April 24, 2024

Counterfeit cosmetic botulism injections; new urine test for prostate cancer; AI in health care; and other news stories with VUMC sources

More cases of whooping cough are being reported in the U.S. and adults may need whooping cough boosters according to the CDC. William Schaffner, MD, professor of Preventative Medicine, has spoken about the outbreak to national news outlets including NBC News and Becker’s Clinical Leadership.

Closer to home, Schaffner also spoke with WKRN News 2 reporter Kori Johnson about botulism-related illness in some people following counterfeit cosmetic injections. The Tennessee Department of Health, the CDC and the FDA are investigating.

Fox News reporter Melissa Rudy interviewed Travis Osterman, DO, associate vice president for Research Informatics, for a story about the ways artificial intelligence is being implemented in health care, how the models work, accuracy of the models, and how they will be used in the future.

Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, the Benjamin F. Byrd Jr. Professor of Oncology, professor of Medicine and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, was interviewed by WTVF News Channel 5, in a report about the VICC fundraiser Swim Across America.

Andrew Paul DeFilippis, MSc, associate professor of Medicine, was quoted in a Verywell Health story about research into which heart attack patients might not need beta-blockers.

Everyday Health reporter Melissa Dahl interviewed Raza Sagarwala, MD, chief resident, Inpatient Services, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, for a story about how to reduce cortisol levels.

Healthline reporter Gigen Mammoser interviewed Jeffrey Tosoian, MD, assistant professor of Urology and director of Translational Cancer Research, for a story about his JAMA Oncology study on a new urine test that measures 18 genes associated with prostate cancer and provides higher accuracy for detecting clinically significant cancers than PSA and other existing biomarker tests.

Wes Ely, MD, professor of medicine and co-director of the Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship, wrote two opinion pieces that were published recently, one in The Tennessean about access to non-opioid drugs for elderly patients, and the other in America magazine, a Jesuit publication, about the danger of turning “brain death” and organ donation into culture war issues.

Margaret Salisbury, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, was quoted in a Medpage Today piece about using the less-invasive method of transbronchial cryobiopsy in taking a biopsy to diagnose interstitial lung disease.