looked at papers discussing biases in mental health treatments in the Black community. As a Black woman in America, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated by the large number of papers discussing the bias, but the small number actually trying to address the issue.
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Kansas Society of Interventional Pain Physicians ANNUAL MEETING
Location: Intercontinental
Kansas City at The Plaza
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The Honorable Kevin McCarthy,
U.S. House Minority Leader,
to Provide Keynote Address at CALSIPP
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Room Block Update
We have added additional rooms for Thursday, October 14 & Friday, October 15.
If you plan to attend the Thursday afternoon workshop, Regenerative Medicine Techniques with Ultrasound Guidance, we recommend you book your hotel reservations today!
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Symptom scores improved, but no difference in healthcare utilization, medication use
High-risk inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients who received a coordinated care intervention had greater symptom improvement compared to patients who received usual care, but endured similar IBD-related healthcare costs, a randomized single-center trial found.
In an intention-to-treat analysis involving over 200 patients, those who received the intervention over a 9-month period showed improved symptoms via patient-report outcome (PRO) scores versus usual care (regression coefficient -0.68, 95% CI -1.18 to -0.18, P=0.008), reported Jeffrey A. Berinstein, MD, MSc, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues.
However, median annual IBD healthcare costs did not significantly differ between the coordinated care and usual care groups ($10,094 vs $9,080; P=0.322), the authors wrote in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
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Growing body of research suggests robust immune response with extended dosing interval
When most Americans showed up to get their first dose of an mRNA vaccine, they were sternly warned that they must schedule a second dose within a month. In my case, I politely explained that I would come back for my second dose at 3 months. The scheduler got flustered and treated me like I was a fugitive of the law. But a growing body of evidence over the last several months has shown that a longer interval provides better immunity in the long-term. It may even eliminate the need for a booster shot that's now being recommended.
In May, researchers at the University of Birmingham found that delaying the second Pfizer dose to 12 weeks after the first resulted in a 3.5 times greater antibody response in older people. The increase is likely even greater in a younger cohort. Hematologist Paul Moss, MBBS, PhD, a co-author of the study, concluded that it's a good idea to extend the time between the first and second doses of the vaccine. "An extended interval may help to sustain immunity against COVID-19 over the longer term and further improve the clinical efficacy of this powerful vaccine platform," he wrote.
Similarly, data showed delaying the second Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine by 12 weeks resulted in a stronger antibody response. That became the U.K.'s recommendation, which not only conferred better immune protection but also enabled the U.K. to ration its limited vaccine supply in a way that saved more lives. It was a winning strategy.
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ASIPP® is pleased to offer a new feature for
its members to help provide value to you and your practice.
Click here to visit ASIPP®'s newly created site where you can
make purchases on our Amazon Store, learn more about and
join the ASIPP® GPO and ASIPP®’s partnership with
Fedora Billing & Revenue Cycle Management Company.
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Health research is based on trust. Health professionals and journal editors reading the results of a clinical trial assume that the trial happened and that the results were honestly reported. But about 20% of the time, said Ben Mol, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Monash Health, they would be wrong. As I’ve been concerned about research fraud for 40 years, I wasn’t that surprised as many would be by this figure, but it led me to think that the time may have come to stop assuming that research actually happened and is honestly reported, and assume that the research is fraudulent until there is some evidence to support it having happened and been honestly reported. The Cochrane Collaboration, which purveys “trusted information,” has now taken a step in that direction.
As he described in a webinar last week, Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, began to have doubts about the honest reporting of trials after a colleague asked if he knew that his systematic review showing the mannitol halved death from head injury was based on trials that had never happened. He didn’t, but he set about investigating the trials and confirmed that they hadn’t ever happened. They all had a lead author who purported to come from an institution that didn’t exist and who killed himself a few years later. The trials were all published in prestigious neurosurgery journals and had multiple co-authors. None of the co-authors had contributed patients to the trials, and some didn’t know that they were co-authors until after the trials were published. When Roberts contacted one of the journals the editor responded that “I wouldn’t trust the data.” Why, Roberts wondered, did he publish the trial? None of the trials have been retracted.
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The announcement that Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Philip Krause will leave this fall comes as the agency conducts sensitive reviews of coronavirus vaccines for children and booster shots.
Two of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top vaccine regulators will leave the agency this fall, a development that could disrupt its work on deciding whether to recommend coronavirus vaccines for children under 12 and booster shots for the general population.
Dr. Marion Gruber, the director of the FDA’s vaccines office, will retire at the end of October, and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause, will leave in November, according to an email that Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, sent to staff members on Tuesday morning. One reason is that Dr. Gruber and Dr. Krause were upset about the Biden administration’s recent announcement that adults should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, according to people familiar with their thinking.
Neither believed there was enough data to justify offering booster shots yet, the people said, and both viewed the announcement, amplified by President Biden, as pressure on the FDA to quickly authorize them.
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Their triumphs motivate us to keeping moving forward
Patient names and other descriptors have been changed to protect privacy.
Sara is a 14-year-old patient of mine. I am a clinical psychologist, and I have been treating her for about 15 months. Sara has been struggling with trauma and associated psychiatric symptoms since the coronavirus ravaged her family.
This is the story of Sara's treatment. Her plight and journey of recovery is what is so remarkable. And instructive. And worthy of sharing.
Sara is a bright, social young teenager who was cruising along in her everyday life. She had a happy, content family with her parents and three siblings. She was a good student, had many friends, and loved to ride horses. She was beginning to show an interest in dating. And she loved going to high school and college football games.
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A proposed LCD on Epidural Procedures for Pain Management services was announced on June 10, 2021. This nationwide policy contains many onerous changes that will detrimentally affect patient access to care. ASIPP has written comment letters with detailed explanations of the issues and needed changes to each Medicare Contractor. The following are examples of the ASIPP comment letters:
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Pain Medicine Case Reports (PMCR) and Editor-in-Chief Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD, PhD would like to invite you to submit case reports and case series to the PMCR journal. Your article will be published free of charge.
Open access journals are freely available online for immediate worldwide open access to the full text of published articles. There is no subscription fee for open access journals. Open access journals are no different from traditional subscription-based journals: they undergo the same peer-review and quality control as any other scholarly journal.
Interested in becoming a member of the PMCR Editorial Board?
Editorial board members are asked to review 2-6 manuscripts per year. Please submit your most up-to-date CV to sgold@asipp.org for consideration.
For more information or to submit your articles, click here.
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| CASE REPORT |
Treatment of Brachioradial Pruritus
with Interlaminar Cervical Epidural
Steroid Injection: A Case Report
Akshay Bhatt, MD, Tyler Hyman, MD, and Sharmil Gohil, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Brachioradial pruritus (BRP) is a neuropathic dysesthesia described as itching in the upper extremities. The pathophysiology of BRP has not yet been elucidated and is postulated to be multifactorial including spine pathology and sun exposure.
CASE REPORT: In a case of BRP refractory to gabapentin and physical therapy with radiographic evidence of cervical spine and disc degenerative disease and a history of symptoms of compressive neuropathy, we performed an interlaminar cervical epidural steroid injection that resulted in resolution of symptoms.
CONCLUSION: This case suggests a role for neuraxial steroids in the treatment of BRP and requires further investigation.
KEY WORDS: Brachioradial pruritus, cervical epidural steroid injection, degenerative spine disease, neuropathic dysesthesia
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| RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL |
Xin-qi Cheng, MD, Juan Cheng, PhD, Yan-nan Zhou, MM, You-mei Zuo, MD, Xue-sheng Liu, MD, Er-wei Gu, MD, and Guang-hong Xu, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Multimodal general anesthesia based on modified intercostal nerve block (MINB) has been found as a novel method to achieve an intraoperative opioid-sparing effect. However, there is little information about the effective method to inhibit visceral nociceptive stress during single-port thoracoscopic surgery.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a low-dose dexmedetomidine infusion followed by MINB might be an alternative method to blunt visceral stress effectively.
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| ANIMAL TRIAL |
Ran Tao, BDS, Feng Huang, PhD, Kun Lin, MD, Shao-Wei Lin, PhD,
De Wei, MD, and Dao-Shu Luo, PhD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Mechanical compression on the trigeminal root entry zone (TREZ) by microvascular is the main etiology of primary trigeminal neuralgia (TN).
OBJECTIVES: To study the pathogenesis of TN, hub genes screening in the TREZ of TN in an animal model was performed.
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Since this malpractice insurance program officially launched in November 2018, ASIPP has signed up hundreds of providers with an average savings of 30%. This is professional liability insurance tailored to our specialty and will stand up for us and defend our practices.
Norcal Mutual is 'A' Rated by AM best and is license in all 50 states. To read a few important points to keep in mind about the program, including discounts, administrative defense, cyber coverage, aggressive claims handling, and complimentary award-winning risk management CME activities, click here.
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ASIPP® is now offering our members the benefit of a unique revenue cycle management/ billing service. We have received a tremendous amount of interest in the ASIPP® billing and coding program.
Click here to learn more about the negotiated rate for practices and more!
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ASIPP® has formed a partnership with Henry Schein and PedsPal, a national GPO that has a successful history of negotiating better prices on medical supplies and creating value-added services for the independent physician. Working with MedAssets, PedsPal provides excellent pricing on products like contrast media that alleviate some of the financial pressures you experience today.
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up-to-date news related to you, your practice, and your patients!
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