Genus of Gram-negative bacteria
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La resistencia a los antibióticos es uno de los mayores desafíos científicos, sanitarios y sociales a los que nos enfrentamos. Estos patógenos son responsables de millones de muertes anuales en todo el mundo. Un equipo del CSIC en colaboración con la universidad de Notre Dame, ha identificado el talón de Aquiles de una de las bacterias más resistentes a los antimicrobianos, la Pseudomonas aeruginosa. En "Más cerca" (Radio 5) hemos hablado con Juan Hermoso Domínguez, investigador del Instituto de Química Física Blas Cabrera del CSIC, y uno de los autores de este estudioEscuchar audio
La resistencia a los antibióticos es uno de los mayores desafíos científicos, sanitarios y sociales a los que nos enfrentamos. Estos patógenos son responsables de millones de muertes anuales en todo el mundo. Un equipo del CSIC en colaboración con la universidad de Notre Dame, ha identificado el talón de Aquiles de una de las bacterias más resistentes a los antimicrobianos, la Pseudomonas aeruginosa. En "Más cerca" (Radio 5) hemos hablado con Juan Hermoso Domínguez, investigador del Instituto de Química Física Blas Cabrera del CSIC, y uno de los autores de este estudioEscuchar audio
Matters Microbial #131: What Cystic Fibrosis Reveals About Hidden Microbial Lives June 3, 2026 Today Dr. Sam Brown, Professor of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech University, joins the quality quorum today to discuss the social lives of bacterial pathogens. He will also discuss VERY recent research from his lab group exploring the specialist/generalist problem in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and thoughts on cryptic convergent specialization! Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Sam Brown Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode An overview of behavioral ecology. An article describing evolutionary trade offs and game theory. A video describing Tinbergen's "Four Whys" involving behavioral ecology. A wonderful essay by Carl Zimmer relating lake ecology and microbial ecology in humans. A Pseudomonas plush toy from Giant Microbes. The Pseudomonas contaminated eyedrops story told by Dr. Brown, as summarized by the CDC. An essay about sociomicrobiology. An overview of quorum sensing. An overview of biofilms. An article describing specialization versus generalism in ecology. A description of a "confusion matrix" in data analysis. A somewhat dated overview of PCA (principle component analysis). The article about convergent cryptic specialization under discussion today on this podcast from Dr. Brown's research group (first author Mehlferber). A VERY interesting article from Dr. Brown's research team describing eco-evolutionary aspects of polymicrobial infections. Dr. Brown's faculty website. Dr. Brown's laboratory group website. Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
In this episode, Brett and Martin talked to Dr Nico Tom Mutters about the papers he selected in the always popular 'Year in Infection Control' session at ESCMID Global 2026. Nico is Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at Bonn University Hospital and also Chair of EUCIC (European Committee on Infection Control). It is always fascinating to see which papers are selected in these sessions and we discussed a few papers that he selected from the preceding 12 months, a list of which follow. SuDDICU Investigators for the Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group and the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract during Ventilation in the ICU. N Engl J Med 2026;394(15):1491–502. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2506398 Hammond NE. et al. Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract in Adult Mechanically Ventilated Patients - An Updated Systematic Review with Bayesian Meta-Analysis. NEJM Evid 2026;5(5):EVIDoa2500264. https://doi.org/10.1056/EVIDoa2500264 Arreba P. et al. Gel nail polish does not have a negative impact on the nail bacterial burden nor on the quality of hand hygiene with an alcohol-based hand rub. J Hosp Infect 2025;157:40–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2024.12.006 Gross N. et al. Effects of microplastic concentration, composition, and size on Escherichia coli biofilm-associated antimicrobial resistance. Appl Environ Microbiol 2025;91(4):e0228224. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.02282-24 Reese SM. et al. Why do infection preventionists leave a job? A qualitative evaluation of infection preventionist attrition in health care. Am J Infect Control 2025;53(9):919–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.06.011 Other papers selected by Nico were: Mason M. et al Moral distress among infection prevention and control professionals: A scoping review. Infect Dis Health 2025;30(2):152–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idh.2024.10.002 Kotay SM. et al. Biofilm removal in hospital sink drains drives unintended surges in antibiotic resistance. NPJ Antimicrob Resist 2026;4(1):5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44259-025-00176-2 Ferreira JMG. et al. Quality of hand hygiene performance: A systematic literature review. Am J Infect Control 2026;54(2):192–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.08.025 Ullman AJ. et al. A Comparison of Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter Materials. N Engl J Med 2025;392(2):161–72. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2406815 Recanatini C. et al. Impact of Pseudomonas aeruginosa carriage on intensive care unit-acquired pneumonia: a European multicentre prospective cohort study. Clin Microbiol Infect 2025;31(3):433–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2024.11.007 Orsel LM. et al. The role of gowns in preventing nosocomial transmission of respiratory viruses: a systematic review. J Hosp Infect 2025;163:57–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2025.05.023 Mellon G. et al. Assessment of air infectious contamination during wound care in a burn intensive care unit using shotgun metagenomics. Am J Infect Control 2025;53(11):1144–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.08.003 Kim JH. et al. Association between multidrug-resistant organism status and quality of end-of-life care in patients with advanced cancer referred to palliative care: a retrospective cohort study with nationwide data linkage. Clin Microbiol Infect 2026;32(5):822–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2025.11.032 Sutjipto S. et al. Plastic Waste and COVID-19 Incidence Among Hospital Staff After Deescalation in PPE Use. JAMA Netw Open 2025;8(4):e255264. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.5264
In this episode, Brett and Martin talked to Dr Nico Tom Mutters about the papers he selected in the always popular 'Year in Infection Control' session at ESCMID Global 2026. Nico is Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at Bonn University Hospital and also Chair of EUCIC (European Committee on Infection Control). It is always fascinating to see which papers are selected in these sessions and we discussed a few papers that he selected from the preceding 12 months, a list of which follow. SuDDICU Investigators for the Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group and the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract during Ventilation in the ICU. N Engl J Med 2026;394(15):1491–502. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2506398 Hammond NE. et al. Selective Decontamination of the Digestive Tract in Adult Mechanically Ventilated Patients - An Updated Systematic Review with Bayesian Meta-Analysis. NEJM Evid 2026;5(5):EVIDoa2500264. https://doi.org/10.1056/EVIDoa2500264 Arreba P. et al. Gel nail polish does not have a negative impact on the nail bacterial burden nor on the quality of hand hygiene with an alcohol-based hand rub. J Hosp Infect 2025;157:40–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2024.12.006 Gross N. et al. Effects of microplastic concentration, composition, and size on Escherichia coli biofilm-associated antimicrobial resistance. Appl Environ Microbiol 2025;91(4):e0228224. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.02282-24 Reese SM. et al. Why do infection preventionists leave a job? A qualitative evaluation of infection preventionist attrition in health care. Am J Infect Control 2025;53(9):919–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.06.011 Other papers selected by Nico were: Mason M. et al Moral distress among infection prevention and control professionals: A scoping review. Infect Dis Health 2025;30(2):152–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idh.2024.10.002 Kotay SM. et al. Biofilm removal in hospital sink drains drives unintended surges in antibiotic resistance. NPJ Antimicrob Resist 2026;4(1):5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44259-025-00176-2 Ferreira JMG. et al. Quality of hand hygiene performance: A systematic literature review. Am J Infect Control 2026;54(2):192–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.08.025 Ullman AJ. et al. A Comparison of Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter Materials. N Engl J Med 2025;392(2):161–72. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2406815 Recanatini C. et al. Impact of Pseudomonas aeruginosa carriage on intensive care unit-acquired pneumonia: a European multicentre prospective cohort study. Clin Microbiol Infect 2025;31(3):433–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2024.11.007 Orsel LM. et al. The role of gowns in preventing nosocomial transmission of respiratory viruses: a systematic review. J Hosp Infect 2025;163:57–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2025.05.023 Mellon G. et al. Assessment of air infectious contamination during wound care in a burn intensive care unit using shotgun metagenomics. Am J Infect Control 2025;53(11):1144–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2025.08.003 Kim JH. et al. Association between multidrug-resistant organism status and quality of end-of-life care in patients with advanced cancer referred to palliative care: a retrospective cohort study with nationwide data linkage. Clin Microbiol Infect 2026;32(5):822–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2025.11.032 Sutjipto S. et al. Plastic Waste and COVID-19 Incidence Among Hospital Staff After Deescalation in PPE Use. JAMA Netw Open 2025;8(4):e255264. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.5264
Episode Notes In this episode of the DASON Digest, we discuss Chris Bland's study on IV push cefepime for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the implications of these findings. The article can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41166592/ For more information about DASON, please visit: https://dason.medicine.duke.edu/
Dr. Michele Matarazzo sits down with Dr. Rebecca Wallings to discuss how two of the most important genetic forms for Parkinson's disease, LRRK2 and GBA1, influence immune response to bacterial simulation. Their discussion highlights a potential link between genetics, environment, and inflammation in Parkinson's disease. Journal CME is available until March 18, 2027 Read the article.
Arreaza: Welcome back tothe Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast! My name is Dr. Hector Arreaza, I am a family physician and faculty member in the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program. Today I am joined by two excellent medical students who will introduce themselves now, welcome, guys! Mehr: Thank you for the introduction! My name is Mehr Boparai, third year medical student at WesternU COMP-NW. Jeremy: And my name is Jeremy Pan, also a third-year medical student at WesternU COMP Pomona and we will be discussing a very prevalent topic today in the clinical world that is arguably becoming one of the biggest threats to modern medicine: antibiotic resistance. Mehr: That's right! Imagine this scenario: a routine infection, something we've treated easily for decades, suddenly becomes life-threatening because the drugs we always thought we could rely on just don't work anymore. You likely ran into this problem just last week with one of your patients! That's not science fiction. That's happening every day in hospitals across the world. Dr. Arreaza: I agree, antibiotic resistance must be taken seriously. I increased my awareness in 2023, when I attended a medical research conference in Carmel(which is a popular conference that takes place in that beautiful town). I heard Dr. David Gilbert, a famous and accomplished ID doctor who helped develop the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy, he warned everyone about antibiotic resistance as one of the biggest threats for humanity, the other two were a nuclear bomb and an epidemic. Jeremy: Woah, comparing antibiotic resistance to a nuclear bomb is absolutely crazy, but likely very real!! Well today, we're going to be focusing on five of the most common infections or “bugs” you'll see in a hospital setting. We'll talk about what typically causes them, what antibiotics we used to rely on, and what happens when resistance decides to enter the picture. Mehr: If you are a medical student (or resident), you understand that dreaded feeling when an attending asks “what antibiotics should we start?” But don't worry, in this episode, we hope to address the decision-making process in a simple framework. What is Antibiotic Resistance? Dr. Arreaza: Before we jump into specific common infections and pathogens, let's cover our basics. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria evolve to survive drugs designed to kill them. This can happen through genetic mutations or by getting resistance genes from other bacteria. Why does this matter? Jeremy: It matters because antibiotics play a huge role in modern medicine. Without them, surgeries, chemotherapy, organ transplants—even childbirth—become significantly more dangerous. Mehr: According to the CDC, in the U.S. alone, antibiotic-resistant infections affect over 2.8 million people each year and cause more than 35,000 deaths! So, when we talk about resistance, we're not just talking about inconvenience for treatments. We're talking about a fundamental threat to healthcare. Staph aureus Dr. Arreaza: So, if you have a patient who comes in with a skin infection or is maybe showing signs of pneumonia or bacteremia, what is one of the most common bugs that you should think about? Jeremy: Staph aureus! Typically to treat methicillin-sensitive strains (MSSA), we would utilize antibiotics like nafcillin, oxacillin, or cefazolin. But there is one strain in particular that is worrisome, Mehr? Mehr: yeap, that would have to be MRSA, one of the most well-known resistant organisms. MRSA is resistant to all beta-lactam antibiotics, which means we can say goodbye to all penicillin and most cephalosporins. Dr. Arreaza: And what is the first antibiotic that comes to mind if we see MRSA on a culture in the hospital? Mehr: Vancomycin! Alternative treatments include linezolid and daptomycin depending on the type of infection. But what is the problem that we are starting to see? Jeremy: You guessed it, cases of resistance to vancomycin are starting to appear—VRSA. These cases are still uncommon today, but these findings show a worrying trend, that we will eventually start running out of reliable options. Dr. Arreaza: Fortunately, VRSA infections are extremely rare, with only 14-16 documented cases in the United States. As of 2019, 52 VRSA strains have been identified in the United States, India, Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, and Portugal. Let's keep an eye on VRSA in the future. E. coli Dr. Arreaza: Alright, so let's say you have a patient with dysuria, urinary frequency, maybe even a catheter in place. What's the most common bug you're thinking of? Mehr: That one's a classic, we are thinking E. coli. Jeremy: Exactly. E. coli is the leading cause of urinary tract infections, especially in both community and hospital settings. Dr. Arreaza: So Jeremy, what are we using for uncomplicated UTIs? Jeremy: We usually think of trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, nitrofurantoin, or sometimes fosfomycin. And in more complicated cases, we might consider fluoroquinolones like ciprofloxacin. Mehr: But here's where things get tricky. Resistance to TMP-SMX and fluoroquinolones has been increasing significantly. In some areas, resistance rates are over 20–30%, which really changes your empiric choices. Conclusion: Dr. Arreaza: So we've talked about five major organisms today: Staph aureus, E. coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, and C. diff. What's the overarching takeaway of the discussion? Jeremy: The main takeway is that antibiotic resistance is already here, and it's affecting some of the most common infections we see in clinical practice on a day-to-day basis. Mehr: And as students and future physicians, it's important to not just memorize antibiotics, but understand why we're choosing them. Dr. Arreaza: Exactly. Always think: What organism am I targeting? What are the local resistance patterns? And can I narrow therapy once I have cultures? Jeremy: And maybe most importantly—don't overuse antibiotics, especially in cases when they're not needed. Mehr: Because the more we use them, the faster we lose them. Dr. Arreaza: I'd like to share the story I listed to in a RadioLab episode about Dr Steffanie A. Strathdee, one of the most influential ID doctors in the world and Co-Director at the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH). She shared that her husband got infected by Acinetobacter baumannii, an opportunistic infection that can cause severe infection. After trying many antibiotics, he was treated with “phages”, “bacteriophages”. So, that's part of “thinking out of the box”. Jeremy: Thank you all for tuning in to the Rio Bravo qWeek podcast series and thank you Dr. Arreaza for having Mehr and me on the podcast today! Stay informed, stay curious—and we'll see you next time Mehr: Guys! I had so much fun! We hope this episode helped simplify antibiotic selection for the most common infections and bugs seen in a hospital setting and gave you a framework you can for initial treatments and cases of antibiotic resistance. Thanks for hanging out with us! Dr. Arreaza: And remember, antibiotics are one of the most powerful tools we have in medicine. Let's use them wisely. This is Dr. Arreaza, signing off. _____________________ References: Radiolab. (2026, March 27). Antibiotic apocalypse. WNYC Studios. https://radiolab.org/podcast/antibiotic-apocalypse Metlay, J. P., Waterer, G. W., Long, A. C., et al. (2019). Diagnosis and treatment of adults with community-acquired pneumonia: An official clinical practice guideline of the American Thoracic Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 200(7), e45–e67. https://www.idsociety.org/practice-guideline/community-acquired-pneumonia-cap-in-adults/ Gilbert, D. N., Chambers, H. F., Saag, M. S., et al. (2026). The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy (56th ed.). Antimicrobial Therapy, Inc. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, September 17). Antibiotic stewardship resource bundles. https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/educational-resources/stewardship/index.html Theme song, Works All The Time by Dominik Schwarzer, YouTube ID: CUBDNERZU8HXUHBS, purchased from https://www.premiumbeat.com/. Even without trying, every night you go to bed a little wiser. Thanks for listening to Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast. We want to hear from you, send us an email at RioBravoqWeek@clinicasierravista.org, or visit our website riobravofmrp.org/qweek. See you next week!
La contaminación derivada de los explosivos es un problema silencioso, pero persistente. Más allá de las imágenes espectaculares de una detonación, lo que queda en el terreno puede ser incluso más preocupante: compuestos químicos estables, tóxicos y difíciles de eliminar. Entre ellos destaca el 2,4-dinitrotolueno (DNT), un residuo asociado a la fabricación y uso de materiales explosivos como el TNT. El investigador del Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC) David Rodríguez-Espeso explica cómo su equipo ha desarrollado una estrategia innovadora: “enseñar” a la bacteria Pseudomonas putida a utilizar el DNT como alimento y degradarlo. El objetivo era ambicioso: transformar un contaminante persistente en una fuente de energía para un organismo vivo.
La contaminación derivada de los explosivos es un problema silencioso, pero persistente. Más allá de las imágenes espectaculares de una detonación, lo que queda en el terreno puede ser incluso más preocupante: compuestos químicos estables, tóxicos y difíciles de eliminar. Entre ellos destaca el 2,4-dinitrotolueno (DNT), un residuo asociado a la fabricación y uso de materiales explosivos como el TNT. El investigador del Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC) David Rodríguez-Espeso explica cómo su equipo ha desarrollado una estrategia innovadora: “enseñar” a la bacteria Pseudomonas putida a utilizar el DNT como alimento y degradarlo. El objetivo era ambicioso: transformar un contaminante persistente en una fuente de energía para un organismo vivo.
No episódio de hoje do Check-up Semanal, o Dr. Ronaldo Gismondi, editor-chefe médico do Portal Afya e do Whitebook, comenta os principais destaques recentes em Infectologia publicados no Portal Afya.O programa aborda atualizações relevantes sobre tuberculose no Brasil, arboviroses emergentes, manejo de prostatite bacteriana, coinfecção TB-HIV e estratégias no tratamento de infecções por Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Artigos mencionados:Tuberculose no Brasil: o que o infectologista deve saber em 2026?Surto de Febre do Oropouche: estudo compara gravidade e sintomas com a dengueProstatite bacteriana: o que diz a nova revisão da IDSA?Uso de prednisona em pacientes hospitalizados com coinfecção TB-HIVComo manejar infecções difíceis de tratar por Pseudomonas aeruginosa?
No episódio de hoje do Check-up Semanal, o Dr. Ronaldo Gismondi, editor-chefe médico do Portal Afya e do Whitebook, comenta os principais destaques recentes em Infectologia publicados no Portal Afya.O programa aborda atualizações relevantes sobre tuberculose no Brasil, arboviroses emergentes, manejo de prostatite bacteriana, coinfecção TB-HIV e estratégias no tratamento de infecções por Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Artigos mencionados:Tuberculose no Brasil: o que o infectologista deve saber em 2026?Surto de Febre do Oropouche: estudo compara gravidade e sintomas com a dengueProstatite bacteriana: o que diz a nova revisão da IDSA?Uso de prednisona em pacientes hospitalizados com coinfecção TB-HIVComo manejar infecções difíceis de tratar por Pseudomonas aeruginosa?
This Biotech CEO is Working on Making The Impossible Possible & Helping Us Fight Bad Bacteria. Meet Dr. Deborah Birx (Armata Pharmaceuticals -ARMP)GuestCEO Full Name: Dr. Deborah Birx CEO, Armata Pharmaceuticals Company Name: Armata Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Website: http://www.armatapharma.com/Ticker: $ARMP (NYSE American)Dr. Deborah Birx Bio: Deborah L. Birx, M.D., was appointed Chief Executive Officer on July 10, 2023. Prior to joining Armata, Dr. Birx served as a member of Innoviva's Board of Directors from March 2021 until July 2023.Dr. Birx is a world-renowned medical expert and leader who most recently served as the response coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Previously, she served as Ambassador-at-Large, when she assumed the role of the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. Dr. Birx also served as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator where she oversaw the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) at the CDC and as the Director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program (USMHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.From 1980 until 2008, Dr. Birx served in the United States Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. Dr. Birx has published over 230 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, authored nearly a dozen chapters in scientific publications, as well as developed and patented vaccines. She received her medical degree from the Hershey School of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University, and beginning in 1980, she trained in internal medicine and basic and clinical immunology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Birx is board certified in internal medicine, allergy and immunology, and diagnostic and clinical laboratory immunology.Company Bio: Armata is a late clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of high-purity pathogen-specific bacteriophage therapeutics for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant and difficult-to-treat bacterial infections using its proprietary bacteriophage-based technology. Armata is developing and advancing a broad pipeline of natural and synthetic phage candidates, including clinical candidates for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and other important pathogens. Armata is committed to advancing phage therapy with drug development expertise that spans bench to clinic including in-house phage-specific current Good Manufacturing Practices manufacturing to support full commercialization
On episode #102 of the Infectious Disease Puscast, Daniel and Sara review the infectious disease literature for the weeks of 2/26 – 3/11/26. Host: Daniel Griffin and Sarah Dong Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of Puscast! Links for this episode Viral Measles Outbreak — New Mexico, 2025 (CDC: MMWR) Epidemiology of HMPV and Other Respiratory Viral Infections Among Outpatients, 2016–2022 (OFID) Notes from the Field: Congenital Rubella Syndrome — Florida, 2025 (CDC: MMWR) Long-term efficacy and safety of the single-dose tetravalent Butantan dengue vaccine (Nature Medicine) Bacterial Clinical Outcomes in Hypervirulent Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection: A Cohort Study (JID) Duration of therapy for Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteremia – a post hoc subgroup analysis from the BALANCE randomized controlled trial (CID) Diagnostic Yield of Tongue Swab- Compared to Sputum-Based Molecular Testing for Tuberculosis in Four High-Burden Countries (CID) WHO recommends near point-of-care tests, tongue swabs, and sputum poolingfor TB diagnosis (WHO) Respiratory virus co-infection is a risk factor for adverse outcomes during Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (OFID) Balance Versus Bias: Correcting Misinformation About the 2025 ATS Community-Acquired Pneumonia Guidelines (CID) Fungal The Last of US Season 2 (YouTube) Immunomodulation in the Treatment of Disseminated Coccidioidomycosis (CID) Parasitic Comparison of six weeks doxycycline versus six weeks rifampicin or three weeks of the combination of doxycycline plus rifampicin in the treatment of onchocerciasis: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, phase 2 trial (OFID) Cutaneous Larva Migrans Within the United States Military Health System – Clinical Presentation and Association with Autochthonous Spread or International Travel (OFID) Miscellaneous Distinct prophage infections in colorectal cancer-associated Bacteroides fragilis (Communications Medicine) Rounding Styles on Inpatient Infectious Disease Consult Services: Impact on Education and Patient-Care Delivery (OFID) Possible quality indicators for clinical infectious diseases consultations – results from a hybrid Delphi-nominal group approach and scenario study (CMI: Clinical Microbiology and Infections) Music is by Ronald Jenkees Information on this podcast should not be considered as medical advice.
La Fresque de la Biodiversité a organisé les Rencontres Biodiversité – Climat à la Maison des Associations de Solidarité, à Paris.Sur place, nous avons rencontré Emma Haziza, hydrologue, docteure de l'École des Mines de Paris. Elle nous révèle un acteur surprenant du cycle de l'eau : la bactérie Pseudomonas syringae, présente dans les nuages et jouant un rôle clé dans la formation de la pluie.___
The latest Georgia Tech Research Podcast episode for the Agricultural Technology Research Program (ATRP) focuses on the Georgia Tech Diggle Lab (www.thedigglelab.com). This episode discusses cross-campus collaboration between GTRI's ATRP and GT's Diggle Lab. The Lab's director is Dr. Steve Diggle (hence, the name). The Diggle Lab is based in the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (part of the School of Biological Sciences) at Georgia Tech. Its primary objective is to gain a deeper understanding of microbial interactions and social behaviors, with a focus on their impact on virulence, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and the development of therapeutic strategies. A prominent project is an investigation of the antibiotic-resistant superbug, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has classified as a "critical threat" in health care environments. GTRI and the Diggle Lab collaborated on research focused on bio-based wound dressings and antibiotic resistance. The collaboration has led to has developed piacens, protein-based antimicrobial structures that target specific bacteria without causing resistance. The lab also explored ancient biotics, recreating a 1,000-year-old recipe that effectively treated Staphylococcus aureus. The collaboration aims to address antibiotic resistance and biofilm issues in poultry and industrial settings, leveraging piacens' precision and stability.
Send me a question or story!In veterinary dermatology, gram-negative rods like Pseudomonas, E. coli, Proteus, etc. can develop in chronic or deep skin infections. When systemic therapy is needed, culture and sensitivity are essential. But what are some of the more common antibiotics that are effective against these nasty bugs?Common options include fluoroquinolones, potentiated penicillins, later-generation cephalosporins, etc. These organisms are frequently multidrug-resistant so appropriate diagnostics and re-evaluation is crucial.Learn more as we continue our current series on DERM DRUGS on this week's podcast!00:00 – Intro01:36 – General Things to Keep in Mind03:49 – The Importance of Topical Therapy05:31 – Systemic Therapy Options06:38 – Antibiotic Choices10:35 – Last Resort Antibiotics12:44 – Overview13:39 – Outro
Antibiotika verlieren an Kraft. Resistenzen breiten sich aus, Therapien scheitern. Allein in Österreich sterben jedes Jahr tausende Menschen im Zusammenhang mit multiresistenten Bakterien. Die Medizin sucht Auswege – und findet einen alten Ansatz neu: die Phagentherapie. Bakteriophagen sind Viren, die Bakterien gezielt befallen und zerstören. Entdeckt vor über hundert Jahren, gerieten sie im Westen in Vergessenheit. Heute erleben sie eine Renaissance, vor allem bei chronischen Infektionen, bei denen Antibiotika an ihre Grenzen stoßen. Phagen wirken anders: Sie dringen in die Bakterienzelle ein, vermehren sich dort und bringen sie zum Platzen. Das macht sie besonders interessant bei Keimen, die Biofilme bilden und sich so dem Zugriff klassischer Medikamente entziehen. An der MedUni Wien wurde die Phagentherapie erstmals außerhalb einer Studie erfolgreich eingesetzt. Ein junger, lungentransplantierter Patient litt an einer chronischen Infektion mit Pseudomonas aeruginosa, resistent gegen nahezu alle verfügbaren Antibiotika. Die Kombination aus inhalativem Antibiotikum und individuell ausgewählten Phagen brachte eine deutliche Besserung – und dem Patienten ein neues Lebensgefühl. Doch Phagen sind kein Wundermittel. Die Therapie ist aufwendig, hochgradig personalisiert und derzeit nur als individueller Heilversuch möglich. Für jeden Patienten müssen passende Phagen gefunden, getestet und mit geeigneten Antibiotika kombiniert werden. Zudem fehlen in Österreich noch eigene Phagenbanken und eine reguläre Zulassung. Trotzdem wächst die Hoffnung. Phagen könnten Antibiotika nicht ersetzen, aber sinnvoll ergänzen. Sie zeigen, dass medizinischer Fortschritt nicht immer neu erfunden werden muss. Manchmal reicht es, Bewährtes wieder ernst zu nehmen – und weiterzudenken.
Welcome to the very first episode of the Regen Radio Podcast, a new series from SoilCraft where we get real about regenerative agriculture, soil biology, and the messy, miraculous process of learning how to farm again.
In this episode, we review the high-yield topic of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the Microbiology section.Follow Medbullets on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/medbulletsInstagram: www.instagram.com/medbulletsofficialTwitter: www.twitter.com/medbullets
David Jernigan 0:15Hello! Dr. Deb 0:16Hi there, sorry for all the confusion. David Jernigan 0:19Oh, no worries, you gotta love it, right? Dr. Deb 0:21Oh, I can’t hear you. David Jernigan 0:23No way, let’s see, my mic must be turned off? Dr. Deb 0:27Hang on, I think it’s me. Let’s see…Okay, let’s try now. David Jernigan 0:40Okay, can you hear me? Dr. Deb 0:42Yep, I can hear you now. David Jernigan 0:43Excellent, excellent. And, how are you today? Dr. Deb 0:48I am good, thank you. How about yourself? David Jernigan 0:50I’m good. Well, it’s good to finally meet you and get this thing rolling. Dr. Deb 0:56Yes, yes, I’m so sorry about that. David Jernigan 0:58That’s alright, that’s alright.So… Dr. Deb 1:01Yeah, go ahead. David Jernigan 1:03So, tell me about yourself before we get going. Dr. Deb 1:06Yeah, so I am a nurse practitioner. I’m also a naturopath. I have a practice here in Wisconsin. I’ve been treating Lyme for about 20 years, so I’m really excited to have this conversation and learn what you’re doing, because it’s so exciting and new. David Jernigan 1:21Well, thank you. Dr. Deb 1:22Yeah, so we treat a lot of chronic illness patients, do some anti-aging regenerative things as well, so… David Jernigan 1:30Yeah, I went to your website and saw you guys are killing it, looks like. Dr. Deb 1:35Yeah. David Jernigan 1:35Got a lot of good staff, it looks like. Dr. Deb 1:37Yeah, we’ve got great staff, great patients, busy practice. We have 5 practitioners, so we have about 15,000 patients in our practice right now. David Jernigan 1:46Well, excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, yeah.So, I’m excited for this discussion. Dr. Deb 1:53Good, me too. So I pre-recorded our intro, so we can just kind of dive right in, and I’ll just ask you to kind of introduce yourself a little bit, tell us a little bit about yourself, and, and then we can just dive right into it. David Jernigan 2:08All right. I’m Dr. David Jernigan, and I own the Biologic Center for Optimum Health in… Franklin, Tennessee, and I’ve been in practice for over 30 years. I shook Willie Bergdurfer’s hand, if anybody knows who that is. It’s kind of infamous now with some of the revelations that have happened about Lyme being a bioweapon and weaponized. But, you know, I’ve been doing this, probably longer than almost anybody that’s still in the business in the natural realm. It chose me. I did not choose Lyme. Matter of fact, there were many times in my career that I was like. You know, cancer’s easier because of the fact that everybody agrees, you know, what we’re dealing with. And in the 90s, it was a whole different reality, where nobody actually understood that you could have Lyme disease and not be coming from New England.You know, so I had actually the first documented case of a Lyme disease, CDC positive.Patient that had never left the state of Kansas before. So they couldn’t say that it wasn’t in Kansas, and so she had actually been, pregnant with… twin boys, and they were born CDC-positive as well, and so it is transmitted across the placenta we know.So, I, you know, the history of how I did all this was, in the 90s, probably 1996, probably, somewhere in there, 97. With this woman, you know, I… if you go into Robin’s pathology books from back then. Which we all used, medical doctors and everybody else studying. you know, there was basically a paragraph about Lyme disease, and on the national board tests, as you recall, it was probably like, what causes, or what is, bullseye rash associated with? And you’d had to guess Lyme disease, of course. Dr. Deb 4:07Female. David Jernigan 4:08But that was, you know, considered to be more a New England illness, and you would never see it anywhere else. But here was this woman. I knew… nothing about Lyme beyond what we had gotten taught in college, which was, like I say, next to nothing. And she would not let me stop feeding me information. I mean, you gotta remember, the internet wasn’t even hardly in existence in those years. I mean, it was brand new. It was supposed to be this information highway, and So I started purchasing, like a lot of doctors do even now, they start purchasing every kind of new supplement that’s supposed to work for bacteria. There was no product in those days that actually was Lyme-specific. I mean, nobody was really dealing with it naturally. It was always a pharmaceutical situation. Dr. Deb 5:04And a very short course at that. David Jernigan 5:06Yeah, 2 weeks of doxy and you’re cured, whether your symptoms are gone or not, which… she’d had the 2 weeks of doxy, and her symptoms and her son’s symptoms were not gone. And so, I absolutely just purchased everything I could find. Nothing would work. I mean, I could name names of products, and you would recognize them, because they’re still out there today. Dr. Deb 5:28Which is. David Jernigan 5:30Kind of a… A sad thing that natural medicine is still riding on these things that have the most marketing. Dr. Deb 5:37As opposed to sometimes the things that actually have the documented research. David Jernigan 5:42Behind it, and I am a doctor of chiropractic medicine, and I specialized all these years in chronic, incurable illnesses of all types. That may sound odd to a lot of people, but doctors of chiropractic medicine are trained just like a GP typically would be. The medical schools, as I understand it, got together, decades ago and said, wow, if all we did was… Crank out general practitioners for the next 10 years, we wouldn’t have still enough general practitioners to supply the demand. Dr. Deb 6:17Right. Everybody in medicine, in medical schools, wanted to be a specialist, because that’s where the money was, and it was… David Jernigan 6:24Easier, kind of, also, to… you know, just focus on one part of the body, and specialize in that. Dr. Deb 6:31Expert in that one area. David Jernigan 6:32So we all now have the same training. We all go through pre-med. We got a bachelor’s degree, I got my bachelor’s degree in nutrition, and through, Park University in Parkville, Missouri. And so, you know, when I ran out of options to purchase, I just used a technology that I developed, which was an advancement upon other technologies, but I called it bioresonance scanning. And I coined the term back in the 90s. It was a way to kind ofKind of like a sensitive test, you know, like you might. Dr. Deb 7:09I wouldn’t. David Jernigan 7:09Of applied kinesiology, then clinical kinesiology, then chiro plus kinesiology, then, you know, you can just keep going with all the advancements that were made. Well, this was an advancement upon those things, so… I developed… I was the first in… in… my known world of doctors to develop a way to detect adjunctively, obviously we can’t say it’s a primary diagnosis. Adjunctively detect the presence of a given specimen. So we could say, thus saith my test. It’s highly likely you have Borrelia burgdurferi. And, but I had to have the specimen on hand to be able to match what I call frequency matching to the specimen. Brand new concept in those days. And so I was able to detect whether or not my treatments were successful or not. This is something even now that’s really difficult for doctors, because antibody tests, even the most advanced ones, it’s still an antibody test. It’s still an immune response to an infection.And accurately, you know, some doctors will slam those tests, saying, well. That doesn’t mean you actually have the infection, that just means your body has seen it before, which is a correct statement, kind of. So being able to detect the presence, and even where in the body these infections are was a way huge advancement in the 90s, for sure it’s kind of funny, I think about a conference I went to, and cuz… I’m kind of jumping ahead. Because I ended up developing my own formula, just for this woman and her children, and it worked. And I was like, wow! Their symptoms were gone, all the blood tests came back negative. In those days, we were using the iGenX. Western blot, eventually. And the, what was called a Lyme urine antigen test. I don’t know if you remember that, because it… Only decades later did I meet, the owner of iGenX, Nick Harris. Dr. Deb 9:17Person. And I was like, whatever happened to the Luwat test? Because I took it off the market after a while. He said, honestly, we lost the antigen and couldn’t find it again. Oh, no. David Jernigan 9:27And so… but that was a brilliant test. It was the actual gold standard in those days. Again, the world… it can’t be understated how different the world was in the 90s. Dr. Deb 9:40Yeah. David Jernigan 9:41Towards natural medicine, even. Dr. Deb 9:44Oh, yeah. We think… we think it’s bad now, but, like, when I started, too, I started in the early 2000s, like, we were all hiding under the radar, like, you didn’t market, we would have never been on social media, we didn’t run ads, we didn’t do any. David Jernigan 10:00Right. Dr. Deb 10:01Because the medical boards were coming for us. David Jernigan 10:04Came after me. Dr. Deb 10:05Because I had the word Lime on my page, my website. David Jernigan 10:10You know, not saying that I treat Lyme. Dr. Deb 10:13Hmm? David Jernigan 10:13Yes Dr. Deb 10:15Just talking about mind. David Jernigan 10:16And it’s funny, because, once I had this formula, it was something… and I trained in Germany, in anthroposophical medicine, and they’ve been trained in herbal… making herbal extracts, making homeopathic remedies in the anthroposophical methodology, and I trained with the Hahnemann versions of homeopathy, which is just slightly different. Yeah. And, so I was well-versed with making some of my own formulas by that time. And so, it was really something that I wrote on the bottle, you know, and I had to call it something, so I called it Borreligin, which is still in existence, and it’s still a phenomenal herbal remedy right now. And to my knowledge, it’s the only frequency-matched herbal formula. Maybe still out there. Because unless you knew how to do my testing, the bioresonent scanning, there was no way to actually do frequency matching. Matter of fact, as a really famous herbalist attacked me online, saying, oh, none of these herbs will kill anything. And I’m like, that wasn’t what I was saying. I was saying, back in those days, I was saying, well, if… what would the body need to address these infections?You know, not, like, what’s gonna kill the infections for the body. Dr. Deb 11:38Right. David Jernigan 11:39Right? So it was a phenomenal way, but the LUAT test was amazing because what you’d do is you would give your treatment, like an MD would give an antibiotic for a week, ahead of time. Trying to increase the number of dead spirochetes showing up in your urine one day out of 3 days urine catch. So you’d wake up in the morning, you’d collect your urine 3 days in a row, and any one of those being positive is a positive. But it was a brilliant test because it wasn’t an antibody test. They were literally counting the number of dead pieces of Lyme bacteria in your urine. I mean, it was pretty irrefutable. So I had a grand slam on the… the Western blot on patients, and I’d also have a grand slam on the LUAT, and their medical doctors would say, oh, that doctor in the lab are probably in cahoots change some lab. Dr. Deb 12:38Of course. David Jernigan 12:39That come in. And I still see that today. You know, it’s like, oh my gosh, the better the tests are getting. There’s still a bias if you do your own research. Well, if you happen to be a doctor who loves research. And you’re a clinician, so you actually treat patients who’s gonna write the research study? Well, of course, the doctor who did the study, well, he’s biased, and I’m like, I still can’t influence lab tests. Well, lab tests aren’t everything. People scream over the internet at me. It’s like, well, a negative lab test doesn’t mean anything. I was like… I get that with the old Western blot testing. Dr. Deb 13:16Right. David Jernigan 13:16The more sensitive tests, which are very close to 100%, Sensitivity, and 100% specificity. So, meaning, like, they can… if you have the infection, they’re gonna find it. Dr. Deb 13:30They’ll find it, yeah. David Jernigan 13:31And if they… if you have the infection, they’re going to be able to tell you exactly 100% correctly what kind of infection it is. Back in those days, you couldn’t, you could just count the dead pieces, which was… Dr. Deb 13:43Yeah. David Jernigan 13:43Significant, but It’s funny, because when medicine does that, you know, mainstream medicine that’s backed by all the nice foundations who donate millions of dollars towards the research. Their negative tests are significant, but if you fund your own, Yours isn’t that significant. Dr. Deb 14:04Right, or what if we call something a seronegative autoimmune disease, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, because none of the tests are positive, but you have all the symptoms. Here, let me give you this $100,000 a year drug. David Jernigan 14:19Yeah. Dr. Deb 14:19And instead of looking for what might actually be causing the symptoms. That’s all okay, but what we do is not okay. David Jernigan 14:27Right. Yeah, it’s a double standard, and it’s getting better. I want to do… tell the world it is getting better. Some of the dinosaurs are retiring. Dr. Deb 14:36No. David Jernigan 14:37Way for people who are… Are more open-minded to new ideas. But, getting back to that woman, she… that formula that I made just for her and her son, I… She went online. Dr. Deb 14:54Which, I had never been on a news group. David Jernigan 14:58Not even sure I knew what one was, you know? Imagine, I’m kind of that dinosaur that… Cell phones were, like, these really big things with a big antenna sticking out of it, and… Dr. Deb 15:09Nope. David Jernigan 15:10So I thought I was pretty hot stuff, just that I actually had a computer software program that was running my front desk. And even then, it was an Apple IIe computer. Dr. Deb 15:21Right. David Jernigan 15:22Probably be pretty valuable right now if I’d kept it, but… Dr. Deb 15:25Mmm… David Jernigan 15:26It being an antique. But, suddenly people were calling my clinic, because the lady with the twin boys that was well was telling people on these research, I mean, these Lyme disease forums and boards online. And, I started going, oh my gosh, you know, as a doctor, it’s one thing to treat a person in your clinic, it’s a different thing to have your clinic name on the label. Like, we all do, Even now, and you’re supposed to write everything that’s on the label, and… all these guidelines, and I’m like, wow, I need to split this off. I mean, I def… I definitely want to help people, and this is… I was pretty excited about the results we were getting. Pre-treat… Pre-treatment and post-treatment. And, so… that’s where I developed, my nutraceutical business in the 90s called Journey Good Nutraceuticals. My advice to anybody thinking about doing the same thing, don’t put your last name on it. Dr. Deb 16:25– David Jernigan 16:25You know, because anytime negative anything comes out, there goes the Jernigan name, you know, the herbal, you know, there’s just all these, and especially nowadays, with all the bots that are just designed to slam natural medicine. Dr. Deb 16:38Yeah. David Jernigan 16:39And that is out there in a… and just ugly people. Dr. Deb 16:42Or should we just say, people with a different opinion? How’s that? David Jernigan 16:46Yeah. That are being less than supportive. Dr. Deb 16:49But. David Jernigan 16:51It was amazing, because by 1999, I presented my research, my first research, I’d never done research. This is what I would… I would say to a lot of people who go, my doctor did… I don’t know, my doctor doesn’t know what you’re doing, my doctor… I was like going, you know, most doctors don’t do research. They don’t publish anything. Their opinion is their opinion, but they don’t back it up in peer review, right? And so that’s what I always tried to do, was back it up in peer review and publish. And so, in 1999, I presented at the International Tick-Borne Diseases Conference in New York City. I’m telling you, it was like the country boy going to the city, you know, I got my… I got my suit on, and I looked all right, and my booth was wonderful, and all these different things, and it was just a big wake-up call.Because what we had demonstrated… let’s get back to the… and this was what I demonstrated with that first study. was that… A positive LUAC test, that Lyme urine antigen test for my Gen X, was a score of 32. Meaning, one of those 3 mornings urine had 32 pieces in the amount of urine they checked of deadline bacteria spirochetes. Okay? Okay. With antibiotic challenges, a highly positive was a score of 45. Dr. Deb 18:19Wow when I would give one dropper 3 times a day for a week. David Jernigan 18:24Ahead of time, and then do the person’s LUAT test, We were getting scores 100, 200… And at that point, we only had a couple, but we had a couple that were greater than 400. Yeah, dead pieces, where the lab just quits counting. They just said, somewhere over 400, right? Dr. Deb 18:45Yeah. David Jernigan 18:46Which, when the medical system at the conference, you know, I was the only natural doctor in the world that was… had any kind of proof of anything naturally that could outperform antibiotics. Can you imagine? Dr. Deb 18:59Yeah. And… David Jernigan 19:01They were just, oh my gosh, incredulous. They’re like, I’ve given the most… one guy came up to me, and to my face, and he goes, I’ve given the most aggressive antibiotic protocols And I’ve only seen one patient over 100. I was like, that makes this pretty significant, doesn’t it? But, it didn’t just, like, make us take off, because guess what? In Lyme world, if a pharmaceutical antibiotic made you feel horrible. That meant it was working. Dr. Deb 19:28That’s right. We used to, back in the day, if you didn’t herx. And had that horrible die-off reaction, for those of you who don’t know what a herx is, but if we didn’t make you herx, we weren’t doing our job right. David Jernigan 19:40You’re looking for your patients to feel horrible, and sometimes to the level of committing suicide. Dr. Deb 19:46Yes. David Jernigan 19:47So bad. Dr. Deb 19:48Yes. David Jernigan 19:49And I was the first doctor, I think, in the world to start screaming and hollering and saying, stop using the worsening of your patient’s symptoms as a guide to good treatment, because they’re… I wasn’t seeing it with my formulas. Because I was doing a comprehensive program of care. I think I was also one of the first doctors to say, we need to detoxify these people as we’re doing this. And you would sit there and say, well, sure you were. I was like, well, remember, there wasn’t a lot of communication. There wasn’t anybody on the internet saying, do this, do that. And, It was, it was interesting in those days. It was, how do you… How do you help the world heal from these things? That they don’t know they have. So later, I actually had a beautiful booth at a health… a big health expo in Texas, I remember, and I was like, you know, you spend a lot of money on the booth, and… Dr. Deb 20:43Yup. David Jernigan 20:43And you’re thinking about it because you’re funding the whole thing, you say, wow, if I only sell one case, I’ll at least cover my cost. Dr. Deb 20:51Yep. Yeah, you’re great. David Jernigan 20:52And I had this beautiful banner of, like, a blown-up tick’s mouth under microscope. You know those beautiful pictures of, like, all the barbs sticking out, and how they anchor themselves in your skin, and… And, thousand people walking by my booth, and they’re just like, keep walking, because they didn’t know they had Lyme. There was, like, and they had MS, maybe, but they don’t have Lyme, and so they just would keep walking. Nobody even knew. Why would I go to a conference in Texas? And I’m trying to say, no, guys, it’s everywhere. Dr. Deb 21:24Yeah. David Jernigan 21:24And… and everybody, you know, yes, you probably have this, you know, kind of thing. If you’re… if you… are chronically ill, almost, of any kind of way. You know, kind of trying to tell people this was… Again, in Robin’s pathology textbooks, one of the few things that it did tell you about Lyme was that it was called the Great… the New Great Imitator. Because it would imitate up to 200 or more different illnesses. So, it’s been an interesting journey, of… educating people, writing articles, but it was interesting, the lady who I first fixed, Laboratory verified, everything like that, symptoms went away, all that kind of fun stuff. Her children were fine, they’ve been fine for years now. When she went on the newsboards in the Lyme disease support groups, It created a war. Oh my goodness, it was like, how dare you? And, say that something natural might actually help, right? Dr. Deb 22:30Right, exactly. David Jernigan 22:32And, I even had… A… one of those first calls to… with a marketing company at one point, way a long time ago. And the lady got on the phone, the owner of the marketing company goes, I would have blood on my hands if I actually took your clinic on. Yeah, you can’t treat Lyme disease, and… Even the big, big associations that are out there are still largely that way. I mean, they’re getting better, but it’s just like… you know, a lot of the times, it’s herbs are good. Herbs will help. Good, you know, but they’re safe. So, it’s still a challenge to… to… present in mainstream Lyme communities, even. Because there’s this… Fear of doing anything outside of antibiotics. Dr. Deb 23:32Yeah, so let me ask you this. From your perspective. Why do you think so many chronic infections exist these days, like Lyme and the co-infections, Babesia, Bartonella, mold illness? And we talked a little bit about herbs and why they, antibiotics and things like that fail, but let’s talk a little bit about that. David Jernigan 23:53So, it’s fascinating. When I trained in Germany, they said that we, as humanity, has moved away from what they called the inflammatory diseases. You know, in the old days, it was. Lots of high fevers, purulent, pus-generating bacterial infections. And I said, as a society, we have… Dr. Deb 24:14Have shifted from those to what they call cold sclerotic diseases, which are your… David Jernigan 24:21Cancers, your diabetes, your atherosclerosis, your… and they said, we’re starting to see what used to only be geriatric diseases in our children. That’s how bad it’s gotten. We have suppressed fevers, we don’t… we don’t respect the wisdom of the human body. So, you know, the doctors say, step aside, body, I will fix this infection for you with this antibiotic. And so, what we’ve done with the, overuse of antibiotics, and this isn’t me just talking from a natural perspective, this is… Right, it’s everybody around the world is acknowledging. I’ll show you… I could show you a, a presentation, if we can do a screen-sharing situation. Yeah. About the antibiotic situation in the world, because it’s really concerning. But what I would say, and kind of like an advancement forward, is we are seeing mutated bacteria. You know, they talked about… do you remember when they found the Iceman, you know, the… You know, the prehistoric guy that’s… In the eyes, and he had Lyme bacteria. I was like, he had spirochetes, maybe. Dr. Deb 25:33Yeah. David Jernigan 25:33That isn’t a modified, mutated version. That’s just maybe the… Lyme… you know, Borrelia… call it Borrelia something, you know, it’s a spirochete, but what we’re dealing with today. Even under strep or staph, as you know, you know, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, you name it, whatever kind of infection a person has is not the same bacteria that your grandparents dealt with. Dr. Deb 26:01That’s right. David Jernigan 26:32It’s a much mutated, stronger, more resistant to treatment type of thing. So, I think that’s one reason. I think the, It’s great that we’re seeing, you know, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bringing awareness to things that Like it or not, yeah, seed oils do create inflammation, and everyone in the natural realm, as you know. Has been trying to say this for probably how long? Dr. Deb 26:35Yeah, 25, 30 years. 20 years each. David Jernigan 26:48Yes. You know, thank goodness for people like Sally Fallon and her beautiful book, Nourishing Traditions, that started you know, Dr. Bernard Jensen’s books way back in the day, Dr. Christopher’s books way back in the day. Dr. Deb 26:48Damn. David Jernigan 26:49You know, all of them were way ahead of their time, saying, by the way, your margarine is only missing one ingredient from being axle grease. Dr. Deb 26:58Yeah. David Jernigan 26:58I think that was Dr. Jensen saying that at one point, probably 50, 60 years ago, I don’t know. Dr. Deb 27:03Yep. David Jernigan 27:04So, we’ve created this monster. We, we live in a very controlled environment, you know, of 72, 74 degrees at all times, we don’t sweat, we don’t have to work that hard, typically. You know, most of us aren’t out there like our ancestors were, so that’s making us more and more… Move towards the cold sclerotic diseases, of which even Lyme disease is, you know, which… Yes, it has inflammation, yes, but as a presentation, it’s very often associated with some of these Cold sclerotic diseases of mankind that we see now. Dr. Deb 27:46You have it. David Jernigan 27:47Yeah. Dr. Deb 27:48So, tell me, what is phage therapy? David Jernigan 27:52Well, may I show you a cool video? Dr. Deb 27:55Yeah, I’d love that. David Jernigan 27:56I did not make this video, this is just one of my favorites, because it’s from the National Institute of Health. Let’s see if I can just… Click the share screen thing. And get that to pop up. That’s not what I’m looking for, but it’s gonna be soon. Let’s go here… Alright, can you see that? Dr. Deb 28:18Yeah. David Jernigan 28:19Okay. Modern medicine faces a serious problem. Thanks in part to overuse and misuse of antibiotics, many bacteria are gaining resistance to our most common cures. Researchers are probing possible alternatives to antibiotics, including phages. So, bacteriophages, or we like to call them phages for short, are naturally occurring viruses that infect and kill bacteria. The basic structure consists of a head, a sheath, and tail fibers. The tail fibers are what mediate attachment to the bacterial cell. The DNA stored in the head will then travel down the sheath and be injected inside the cell. Once inside the cell, the phage will hijack the cellular machinery to make many copies of itself. Lastly, the newly assembled phages burst forth from the bacterium, which resets their phage life cycle and kills the bacterium in the process. Someday, healthcare providers may be able to treat MRSA and other stubborn bacterial infections using a mixture of phages, or a phage cocktail process would be first to identify what the pathogen is that’s causing the infection. So the bacterium is isolated and is characterized. And then there’s a need to select a phage in a process known as screening of phage that are either present in a repository or in a so-called phage library. That allows for many of the phages to be evaluated for effectiveness against that isolated I don’t know, bacterium. Phages were first discovered over 100 years ago by a French-Canadian named Felice Derrell. They initially gained popularity in Eastern Europe, however, Western countries largely abandoned phages in favor of antibiotics, which were better understood and easier to produce in large quantities. Now, with bacteria like these gaining resistance to antibiotics, phage research is gaining momentum in the United States once again. NIAID recently partnered with other government agencies to host a phage workshop, where researchers from NIH, FTA, the commercial sector, and academia gathered to discuss recent progress. NIH… So… That is… That is what phage therapy in… is. in what I call conventional phage. Let’s see, how do I get out of the share screen? Hope you already don’t see it. Dr. Deb 30:58Yep, at the top, there should just be a button. David Jernigan 31:00I don’t. Dr. Deb 31:00Stop sharing, yeah. David Jernigan 31:01So… Conventional phage therapy, as you just saw, is a lot like what it is that we’re doing, only the difference is they’re taking wild phages from the environment. They’re finding phages anywhere there’s, like, a lot of bacteria. And then they isolate those phages, and like he said, the gentleman at the very end said we put them in a library, and so there are banks of phages that they can actually now use, and One of the largest banks that I know of has about 700 different bacteriophages, or phages. In their bank that they can pull from. Dr. Deb 31:43Wow. Do you want to take a guess? David Jernigan 31:46How many bacteriophages they’ve identified are in the human gut, on average? Dr. Deb 31:52Oh my god, there’s gotta be more… David Jernigan 31:53Kinds, different kinds of phages, how many? Dr. Deb 31:56There’s gotta be millions. David Jernigan 31:57Well… In population, there’s… humongous numbers, numbers probably well beyond the trillions, okay? Hundreds of trillions, quadrillions, maybe, even. But in the gut, a recent peer-reviewed journal article said that there were 32,242 different types of bacteriophages that live naturally in your intestines, your gut. Dr. Deb 32:25Boom. David Jernigan 32:2632,000. Okay, so… If you read any article on phage therapy that’s in peer review, almost every single one in the very first paragraph, they use the same sentence. They go, Phages are ubiquitous in nature. They’re ubiquitous in nature. So my brain, when I find… when all this finally clicked together, and when we clicked together 5 years into my research, I could not get it to work for 5 years. I just kept going. But that sentence really got me going. I was, like, going, you know. If you look at what ubiquitous means, it says if Phages were the size of grains of sand. Like sand on the beach. They would completely cover the earth and be 50 miles deep. How crazy is that? Dr. Deb 33:24Wow. David Jernigan 33:25That’s how many phages are on the planet. There’s so many… they outnumber every species collectively on the planet. So, it’s an impossibility in my mind. I went, huh, it’s an impossibility that… You catching a, a sterile Bacteria, it’s almost an impossibility. Since the beginning of time, phages have been needing to use a reproductive host. And it’s very specific, so every kind of bacteria has its own kind of phage it uses as a reproductive host. Because phages are… and this is a clarification I want to make for people. just like in the old days, we were talking about the 90s, I talked to a veterinarian that had gotten in trouble with the veterinary board in her state. Dr. Deb 34:14Back in the old days. David Jernigan 34:16Because she gave dogs probiotics. And the board thought she was giving the dogs an infection so that she could treat them and make money off of the subsequent infection. Dr. Deb 34:28Oh my god. David Jernigan 34:29Nobody actually had heard of good, friendly bacteria in the veterinary world, I guess she said she had gotten in trouble, and she had to defend herself, that, no, I’m giving friendly, benevolent, beneficial bacteria. Okay, to these animals, and getting good results.So, phages… Are friendly, benevolent, beneficial viruses. That live in your body, but they only will infect a certain type of bacteria. So… What that means is if you have staff.Aureus, you know, Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. That bacteria has its own kind of phage that infects it called a staph aureus phage. E. coli has an E. coli phage. Each type of E. coli has its own phage, so Borrelia burgdurferi has its own Borrelia burgdurferi type of phage, whereas Borrelia miyamotoi alright? Or any of the other Borrelia species, or the Bartonella species, or the… you just keep going, and Moses has its own type of phage that only will infect that type of bacteria. So that’s… You know, when you realize, wow, why are we going to the environment Was my thought. Dr. Deb 35:54Yeah. David Jernigan 34:55Trying to find wild phages and put them into your body, and hopefully they go and do what you want them to do. What if we could trigger the phages themselves that live in your body to, instead of just farming that bacteria that it uses as a host, because what I mean by farming is the phages will only kill 40% of that population of bacteria a day. Dr. Deb 36:20Wow. David Jernigan 36:20And then they send out a signal to all the other phages saying, stop killing! Dr. Deb 36:24It’s like. David Jernigan 36:2560% of the bacteria population left to be breeding stock. It’s kind of like the farmer, the rancher, who… he doesn’t send his whole herd to the butcher. Dr. Deb 36:35Right. David Jernigan 36:36Just to, you know, he keeps his breeding stock. He sends the rest, right? So, the phages will kill 40% of the population every day, just in their reproduction process. Because once there’s so many, as you saw in the video, once the phage lands on top of the bacteria, injects its genetic material into the bacteria, that bacteria genetic engine starts cranking out up to 5,200 phages per bacteria. Dr. Deb 37:06I don’t know who counted all those… David Jernigan 37:08Inside of a bacteria, but some scientists peer-reviewed it and put it out there. that ruptures, and it literally looks like a grenade goes off inside of the bacteria. I wish I’d remembered to bring that video of a phage killing a bacteria, but it just goes, oof. And it’s just a cloud of dust. So, you’re breaking apart a lot of those different toxins and things. So… That’s… That was the impetus to me creating what I did. That and the fact that I looked it up, and I found out that phages will sometimes go… Crazy. I don’t know how to say it. Wiping out 100% of their host. And it could be a trigger, like change in the body’s pH levels, it could be electromagnetically done, you know, like, there’s been documentation of… I think it was, 50 Hz, electricity. Triggering one kind of phage to go… Crazy and annihilate its host population. There’s other ways, but I was, like, going, none of those fit me, you know? It’s not like I’m gonna shock somebody with a… Jumper cable or something to try to get phages to… to do that kind of thing. But the fact that it could be done, they can be triggered, they can switch and suddenly go crazy against their population. But what happens when they kill 100% of their host? The phages themselves die within 4 days. Dr. Deb 38:45Hmm. Because they can’t keep reproducing. David Jernigan 38:47There’s nothing to reproduce them, yeah. Dr. Deb 38:49Yeah. Especially… unless they’re a polyvalent phage, that means a phage that can segue and use. David Jernigan 38:54One or two other kinds of bacteria. To, as a reproductive host. But a lot of phages, if not the majority, are monovalent, which means they have one host that they like to use. And so… Borrelia, so… my study that I ended up doing, and I published the results in 2021, And it’s a small study, but it’s right in there at the high end, believe it or not, of phage research. Most phage research is less than 30 people. In the study. But, we did 26 people.And after one month of doing the phage induction that I invented, which only… Appears to only, induce or stimulate the types of phages that will do the job in your body. I don’t care what kind of phage it is. I don’t care if it’s a Borrelia phage, it may be a polyvalent phage that normally doesn’t use the Borrelia burgdurferi as its number one. Host, but it can. To go and kill that infection. And the fascinating thing is, there was a brand new test that came out at the same time I came out with the idea, literally the same weekend they presented. Dr. Deb 40:1511. David Jernigan 40:15ILADS conference in Boston in 2019. It was called the Felix Borrelia phage Test. So the Felix Borrelia phage test. Because Borrelia are often intracellular, right, they’re buried down in the tissue, they’re not often in the blood that much. And therefore, doing a blood test isn’t really that accurate. But you remember how there’s, like, potentially as many as 5,200 phages of that type erupt from each bacteria when it breaks apart. It’s way easier to detect those phages, because they’re now circulating, those 52, as you saw in the video. 5,200 different phages are now seeking out another Borrelia that they can infect. And so, while they’re out in circulation, that’s easy to find in the bloodstream. So, 77% of the people, so 20 out of 26, were tested after a 2-week period. After only a 4-day round of treatment. Because according to my testing, remember, I can actually test adjunctively to see if I can find any signatures for those kinds of bacteria. And I couldn’t after 4 days, so we discontinued treatment and waited Beyond the 4 days that would allow the phages themselves to die, so we waited about a week and a half.And redid the test. And 77%, so that 20 out of 26 of the people, were completely negative. Dr. Deb 41:50Wow. David Jernigan 41:52Which, you go, well, it’s just a blood test. Well, no, we actually had people that were getting better, like, they’d never gotten better before. We had one woman who was wheelchair-bound, and in two weeks was able to walk, and even ultimately wanted to work for my clinic. I’m just, like, going… Dr. Deb 42:07I didn’t want to write about all that. I wanted to write about the phages. I was like… David Jernigan 42:12article, I probably should have put some of those stories, because, Critics would say, well, you got rid of the infection, maybe, but… Did you fix the Lyme disease? Well, that’s… there’s two factors here that every doctor needs to understand. There’s the infection in chronic illness, there’s the infection, and then there’s the damage that’s been done. Because sometimes I have these people that would come in and say, well, Dr. Jernigan, it didn’t work for me, I’m still in the wheelchair. And I’m like, no, it worked. Repeat lab test over months says it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s like, we would follow, and 88% of the people we followed long-term were still negative, which is amazing to me. Dr. Deb 42:56And then they have to repair the damage. David Jernigan 42:59It’s the damages why you still have your symptoms. And that’s where the doctor has to get busy, right? Dr. Deb 43:06Right David Jernigan 43:06They were told erroneously by their doctor that originally treated them that they’d be well, they’d get out of the wheelchair, if he could actually kill all these infections. Dr. Deb 43:15It’s not true. David Jernigan 43:16Unless it’s caught early. So I love the analogy, and I’ve said it a thousand times.that Lyme disease and chronic infections are much like having termites in the wood of your house. If you find the termites early, then yeah, killing the infection, life goes back to normal, the storm comes and your house doesn’t fall down. But if it’s 20 years later. Killing the termites is still a grand idea. Right. But you have the damage in the wood that needs to be repaired as well. All the systems… when I talk about damage to the wood, I mean, like. All the bioregulatory aspects of the body, how it regulates itself, all the biochemical pathways, the metabolic pathways we all know about, getting the toxins that have been lodged in there for many years, stopping the inflammatory things that have been running crazy. Dealing with all those cytokines that are just running rampant through the body, creating this whole MCAS situation. Which are largely… Dr. Deb 44:21Coming from your body’s own immune cells called macrophages, which are not even… David Jernigan 44:26It’s not… a virus at all, it’s part of the immune system, it’s like a Pac-Man, and research shows that especially in spirochetes. There is no toxin. Now, I wrote 4 books. I think I wrote the very first book on the natural treatment of people with Lyme disease back in the 90s. Why did I write that? Not because I wanted to be famous, it’s a tiny book, actually, the first one was.I was just trying to help people get out of this idea that you will be well when you kill all the bugs. I was saying, it’s… you need to be doing this. If you can’t come to my clinic, at least do this. Try to find somebody that will do this for you. And that ultimately led to a bigger book.as I kept learning more, and I was like, going, well, okay, now at least do this amount of stuff. And you need to make sure your doctor is handling this, this, this, and this. And so, the third book was, like, 500 and something pages long. And then the fourth book was 500 and something pages long, and now they’re all obsolete with the whole phage thing, because this just rewrites everything. Dr. Deb 45:34Yeah. David Jernigan 45:34It’s pretty fascinating. Dr. Deb 45:37Do you think the war on bugs, mentality created more chronic illness than it solved? David Jernigan 45:44Because of the tools that doctors had to use, yes. We’re a minority, we’re still a minority, you and I. Dr. Deb 45:54Yep. Our doctoring… David Jernigan 45:56Methods I never had, and you’d never… maybe you did, but I’d never had the ability to grab a prescription pad and write out a prescription. I had to figure out, how do I get… and this was… and still my guiding thing, is like, how do I identify, number one, everything that can be found that’s gone wrong in the human body. And what do I need to provide that body? Like, the body is the carpenter. That has to do the repair, has to regenerate, has to do everything, has to get… everything fixed right? We can’t fix anything. If you have a paper cut, there isn’t a doctor on the planet that can make that go away. Dr. Deb 46:38Right. David Jernigan 46:39Of their own power, much less chronic illnesses. So, all the treatments are like the screws, saws, hammers, you know the carpenter must be able to use. So a lot of the time, doctors are just throwing an entire Home Depot on top of the carpenter. In the form of, like, bags of supplements, you know, hundreds of supplements, I’ve seen patients walk in my door with two suitcasefuls. And they were taking 70 bottles, 65 to 70 bottles of supplements, and I’d be just like, wow, your carpenter who’s been working for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He’s exhausted. There’s chaos everywhere, you don’t know where to. Dr. Deb 47:22Starting. David Jernigan 47:22He goes, you want me to do what with all this stuff? Dr. Deb 47:25Yep, I’ve seen the same thing. People… thousands, you know, several thousand dollars a month on supplements, and not any better. But they’re afraid to give up their supplements, too, because they don’t want to go backwards, either, and… there’s got to be a better way on both sides, the conventional side and the alternative side, although you and I don’t say it’s alternative, that’s the way medicine should be, but… David Jernigan 47:48Right. Dr. Deb 47:49We have to have a good balance on both sides. David Jernigan 47:52And I will say, too, in defense of doctors using a lot of supplements, I do use a lot of supplements. Dr. Deb 47:57Yeah, I do too. David Jernigan 47:58but I want to synergize what I’m giving the patient so that the carpenter isn’t overwhelmed and can actually get the job done. Like, everything has to work harmoniously together, so it’s not that… It’s not the number of supplements, and why would you need a lot of supplements? Well, because every system in your body is Messed up. My kind of clientele for 30 years. Our clientele, yours and mine. Dr. Deb 48:25Yeah. David Jernigan 48:26They have been sick, For decades, many of them. Dr. Deb 48:31Yeah. David Jernigan 48:31And if they went into a hospital, they honestly need every department. They need endocrinology, they need their kidney doctor, they need their… They’re a cardiologists, they need a neurologist, they need a rheumatologist. I mean, because none of those doctors are gonna deal with everything. They’re just gonna deal with one piece of the puzzle. And if they did get the benefit of all the different departments they need, yeah, they’d go out with a garbage bag full of stuff, too. Dr. Deb 48:57Hey, wood. David Jernigan 48:58Only, they’re not synergized. They don’t work together. You’re creating this chemistry set of who knows how much poison. And I want to tell your listeners, and I mean, you probably say this to your patients as well. There is a law of pharmacy that I learned eons ago, and it applies to natural medicine, too. Dr. Deb 49:21Yep. David Jernigan 49:22But the law says every drug’s primary side effect Is its primary action. So, if you listen to TV, you can see this on commercials. I love… I love listening to these commercials, because I’m like, wow. let’s… let’s… I don’t want to say I’ve named Brandon. I don’t know if that’s…Inappropriate to name a name brand, but let’s just say you have a pharmaceutical that is for sleep. After they show you this beautiful scene of the person restfully sleeping and everything like that, they tell you the truth. It’s like, this may cause sleepiness… I mean, sleeplessness. Dr. Deb 50:04Yeah. David Jernigan 50:04Found insomnia. Dr. Deb 50:06And headaches, and diarrhea. David Jernigan 50:08All the other things, and if it’s an antidepressant, what does the commercial do after it finishes showing you little bunny foo-foo, jumping through a green, happy people? They tell you, this may create depression, severe depression, and suicidal tendencies, which is the ultimate depression. So, I want everyone to understand you need to figure out what your doctor’s tools are that they’re asking you to take, and they’re wanting you to take it forever, generally in mainstream medicine, right? In the hospitals and everything. They don’t say, hey, your heart has this condition, take this medicine for 3 months, after which time you can get off. Dr. Deb 50:48Yep. David Jernigan 50:49not fixing it, right? So… That, on a timeline, there is a point, if it was truly even fixing anything. That you… it’s done what it should do, and you should get off, even if it’s a natural product. It’s just like. Dr. Deb 51:03Right David Jernigan 51:03It’s done what it should do, and you should get off, but instead. you go through the tree… the correction and out the other side, and that’s where it starts manifesting a lot of the same problems that it had. So, anti-inflammatories, painkillers, imagine the number one side effects are pain inflammation. So, the doctor says, well. If you say, hey, I’m having more pain, what does he do? He ups the dosage. And if he… if that doesn’t work, if you’re still in a lot of pain, which he would be, he changes it to a more powerful thing, right? But it starts the cycle all over again. So when you ask me, it’s like, why are we having so much chronic illness? It’s because of the whole philosophy. is the treatment philosophy of mainstream medicine that despises what you and I do. Because we’re… our philosophy from the start is the biggest thing. It’s like… We’re striving for cure. That dirty four-letter word, cure, we’re not even supposed to use it. And yet, if you look it up in Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, it just means a restoration of health. Remission. Everyone’s like, oh, I’m in remission. I’m like, remission is a drug term. It’s a medical term. Again, look it up in a medical dictionary. It is a pharmaceutical term for a temporary pause Or a reduction of your symptom, but because it’s just… symptom suppression, it will come back. It’s… remission is great, I suppose, in… At the end of, like, where you’ve exhausted everything, because I can’t fix everything, I don’t know about you. Dr. Deb 52:41No, I can’t either, yeah. David Jernigan 52:43you know, on my phone consults, I try to always remind people, as much as I get excited about my technologies gosh, I see so much opportunity to fix you. I always try to go, please understand, I’m gonna tell you what most doctors may not tell you on a phone consultation. I can’t fix everything. Dr. Deb 53:03Yeah. David Jernigan 53:03For all of my tricks, I can’t fix everything. Not tricks, but you know, all my technologies, and all my inventions. Phages, too. They are a tool. You know, antibiotics. I think I wrote a blog one time, it should be on my website somewhere, that says, Antibiotics do not… fix… neurological disease, or… I don’t know, something like that. You know, you’re using the wrong tool. I mean, it does what it does. Dr. Deb 53:32Yeah, you’re using a hammer to do what a screwdriver needs to. David Jernigan 53:35Yeah, you know, it’s like it’s… And yet, you can probably tell her… that you’ve had patients, too, that they go, Dr. Jernigan. My throat was so sore, and as soon as I swallowed that antibiotic. I felt better, and I’m, like, going… How long did it take? Oh, it was immediate! I was like, dude, the gel cap didn’t even have time to dissolve, I mean… Dr. Deb 53:58SIBO. David Jernigan 54:00But, it’s not going to repair the tissues that were all raw. kind of stuff. So, I mean, that ulceration of your throat that’s happening, the inflammation, there’s no anti-inflammatory effect of these things. So, I digress a little bit, but phages, too… I wrote an article that’s on the website, that’s setting healthy expectations for phages, because they want… we can see some amazing things happen, things that in my 30 years, I wish I had all my career to do over again, now having this tool. It’s just that much fun. I… when doctors around the country now are starting to use our inducent formulas, there’s, 13 of them now, formulas. For different broad-spectrum illness presentations. I tell them all the same thing, I was like, you are gonna have so much fun. Dr. Deb 54:53That’s exciting. Women. David Jernigan 54:54Winning is fun, you know? I was like. You know, mainstream medicine may never accept this, I don’t know. I feel a real huge burden, though, to do my best to follow a, very scientific methodology. I’ve published as much as I can publish at this time by myself. I never took money from the… the sources that are out there, because what do they do? They always come… money comes with strings. Dr. Deb 55:22Yes, it does. David Jernigan 55:23I don’t trust… I don’t trust… I mean, if you listen to the, roundtable that Our Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Dr. Deb 55:35Yeah. David Jernigan 55:36On Lyme disease last week the first couple of speakers were, like, pretty legit. I mean, all of them were legit, but I mean, they were, like, senators and congressmen or something like that, I think. And then you have… RFK Jr. himself, who’s legit. Yeah they were fessing up to the fact that, yes, they were suppressing anything to do with Lyme. Dr. Deb 56:00Yeah. David Jernigan 56:00Our… our highest levels of, marbled halls and pillars and… of medicine were doing everything the way I thought they were. They were suppressing me. I was like, how can you ignore the best formulas ever, and still, I think Borreligen, and now, induced native phage therapy are still, I believe, I don’t… I’ve never seen it, I could be wrong. The only natural things that have been documented in a medical methodology. Dr. Deb 56:34Hmm in the natural realm. I mean, all the herbs that we talk about. David Jernigan 56:39You know, there’s one that was really famous for a while, and it said, we gave… so many patients. This product, and other nutritional supplements. And at the end, X number of them were… dramatically better. That’s not research. Dr. Deb 56:57Right. That’s observation. David Jernigan 56:59The trick there was we gave this one thing, and then we gave high-dose proteolytic enzymes, we gave high dose this, we gave high dose that, but at the end of the study, we’re going to point back at the thing we’re trying to sell you as being what did it. Dr. Deb 57:12Which is what we do in all research, pretty much. David Jernigan 57:15Well… Dr. Deb 57:16tried to… David Jernigan 57:17Good guys, I hope. Dr. Deb 57:18Do the way we want, right? In… in conventional… David Jernigan 57:22Yeah. Dr. Deb 57:22Fantastic David Jernigan 57:23Very often, yeah, in conventional medicine, definitely. Yeah. And, it’s kind of scary, isn’t it, how many pharmaceuticals are slamming us with, because they’re… Dr. Deb 57:33Okay. David Jernigan 57:34There’s a new one on TV every day, and there’s. Dr. Deb 57:36Every day, yes. David Jernigan 57:37It’s like, who comes up with these names? They’re just horrible. Dr. Deb 57:40Yeah, you can’t pronounce them. David Jernigan 57:41I want to be a marketing company and come up with some Zimbabwehika, or something that actually they go with, and I’m like, I just made a million bucks coming up with it. I’ll be glad when that’s not on the TV anymore, which… Oh, me too. Me too. Dr. Deb 57:54Dr. Jaredgen, this was really wonderful. What do you want to leave our listeners with? David Jernigan 58:00Well, you know, everyone’s calling for a new treatment. Dr. Deb 58:05Yeah. You bet. David Jernigan 58:08I have done everything I can do to get it out there, scientifically, in peer review, so that if you want to look up my name. Dr. Deb 58:16I published an open access journal so that you didn’t have to buy the articles. Like, PubMed, you have to be a member. If you want to look at a lot of the research, you have to buy the articles. David Jernigan 58:26I’ve done everything open access so that people had access to the information. I honestly created induced native phage therapy to fix my own wife. I mean, I… I was… I used to think I could actually fix almost anything. Gave me enough time. And, I could not fix her. You know, the first 10 years, she was bedridden. Dr. Deb 58:49Wow. David Jernigan 58:50People go, oh, it’s easy for you, Dr. Jernigan, you’re a doctor. Dr. Deb 58:54Oh yeah, right? Yeah. David Jernigan 58:56Oh my gosh, how many tears have been shed, and how much heartache, and how much of this and that. I mean, 90% of our marriage, she was in, bed, just missing Christmas. All the horror stories you hear in the Lime world, that was her, and I could not get her completely well. And, she’s a very discerning woman. I say that in all my podcasts, because it’s. Dr. Deb 59:19Just… David Jernigan 59:16Amazing. It’s like, every husband, I think, should want a wife that’s… Always, right? Not that you surrender your own opinion, but it’s like, it’s… it was literally, I don’t know what, 6 months before the ILADS conference in Boston in 2029… in 2019 that She said, are you going to the ILADS conference this year? And I’m like, I’ve been going for, like, 15, 20 years, however long it’s been going on, and I was like, I’m not gonna go to this one. And, 3 days before the conference, she says, I think you should go. And I go, okay. Like I say, she’s generally right. And that… I bought a Scientific American magazine at the newsstand in the Nashville airport. Started reading a story about phages in that that copped that edition of the Scientific American, and It was a good article, but it wasn’t super meaty, you know. very deep on those, but I just was stimulated. Something about being at elevation. Dr. Deb 1:00:02Yeah. Your own mountains, I don’t know, I get all inspired. David Jernigan 1:00:25And I wrote in the margins and highlighted this and that until it was, like, ultimately, I spent the entire conference hammering this out. And it worked. And it’s been working, it’s just amazing. It’s… We’re over 200 different infections that we’ve… we’ve clinically or laboratory-wise documented. There’s a new test for my GenX called the CEPCR Lyme Panel. like, culture. 64 different types of infections, and I believe right now the latest count is something like 10 for 10 were completely negative. Dr. Deb 1:01:03Wow. David Jernigan 1:01:03These chronically infected people. And so, that hadn’t been published anywhere. So, in my published article, remember I was talking about that 20 out of the 26 were tested as negative for the infection? That doesn’t mean they’re cured, okay? Remember, they’re chronically damaged. That’s how we need to look at it. Dr. Deb 1:01:23funny David Jernigan 1:01:24damaged. You’re not just chronically infected. And, but with 30-day treatment.24 out of the 26 were tested as negative. Dr. Deb Muth 1:01:34That’s amazing. David Jernigan 1:01:35So 92% of the people were negative.Okay? The chances of that happening, when you run it through statistical analysis.The chances… when you compare the results to the sensitivity percentages, you know, the 100% specificity and 92% sensitivity of the…Of the lab testIt’s a 4.5 nonillion to 1 chance that it was a fluke. Isn’t that amazing? Now, nearly… I’m not even sure how many zeros that is, but it’s a lot. Dr. Deb Muth 1:02:08That’s is awesome. David Jernigan 1:02:09Like, if I just said, well, it’s a one in a million chance it was a fluke.Okay.So, lab tests don’t lie. You’re not done, necessarily, just because you got rid of the infections. Now that formula for Lyme has grown to be 90-plusmicrobes targeted in the one formula. So, we figured out we can actually target individually, but collectively, almost like an antibiotic that’s laser-guided to only go after the bad guys that we targeted.So, all the Borrelia types are targeted, all the Babesias, for,the Bartonellas, the anaplasmosis, you name it, mycoplasma types are all targeted in that one formula, because I said.Took my collective 30 years of experience and 15,000 patients.that I would typically see as co-infections and put them into that one formula, so…When we get these tests coming back that are testing for 64, it’s because of that.So, there’s a lot of coolnesses that I could actually keep going and going. Dr. Deb Muth 1:03:15That’s exciting. David Jernigan 1:03:15I love this topic, but I thank you for letting me come on. Dr. Deb Muth 1:03:18Thank you for joining us. How can people find you? David Jernigan 1:03:22Two ways. There’s the Phagen Corp company that is now manufacturing my formulas.That is P-H-A-G-E-N-C-O-R-P dot com. Practitioners can go there, and there’s a practitioner side of the website that’s very beefy with science, and… and all the formulas that were used, what’s inside of all the formulas, meaning what microbes are targeted by each one. Like, there’s a GI formula, there’s a UTI formula, there’s a SIRS formula, there’s a Lyme formula, there’s a central nervous system type infection formula, there’s… And we can keep going, you know, SIBO, SIFO formula, mold formula… I mean, we’ve discovered so many things that I could just keep going for hours, and… Dr. Deb Muth 1:04:05Yeah. David Jernigan 1:04:06About the discoveries, from where it started in its humble beginnings, To now, so… There’s another way, if you wanted to see our clinic website, is Biologics, with an X, so B-I-O-L-O-G-I-X, Center, C-E-N-T-E-R dot com. And, if somebody thinks they want to be a patient and experience this at our clinic, typically we don’t take just Easy stuff. All we see is chronic.Chronic cases from all over the world. Something like 96% of our patients come from other states and countries. And typically, I’ve been close to 90% for my whole career.About 30-something percent come from other countries in that, so… we’ve gotten really good and learned a lot in having to deal with what nobody else knows what to do with. But if you do want to do that, you can contact us. And, if you… If you don’t get the answers from my patient care staff, then I do free consultations. With the people that are thinking about, whether we can help them or not. Dr. Deb Muth 1:05:13Well, that’s excellent. For those of you who are driving or don’t have any way of writing things down, don’t worry about it, we’ve got you. We will have all of his contact information in our show notes, so you will be able to reach out to him. Thank you again for joining me. This has been an amazing conversation. David Jernigan 1:05:30Thank you, I appreciate you having me on. It was a lot of fun. The post Episode 252 – Induced Native Phage Therapy (INPT) & advanced natural therapies first appeared on Let's Talk Wellness Now.
Pool Pros text questions hereOn this Talking Pools episode, host Natalie Hood, Director of Education and Network Development for The Grit Game, sits down with Jodi O'Grady, Director of Commercial Sales for API Water and long-time industry chemist, to unpack one of the most misunderstood topics in pool care: specialty chemicals.Chlorine gets all the attention, but oxidizers, enzymes, and flocculants quietly decide whether your water is comfortable, clear, and compliant—or a cloudy, smelly headache full of disinfection byproducts and complaints. Jodi draws on decades with Taylor Water Technologies and her work on PHTA's Technical Advisory Council to bust myths, explain the science in plain language, and show how specialty products can support (not replace) chlorine to keep pools safer and easier to manage.If you've ever wondered whether non-chlorine shock actually does anything, if enzymes are all “basically the same,” or what Flock It Friday is really about, this episode connects the dots.In This Episode, You'll Learn:Chlorine's job vs. specialty chemicals' jobWhy chlorine (or bromine/PHMB) is irreplaceable as a sanitizer and must be EPA-registered to be counted as such.The difference between sanitizing (killing pathogens like Pseudomonas and brain-eating amoeba in properly chlorinated water) and oxidizing (burning off non-living contaminants).Why “chlorine can be replaced by specialty chemicals” is a myth—and how crypto is a different beast entirely.Non-chlorine oxidizers: the quiet workhorseReal-world impact of high chlorine levelsEnzymes: not “all the same”Myth-busting with real storiesFlock It Friday and how flocculants actually workClarity as a safety standard, not a luxuryThe payoff for pros and operatorsGuest Info – Jodi O'Grady, API WaterDirector of Commercial Sales, API WaterNearly 30 years in the pool industry, starting with Taylor Water Technologies (a Fluidra brand)Chemistry degree and long-time volunteer with PHTA, currently Vice Chair of the Technical Advisory Council, with prior work on the Recreational Water and Air Quality Committee.Jodi is available for follow-up questions and industry conversations via LinkedIn and direct contact (details provided in the episode outro).Host Info – Natalie HoodDirector of Education and Network Development, The Grit Game, and regular host on the Talking Pools Podcast, focused on education, professional development, and giving pool pros real-world tools they can use on deck tomorrow. Support the showThank you so much for listening! You can find us on social media: Facebook Instagram Tik Tok Email us: talkingpools@gmail.com
It's World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) and we have prepared a special episode in light of that. In this week's Communicable, Navaneeth Narayanan and Thomas Tängdén host Aula Abbara (London, UK), Guido Granata (Rome, Italy) and Tuomas Aro (Helsinki, Finland) to discuss the phenomenon of AMR in conflict and crisis zones. They elaborate on how difficult conditions and austere environments amplify the spread of AMR, drawing on findings from the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and other regions. Other topics covered include adapting antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control (IPC) practices as well as the need for genuine political will and international collaboration to end conflicts and their exacerbation on AMR.This episode follows the webinar “Beyond the frontlines” organised by ESCMID's AMR Action Subcommittee for WAAW 2025, featuring the same guests, and is available on ESCMID Media. This Communicable episode was peer reviewed by Arjana Zerja of Mother Theresa University Hospital Centre, Tirana, Albania. Related ESCMID and Communicable mediaESCMID Media, Part 1: Beyond the frontlines - tackling AMR in conflict and crisis zones, webinar Communicable episode 11: Nightmare series, part 2 – how to deal with carbapenemase producers Communicable episode 16: Climate change and infections – effects on clinical practice & sustainabilityResourcesTrainee Association of ESCIMD (TAE) Doctors without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières), Antibiogo, https://www.antibiogo.org/Doctors without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières), Mini-lab, https://fondation.msf.fr/en/projects/mini-lab Further ReadingAbbara A, et al. Unravelling the linkages between conflict and antimicrobial resistance. NPJ Antimicrob Resist. 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s44259-025-00099-yAbbara A, et al. A summary and appraisal of existing evidence of antimicrobial resistance in the Syrian conflict. Int J Infect Dis. 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2018.06.010Abu-Shomar R, et al. Multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas isolated from water at primary health care centers in Gaza, Palestine: a cross-sectional study. IJID Reg. 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijregi.2025.100671Aldbis A, et al. The lived experience of patients with conflict associated injuries whose wounds are affected by antimicrobial resistant organisms: a qualitative study from northwest Syria. Confl Health. 2023. DOI: 10.1186/s13031-023-00501-4Aro T, et al. War on antimicrobial resistance: high carriage rates of multidrug-resistant bacteria among war-injured Ukrainian refugees. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2025.07.010 Bazzi W, et al. Heavy Metal Toxicity in Armed Conflicts Potentiates AMR in A. baumannii by Selecting for Antibiotic and Heavy Metal Co-resistance Mechanisms. Front Microbiol. 2020. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.00068 Dewachi O. War Biology and Antimicrobial Resistance: The Case of Gaza, AMR Insights, 2024.Granata G, et al. The impact of armed conflict on the development and global spread of antibiotic resistance: a systematic review. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2024.03.029 Huang XZ, et al. Molecular analysis of imipenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from US service members wounded in Iraq, 2003-2008. Epidemiol Infect. 2012. DOI: 10.1017/S0950268811002871Hujer KM, et al. Analysis of antibiotic resistance genes in multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter sp. isolates from military and civilian patients treated at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2006. DOI: 10.1128/AAC.00778-06Karah N, et al. Teleclinical Microbiology: An Innovative Approach to Providing Web-Enabled Diagnostic Laboratory Services in Syria. Am J Clin Pathol. 2022. DOI: 10.1093/ajcp/aqab160Keen EF 3rd, et al. Evaluation of potential environmental contamination sources for the presence of multidrug-resistant bacteria linked to wound infections in combat casualties. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2012. DOI: 10.1086/667382Murray CK, et al. Recovery of multidrug-resistant bacteria from combat personnel evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan at a single military treatment facility. Mil Med. 2009. DOI: 10.7205/milmed-d-03-8008Petersen K, et al. Diversity and clinical impact of Acinetobacter baumannii colonization and infection at a military medical center. J Clin Microbiol. 2011. DOI: 10.1128/JCM.00766-10Scott P, et al. An outbreak of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex infection in the US military health care system associated with military operations in Iraq. Clin Infect Dis. 2007. DOI: 10.1086/518170Sensenig RA, et al. Longitudinal characterization of Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonizing and infecting combat casualties. Am J Infect Control. 2012. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2011.03.025World Health Organization. Fourth WHO Global Evidence Review on Health and Migration stresses that equitable access to and appropriate use of antibiotics for refugees and migrants is essential to tackling Antimicrobial Resistance, News, 2022.
In this Micro Minutes episode, Luis breaks down classic microbiology traits that usually hold true, but not always. From indole-negative E. coli to non-swarming Proteus and oxidase-negative Pseudomonas, this quick episode highlights real-world exceptions that can catch techs and students off guard. Learn how to spot: Indole-negative E. coli (98% rule + inactive biotypes) Lactose-fermenting look-alikes like Citrobacter freundii Proteus species that don't swarm Pseudomonas species that test oxidase negative A fast, practical reminder that no single biochemical test should stand alone. Stay connected with Let's Talk Micro: Website: letstalkmicro.com Questions or feedback? Email me at letstalkmicro@outlook.com Interested in being a guest on Let's Talk Micro? Fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/V2fT3asjfyusmqyi8 Support the podcast: Venmo Buy me a Ko-fi
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Matters Microbial #113: Microbes That Swim, Swarm, Stand Up—and ‘Walk' October 24, 2025 Today Dr. Joshua Shrout, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss the work of his research team on sociomicrobiology. This includes how bacteria sense a surface, move together in groups, and communicate with one another. Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Joshua Shrout Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode Here is a wonderful video about the late great Dr. Esther Lederberg. Here is another article on that same subject. Here is an article about prodigiosin synthesis and Serratia marcescens. An introduction to the concept of sociomicrobiology. An overview of bacterial swarming. Here is a wonderful swarming video. An overview of bacterial swimming in liquid. An article about group/social motility in Myxococcus. A fine video explaining the amazing bacterial flagellar motor. An article about Vibrio parahaemolyticus and swarming. An overview of quorum sensing. Bacteria cultivated in the laboratory undergo mutational changes during “domestication.” Pigments produced by Pseudomonas, including pyoverdin and pyocyanin. An article from Dr. Shrout's laboratory group describing interactions between Pseudomonas and Enterococcus described in this episode. The Type IV pili-based motility system. An article from Dr. Shrout's laboratory describing how Pseudomonas can “walk” on one pole during swarming. Here is a video from Dr. Shrout's laboratory showing Pseudomonas “walking” on their poles. An overview video of the Shrout laboratory's research interests. Dr. Shrout's faculty website. Dr. Shrout's truly beautiful research website. There are wonderful microbial videos there. Very much worth your time. Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
In this episode Ed interviews Dr. Deb Samac of the USDA-ARS. They discuss the long-overlooked disease of alfalfa, bacterial stem blight. Additional Resources https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PHYTO-02-23-0059-R?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed Time Stamps (0:00) Introductions (4:06) Overview of alfalfa production Skip to the main topic: (16:30) Bacterial stem blight (21:33) The role of frost (25:00) Pathogen differentiation (30:15) Pseudomonas and ice nucleation (39:02) Disease management (49:15) wrap-up How to cite the podcast: Zaworski, E. (Host) Samac, D.(Interviewee). S4:E38 (Podcast). Blightmare on Stem Street: Alfalfa Bacterial Stem Blight. 10/22/2025. In I See Dead Plants. Crop Protection Network. Transcript
Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals
Cefepime is a fourth-generation cephalosporin antibiotic with broad-spectrum activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative organisms, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It works by inhibiting bacterial cell wall synthesis through binding to penicillin-binding proteins, leading to cell lysis and death. Clinically, cefepime is commonly used in hospital settings for serious infections such as pneumonia, febrile neutropenia, urinary tract infections, skin infections, and intra-abdominal infections. It's typically administered intravenously, with doses often ranging from 1 to 2 grams every 8 to 12 hours depending on the indication and renal function. From a pharmacokinetic standpoint, cefepime is primarily renally eliminated, so dose adjustments are required in patients with impaired kidney function. Failure to reduce the dose appropriately can lead to neurotoxicity — one of the key adverse effects associated with cefepime — manifesting as encephalopathy, confusion, myoclonus, or seizures, particularly in elderly or renally impaired patients. Common side effects include gastrointestinal upset and rash. Cefepime has relatively limited drug interactions, though concurrent nephrotoxic agents can increase the risk of renal injury.
Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals
Zosyn (piperacillin/tazobactam) is a broad-spectrum β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor combination used widely in hospitals. Piperacillin covers gram-positive, gram-negative, and anaerobic bacteria, while tazobactam helps protect against β-lactamase breakdown. It is commonly used for pneumonia, intra-abdominal infections, skin and soft tissue infections, and febrile neutropenia. An important pharmacology pearl for exams is understanding that Pseudomonas, but it doesn't cover MRSA. The drug is renally eliminated, so dosing adjustments are needed in kidney impairment. Many institutions use extended or prolonged infusions to maximize time above the MIC, which can improve efficacy. Standard dosing is 3.375 g to 4.5 g every 6–8 hours, with modifications for dialysis patients. Adverse effects include hypersensitivity, gastrointestinal upset, electrolyte imbalances like hypokalemia, and blood count changes with prolonged therapy. A key clinical concern is nephrotoxicity risk, especially when used with vancomycin. Monitoring renal function and electrolytes are important. Methotrexate and probenecid are two medications that can interact with Zosyn. Concentrations of Zosyn can be increased when these medications are used in combination.
Die Themen in den Wissensnachrichten +++ Lebenswichtige Systeme der Erde überlastet +++ Styropor mit Hilfe von Bakterium recycelt +++ Phänomen "Zoom-Fatigue" überschätzt? +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Planetary Health Check 2025, Planetary Boundaries Science, 24.09.2025Biological upcycling of polystyrene into ready-to-use plastic monomers and plastics using metabolicallyBiological upcycling of polystyrene into ready-to-use plastic monomers and plastics using metabolically engineered Pseudomonas putida, Chemical Engineering Journal, 15.09.2025 engineered Pseudomonas putida, Chemical Engineering Journal, 15.09.2025First detection of Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever antibodies in cattle and wildlife of southern continental France: Investigation of explanatory factors, Plos One, 24.09.2025Mummified cave Cheetah inform rewilding actions in Saudi Arabia, Research Square, 01.09.2025Volcanic crisis reveals coupled magma system at Santorini and Kolumbo, Nature, 24.09.2025Alle Quellen findet ihr hier.**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok und Instagram .
NT is a 55-year-old man admitted to the general medicine service with cellulitis of his left leg. When the attending sees him the morning after admission, he notices the patient's “Medical Center Trustee” hospital ID on his bedside table. After gathering a history and examining the leg, the attending leaves the room. In the hallway, he crosses paths with the hospital president, who is there to make a “social call”. She smiles and says to the attending, “Don't let anything bad happen.”Sensible Medicine is reader-supported. If you appreciate our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Every clinician is familiar with the Very Important Patient, the VIP. Defining the VIP is challenging. In the most general sense, the VIP is a patient whose care imposes an additional burden on the clinician. The VIP is perceived to have an elevated social status, typically due to fame, wealth, connections, or power.The VIP may come to his or her status in several ways. The VIP might claim that status herself. The status might be granted by a third party, such as the source of the referral, or outside realities (fame, fortune, power). Sometimes, VIP status is granted by the physician alone.The physician recognizes that an untoward outcome in the care of the VIP — clinical or otherwise, expected or unexpected — will be acknowledged by a wider community and might be particularly unpleasant for the treating physician.VIP patients are a threat to healthcare. They need to be eradicated from hospitals and clinics as ruthlessly as we would eradicate E. coli from a well, Pseudomonas from a hot tub, or Legionella from a hotel HVAC system.Why should we eliminate the VIP? Because a patient's wealth, station, or connections should have no bearing on the tests that are done, the treatments that are offered, or the haste with which care is provided.I have heard people argue about whether basic healthcare is a human right. I have heard people who agree that basic healthcare is a human right argue about what makes up basic healthcare and who should decide what qualifies. I have never heard people argue about whether people deserve different care based on their identity.The most obvious threat the VIP poses is to himself. We recognize that when people are treated as special, they are at risk of getting worse healthcare. This fact underlies the guidance that physicians avoid caring for close friends and relatives. The AMA Code of Medical Ethics states:When the patient is an immediate family member, the physician's personal feelings may unduly influence his or her professional medical judgment. Or the physician may fail to probe sensitive areas when taking the medical history or to perform intimate parts of the physical examination. Physicians may feel obligated to provide care for family members despite feeling uncomfortable doing so. They may also be inclined to treat problems that are beyond their expertise or training.You could easily replace family member with VIP. While we can all avoid treating family members and close friends, VIPs are a reality in every physician's life. Transferring their care to another physician usually does not change the circumstances.Ben Kean, an exceptionally colorful character and my parasitology teacher in medical school, shared a story about the risks VIP healthcare poses to the VIP. He once suggested that a patient with pneumonia — a patient who was also famous, wealthy, and important — be transferred from a private hospital to a public one, and treated under a pseudonym."But why a public hospital, when I have a good private clinic here with the best doctors and nurses?""There are two ingredients essential to your recovery," I explained, "that can't be found here and that you cannot buy. These are things found only at a large public institution, where hundreds of patients are seen each day, many of whom suffer from pneumonia. First, you need a large house staff -- bright, young people with new ideas and with daily experience in dealing with desperate situations. Second, you need a laboratory with specialized technicians available around the clock to monitor your breathing, to do special culture work for bacteria and parasites. This is a lovely private hospital, but the kind of help you need isn't available here."Then there is the reality that if you treat VIPs differently, and it becomes known, it is a bad look. Just ask the leadership of NYU Langone Health.But the threat of the VIP goes beyond personal risk. The overtesting, overtreatment, and early diagnosis that have been described not only threaten the VIP but are also bad for our healthcare system. Overspending and excess erode other people's care. An unnecessary MRI ordered for the VIP's week of sciatica may delay the diagnosis of cord compression in the non-VIP with back pain and prostate cancer.VIP treatment can lead to ill will among members of the healthcare team. Teams bond when they work together for the benefit of a patient. With VIPs, team members most under the patient's sway may suggest management at odds with that proposed by team members less influenced by the patient's status. It is not hard to imagine moral injury if a healthcare worker perceives they are acting because of who a patient is rather than because of what the patient needs.If a team bows to pressure, the ethics of medicine are compromised. Other patients will perceive a tiered system, and this will undermine their faith in medicine.Eradicating the VIP from healthcare is certainly more difficult than getting rid of E. coli, Pseudomonas, or Legionella. How do we ensure that the homeless man, with no wealth, power, or family, receives the same care as the woman for whom the hospital is named?It may be hard to eradicate the VIP when healthcare itself has played a significant role in creating the VIP. Hospital marketing and rankings promote the idea that doctors and hospitals are not equal. They do this to attract the “best payer mix” so they can build shiny new facilities. If patients, with their expensive, private insurance, are drawn to a medical center because of the rankings, should we be surprised if they expect something for their money and effort?I wish there were an easy answer. There is not. It is possible that Mick and Keith are our best guides here.As clinicians, we know that we need to provide the best care possible for our patients. We also recognize that different people want different things from their healthcare. Some people just want to be left alone at night, others want an extra cup of tea with breakfast, and others want a visit from the hospital president. If these allowances truly do not affect the care of patients, all patients, then there is no harm in providing the desired care in addition to the necessary care. Once management of the VIP threatens to affect care, hers or that of her fellow patients, then physicians need to recommit to their pledge to care for everyone equally, regardless of who they are. This is at the core of the practice of medicine. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sensible-med.com/subscribe
On episode #89 of the Infectious Disease Puscast, Daniel and Sara review the infectious disease literature for the weeks of 8/18/25 – 9/11/25. Host: Daniel Griffin and Sara Dong Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of Puscast! Links for this episode Viral Antibody Responses are Sustained 2 Years Post-Mpox Infection but not Following Modified Vaccinia Ankara–Bavarian Nordic Vaccination (OFID) Intestinal mucosal immune responses to novel oral poliovirus vaccine type 2 in healthy newborns (CID) Efficacy of Baloxavir Treatment in Preventing Transmission of Influenza (NEJM) Fulminant Viral Myocarditis Associated with Thogotovirus (NEJM) Bacterial Risk factors for 30-Day mortality and the role of empirical therapy in Pseudomonas aeruginosa bloodstream infections(Infection) The Impact of a Nationwide Blood Culture Bottle Shortage in 2024 on Healthcare Facilities in the United States (CID) The effect of commonly used non-antibiotic medications on antimicrobial resistance development in Escherichia coli(NPJ: antimicrobials and resistance) Preoperative Enterosignatures Predict Surgical Site Infections After Abdominal Surgery (OFID) Fungal The Last of US Season 2 (YouTube) Association between Duration of Candidemia and Clinical and Healthcare Resource Utilization Outcomes among Hospitalized Adult Patients with Candidemia Who Received Empiric Treatment with an Echinocandin Across United States Hospitals (CID) Updating the epidemiology of blastomycosis and histoplasmosis in the United States, using national electronic health record data, 2013–2023 (JID) Parasitic Stocking African catfish in Lake Victoria provides effective biocontrol of snail vectors of Schistosoma mansoni (PLoS Neglected Tropical Disease) Miscellaneous Music is by Ronald Jenkees Information on this podcast should not be considered as medical advice.
À l'ère du smartphone et du télétravail, les écouteurs font désormais partie de notre quotidien. Que ce soit pour écouter de la musique, téléphoner ou suivre une visioconférence, ils restent des heures durant dans nos oreilles. Mais ce geste anodin est-il sans risque pour notre santé ? Plus précisément, peut-il favoriser l'apparition d'otites ?La réponse est oui, dans certains cas. Les spécialistes ORL s'accordent sur un point : l'usage prolongé et répété d'écouteurs intra-auriculaires peut créer un environnement propice aux infections, en particulier les otites externes, c'est-à-dire les inflammations du conduit auditif.Une étude publiée en 2008 dans le Journal of Laryngology and Otology (par Leong et al.) a comparé le conduit auditif de deux groupes : un groupe portant régulièrement des écouteurs, et un groupe n'en utilisant jamais. Résultat : les utilisateurs fréquents d'écouteurs présentaient un taux significativement plus élevé de bactéries pathogènes, notamment Staphylococcus aureus et Pseudomonas aeruginosa, des germes souvent impliqués dans les otites externes.Pourquoi ce lien entre écouteurs et otites ? Plusieurs mécanismes sont en cause :1. Obstruction du conduit auditif : les écouteurs, surtout intra-auriculaires, empêchent la bonne ventilation du canal. L'humidité naturelle ne s'évacue pas correctement, créant un terrain chaud et humide, idéal pour la prolifération des bactéries.2. Microtraumatismes : le frottement régulier des embouts ou leur insertion brutale peut irriter la peau du conduit, facilitant l'entrée des agents infectieux.3. Manque d'hygiène : peu d'utilisateurs nettoient leurs écouteurs régulièrement. Or, ces dispositifs sont souvent posés sur des surfaces non stériles ou partagés entre plusieurs personnes. Les germes présents sur les écouteurs peuvent ainsi être introduits dans l'oreille à chaque usage.Les symptômes d'une otite externe liée aux écouteurs sont classiques : douleurs, démangeaisons, rougeur du conduit auditif, voire écoulement. Dans certains cas, l'audition peut temporairement diminuer. Si ces signes apparaissent, il est recommandé d'arrêter immédiatement l'usage des écouteurs et de consulter un médecin.Pour limiter les risques, quelques gestes simples suffisent :Ne pas porter d'écouteurs plus de deux heures d'affilée.Les désinfecter régulièrement avec un chiffon doux imbibé d'alcool à 70 %.Éviter de les partager.Aérer ses oreilles entre deux utilisations.En conclusion, si les écouteurs ne sont pas à l'origine directe de toutes les otites, leur usage excessif et négligent peut en augmenter la probabilité, notamment en cas de mauvaise hygiène. Pour écouter en toute sécurité, mieux vaut penser aussi à… laisser respirer ses oreilles. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.
Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals
On this podcast, I cover ciprofloxacin pharmacology. Ciprofloxacin is one of the most widely recognized fluoroquinolone antibiotics and has been on the market for decades. Because of its broad utility, it often comes up in practice, but it also carries significant adverse effect concerns and boxed warnings that pharmacists and prescribers need to keep in mind. From a pharmacology standpoint, ciprofloxacin works by inhibiting bacterial DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV, enzymes that are essential for bacterial DNA replication, transcription, and repair. This action gives ciprofloxacin bactericidal activity against a variety of gram-negative organisms, including E. coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It also has some gram-positive activity, though it is generally not the best choice for strep infections. Ciprofloxacin comes in multiple dosage forms, including oral tablets, oral suspension, and intravenous formulations, which makes it flexible across care settings. I discuss the conversion of IV and PO formulations. Pharmacokinetics are important to consider. Ciprofloxacin is primarily renally eliminated, so dose adjustments are necessary in patients with impaired kidney function. Distribution into tissues is generally good, but it has limited activity in the lungs against Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is why it is not a first-line option for community-acquired pneumonia. Adverse effects are a major concern. The fluoroquinolone class carries multiple boxed warnings. Ciprofloxacin has been associated with tendon rupture, peripheral neuropathy, CNS effects such as agitation or seizures, and exacerbation of myasthenia gravis. More recent warnings include the risk for aortic aneurysm and hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, particularly in older adults or those with comorbidities. On top of these boxed warnings, ciprofloxacin can also prolong the QT interval and cause GI upset. Drug interactions are another big factor in practice. Ciprofloxacin is a CYP1A2 inhibitor, which can raise levels of drugs like theophylline, tizanidine, and clozapine. It also interacts with polyvalent cations such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and aluminum, which can dramatically reduce its absorption—sometimes by more than 50%. This is a common reason for treatment failure if counseling isn't provided. From a dosing perspective, ciprofloxacin is usually given 250–750 mg orally twice daily or 400 mg IV every 8–12 hours depending on the indication and severity of infection. Renal dosing adjustments are needed as kidney function declines. In summary, ciprofloxacin is a powerful antibiotic when used appropriately. It remains an option for urinary tract infections, complicated intra-abdominal infections, and some cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia, but its use must be balanced with the potential for significant adverse effects and interactions. For pharmacists, educating patients on drug interactions, counseling about boxed warnings, and ensuring correct dosing in renal impairment are some of the most valuable interventions when ciprofloxacin shows up on a medication list.
Listen in as Michael Satlin, MD, MS, FIDSA,explores rapid syndromic testing for bloodstream infections and discusses how to apply best practices for diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship in syndromic testing.Topics covered include:Types of upper and lower respiratory infection panelsConsiderations for when to use respiratory syndromic testingHow to use syndromic testing to guide both therapy escalation and de-escalationHow syndromic testing fits in with traditional testing methods, such as culture, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, Gram stain, and BAL cell count Presenter:Michael Satlin, MD, MS, FIDSAAssociate Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Laboratory MedicineWeill Cornell MedicineNew York, New YorkLink to full program: https://bit.ly/3UAB1oUGet access to all of our new podcasts by subscribing to the CCO Infectious Disease Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.
It is really difficult to know what topical treatment options to consider when dealing with a ruptured tympanum. When a difficult multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas otitis occurs, it is very common to have the tympanum ruptured. So, what do you do? Being cautious and upfront with owners about labeling is important. However, bad infections are also ototoxic and it is important we treat them appropriately.On this week's episode of The Derm Vet podcast, I discuss things to consider when dealing with a ruptured TM, what to do if you do experience a case with ototoxicity, and considering the risks/benefits of selecting treatment for difficult otitis cases.00:00 Intro00:25 Treating ear infection02:23 Ear Exams04:36 Most commonly reported to be ototoxic09:15 Dogs with ear infections going on for a long time10:28 Risk vs Benefit11:20 Summary/Outro
In this inspiring episode of the BioBuilder Podcast, Dev and Joshua, co-founders of the startup AIVON, take listeners through their personal journeys of curiosity, innovation, and social impact. The conversation weaves through their formative experiences with science and technology, their time in the BioBuilderClub, and their ambitious venture into the world of AI-powered healthcare. Origins of Scientific CuriosityDev recounts how growing up in a science-loving household, with parents and an aunt deeply engaged in the subject, laid the groundwork for his fascination. From tinkering with technology alongside his dad to wondering about disease mechanisms, he developed an early love for biology and engineering. This curiosity eventually led him to Alliance Academy, where he joined the BioBuilder Club, a decision that would define much of his scientific identity. The BioBuilder ExperienceAs part of the BioBuilder program, Dev and his team designed a sustainable biofiltration system that uses genetically engineered bacteria (E. coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas putida) to remove heavy metals from water. The bacteria were enhanced with plasmids encoding metal-detoxifying enzymes and embedded in a biochar-based medium for stability and efficiency. Their modular, scalable filter design bridged biology and engineering in a way that was both educational and impactful. Dev credits BioBuilder for teaching him adaptability, technical rigor, and how to bring abstract ideas to life. Collaboration & DiscoveryThe episode explores how Dev collaborated with peers to develop their project, noting “aha!” moments when the science began to click. The iterative nature of their work, coupled with expert guidance from mentors like Dr. Grace Vezeau and Ms. Caroline Matarrese, helped deepen their understanding of real-world science. Soft skills like communication and teamwork were just as vital as technical prowess, a lesson Dev carries into his startup journey into career paths, possibly through an MD-PhD program.Building AIVON and MedisenseShifting to the theme of innovation, Dev and Joshua introduce their startup AIVON, based in Atlanta. Their flagship product, MediSense, is an AI-powered diagnostic platform that allows users to input symptoms and receive real-time health assessments. The idea was born from the intersection of their scientific training and the urgent need for accessible, intelligent healthcare tools.They share how conversations with patients, doctors, and mentors shaped MediSense's design and functionality, emphasizing the importance of user feedback in product development. Their goal is to make fast, affordable, and intelligent diagnostics available to everyone, especially in underserved areas. Despite challenges—from building the tech to managing startup logistics—they remain focused on scaling the product and seeking potential partnerships with hospitals and schools.Learn more about BioBuilder's programs for students, educators, and industry professionals here
Matters Microbial #95: Bacteria and Aphids — A Symbiotic Story June 12, 2025 Today, Dr. Tory Hendry, Associate Professor of Microbiology at Cornell University, joins the #QualityQuorum to tell us about the relationship between plant munching aphids and fluorescent Pseudomonas . . . and why we should care. Host: Mark O. Martin Guests: Tory Hendry Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode An overview of siderophores in microorganisms. An essay about aphid life cycle and characteristics. An article describing parthenogenesis in aphids. An essay describing aphids and color vision. The agricultural costs of aphids as pests. An article describing aphids and one type of bacterial symbiont. An overview of microbes of the phyllosphere. An overview of quorum sensing. An overview of pyoverdin, a fluorescent siderophore. An old essay I wrote for the Small Things Considered blog about semiochemicals, bacterial, and insect predation. A nice description of the work Dr. Hendry talked about during today's podcast. The actual article by Dr. Hendry and collaborators. A preprint by Dr. Hendry's research group, following up on the above research. Dr. Hendry's faculty website. Dr. Hendry's research group website (with SO MANY cool projects to think about, including the topic discussed today). Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJw-DmORycV/These tattoo inks are contaminated with dangerous bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Affected are: Sacred Tattoo Ink, Raven Black - Lot#: RB0624, Best Before: June 28, 2027; Sacred Tattoo Ink, Sunny Daze - Lot#: SD1124, Best Before: November 1, 2027. These inks cause serious infections with rashes, lesions, and permanent scarring.If you are planning to get some ink, inquire about the inks used and avoid the ones I just mentioned. For more information or to report a complications, visit the FDA's SmartHub at https://safetyreporting.fda.gov/smarthub.https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/fda-advises-consumers-tattoo-artists-and-retailers-avoid-using-or-selling-certain-sacred-tattoo-ink#sacredtattoo #tattoo #ink # bacteria #pseudomonas #infection #recall
TWiV reviews universal vaccine initiative at NIAID, shut down of the Integrated Research Facility at Ft. Detrick, modeling the reemergence of infectious diseases as vaccination rates drop, and bacterial outer membrane vesicles bound to bacteriophages modulate neutrophil responses to bacterial infection. Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Jolene Ramsey Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Links for this episode Support science education at MicrobeTV ASV 2025 Paul has Measles (YouTube, virology blog) Universal vaccine project (NIAID, CIDRAP) Measles update (US, Texas) Integrated Research Lab closed (Telegraph) Modeling reemergence of infectious diseases (JAMA) Outer membrane vesicles attached to phage (Front Cell Inf Micro) Pf phage review (Front Immunol) Letters read on TWiV 1215 Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks! Weekly Picks Alan – A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit (and here's my review of it) Jolene – Virology course student communication projects, Spring 2025 Vincent – Vaccine Education Center Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv Content in this podcast should not be construed as medical advice.
Matters Microbial #88: Microbial Interactions in Cystic Fibrosis April 24, 2025 Today, Dr. Reed Stubbendieck, Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at Oklahoma State University joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss how microbes and the host communicate with one another in the cystic fibrosis lung. Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Reed Stubbendieck Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode An overview of cystic fibrosis as a disease with a genetic link. A review of the microbiome of the cystic fibrosis lung. An overview of biofilms. An interesting role for extracellular DNA itself as a “building block” of biofilms. An overview of polymicrobial communities. Life in mucus—an interesting essay. An overview of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Pseudomonas and the siderophore pigment pyoverdin which is not only about iron, but also bacterial conflict and cooperation. An interesting overview of microbe-microbe interactions, often called “sociomicrobiology,” and an introductory article on this topic. A review of the nasal microbiome. The organism Rothia, understudied and of interest to Dr. Stubbendieck's research group. Some work from Dr. Stubbendieck's group describing how Rothia is helpful in inhibiting some disease causing bacteria. The organism Dolosigranulum pigrum, also understudied and of interest to Dr. Stubbendieck's research group. More work from Dr. Stubbendieck's group with another possibly probiotic bacterium, Dolosigranulum pigrum, that may protect against disease causing microbes. Dr. Stubbendieck's faculty website. Dr. Stubbendieck's very interesting research group website. Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
We're on a gram negative run! Join the Curious Clinicians as we learn: Why does Pseudomonas smell like grapes? Watch this episode on our new YouTube channel here, and read the show notes here! Click here to obtain AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ (0.5 hours), Non-Physician Attendance (0.5 hours), or ABIM MOC Part 2 (0.5 hours). Audio edited by Clair Morgan of Nodderly.com. Medical student Giancarlo Buonomo is our producer.
The Elective Rotation: A Critical Care Hospital Pharmacy Podcast
Show notes at pharmacyjoe.com/episode1000. In this episode, I’ll discuss time to positivity as a predictor of catheter-related bacteremia and mortality in adults with Pseudomonas aeruginosa bloodstream infection. The post 1000: Should Pharmacists Be paying Attention to This Bacteremia Metric? appeared first on Pharmacy Joe.
On episode #73 of the Infectious Disease Puscast, Daniel and Sara review the infectious disease literature for the weeks of 1/16/25 – 1/29/25. Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Sara Dong Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of Puscast! Links for this episode Viral AGA clinical practice guideline on the prevention and treatment of hepatitis B virus reactivation (Gastroenterology) Host-microbe multiomic profiling identifies distinct COVID-19 immune dysregulation in solid organ transplant recipients (Nature Communications) Insect-specific RNA viruses detection in Field-Caught Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from Argentina using NGS technology (PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases) Bacterial Oral regimens for rifampin-resistant, fluoroquinolone-susceptible tuberculosis (NEJM) Impact of antibiotic treatment and predictors for subsequent infections in multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa catheter-associated asymptomatic bacteriuria (American Journal of Infection Control) Identification of the skip phenomenon among patients With Staphylococcus lugdunensis infective endocarditis (OFID) Emergence of infective endocarditis due to Serratia spp. (OFID) Reduction of vancomycin-associated acute kidney injury with montelukast (JID) Fungal The Last of US Season 2 (YouTube) Pulmonary co-infection of Pneumocystis jirovecii and Aspergillus species (OFID) Impact of fluconazoleon outcomes of patients with primary pulmonary coccidioidomycosis (CID) Parasitic Comparative outcomes of Babesiosis in immunocompromised and non-immunocompromised hosts (CID) Miscellaneous Hidradenitis suppurativa (LANCET) A severe case associated with mixed infections of Pasteurella multocida, Bacteroides pyogenes and Fusobacterium necrophorum due to a snow leopard bite (CMI: Clinical Microbiology and Infection) INSIDE-OUT: Introduction of speakers at IDWeek events (OFID) Music is by Ronald Jenkees Information on this podcast should not be considered as medical advice.
Producer Giancarlo Buonomo is back! Join the Curious Clinicians as we learn: Why do we worry about Pseudomonas infection in diabetic patients? Watch this episode on our new YouTube channel here, and read the show notes here! Click here to obtain AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ (0.5 hours), Non-Physician Attendance (0.5 hours), or ABIM MOC Part 2 (0.5 hours). Audio edited by Clair Morgan of Nodderly.com. Medical student Giancarlo Buonomo is our producer.
On episode #72 of the Infectious Disease Puscast, Daniel and Sara review the infectious disease literature for the weeks of 1/2/25 – 1/15/25. Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Sara Dong Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of Puscast! Links for this episode Viral Human infection with a novel tickborne Orthonairovirus species in China(NEJM) Antiviral medications for treatment ofnonsevere influenza(JAMA Network: JAMA Internal Medicine) Xofluza (GoodRx) NoroSTATData Table (CDC Norovirus) The discovery of the 27-nm Norwalk virus: an historic perspective (JID) Why the “Ferrari of viruses” is surging through the northern hemisphere (Science) Bacterial Beta-lactams toxicity in the intensive care unit: an underestimatedcollateral damage? (Microorganims) What is the most effective antibiotic monotherapy for severe Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection? (CMI: Clinical Microbiology and Infection) Doxycycline postexposure prophylaxis and bacterial sexually tansmitted infections among individuals using HIV preexposure prophylaxis(JAMA Network: JAMA Internal Medicine) Fungal The Last of US Season 2 (YouTube) Epidemiology and prognostic factors associated with mold-positive blood cultures: 10-year data From a french prospective surveillance program (2012–2022) (CID) Parasitic Safety and efficacy of immunization with a late-liver-stage attenuated malaria parasite (NEJM) Dr. Glaucomflecken explains: late-liver-stage attenuated malaria vaccine (YouTube) Dr. Glaucomflecken X NEJM (YouTube) Albendazole–ivermectin co-formulation for the treatment of Trichuris trichiura and other soil-transmitted helminths: a randomised phase 2/3 trial (LANCET: Infectious Diseases) Miscellaneous A comparison of peripherally insertedcentral catheter materials(NEJM) Considering Islamic frameworks to infectious disease prevention (OFID) Music is by Ronald Jenkees Information on this podcast should not be considered as medical advice.
Guest: Dr. Christian de Virgilio is the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He is also Co-Chair of the College of Applied Anatomy and a Professor of Surgery at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. He completed his undergraduate degree in Biology at Loyola Marymount University and earned his medical degree from UCLA. He then completed his residency in General Surgery at UCLA-Harbor Medical Center followed by a fellowship in Vascular Surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Resources: Rutherford Chapters (10th ed.): 174, 175, 177, 178 Prior Holding Pressure episode on AV access creation: https://www.audiblebleeding.com/vsite-hd-access/ The Society for Vascular Surgery: Clinical practice guidelines for the surgical placement and maintenance of arteriovenous hemodialysis access: https://www.jvascsurg.org/article/S0741-5214%2808%2901399-2/fulltext KDOQI Clinical Practice Guideline for Vascular Access: 2019 Update: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32778223/ Outline: Steal Syndrome Definition & Etiology Steal syndrome is an important complication of AV access creation, since access creation diverts arterial blood flow from the hand. Steal can be caused by multiple factors—arterial occlusive disease proximal or distal to the AV anastomosis, high flow through the fistula at the expense of distal arterial perfusion, and failure of the distal arterial networks to adapt to this decreased blood flow. Incidence and Risk Factors The frequency of steal syndrome is 1.6-9%1,2, depending on the vessels and conduit choice Steal syndrome is more common with brachial and axillary artery-based accesses and nonautogenous conduits. Other risk factors for steal syndrome are peripheral vascular disease, coronary artery disease, diabetes, advanced age, female sex, larger outflow conduit, multiple prior permanent access procedures, and prior episodes of steal.3,4 Long-standing insulin-dependent diabetes causes both medial calcinosis and peripheral neuropathy, which limits arteries' ability to vasodilate and adjust to decreased blood flow. Patient Presentation, Symptoms, Grading Steal syndrome is diagnosed clinically. Symptoms after AVG creation occurs within the first few days, since flow in prosthetic grafts tend to reach a maximum value very early after creation. Native AVFs take time to mature and flow will slowly increase overtime, leading to more insidious onset of symptoms that can take months or years. The patient should have a unilateral complaint in the extremity with the AV access. Symptoms of steal syndrome, in order of increasing severity, include nail changes, occasional tingling, extremity coolness, numbness in fingertips and hands, muscle weakness, rest pain, sensory and motor deficits, fingertip ulcerations, and tissue loss. There could be a weakened radial pulse or weak Doppler signal on the affected side, and these will become stronger after compression of the AV outflow. Symptoms are graded on a scale specified by Society of Vascular Surgery (SVS) reporting standards:5 Workup Duplex ultrasound can be used to analyze flow volumes. A high flow volume (in autogenous accesses greater than 800 mL/min, in nonautogenous accesses greater than 1200 mL/min) signifies an outflow issue. The vein or graft is acting as a pressure sink and stealing blood from the distal artery. A low flow volume signifies an inflow issue, meaning that there is a proximal arterial lesion preventing blood from reaching the distal artery. Upper extremity angiogram can identify proximal arterial lesions. Prevention Create the AV access as distal as possible, in order to preserve arterial inflow to the hand and reduce the anastomosis size and outflow diameter. SVS guidelines recommend a 4-6mm arteriotomy diameter to balance the need for sufficient access flow with the risk of steal. If a graft is necessary, tapered prosthetic grafts are sometimes used in patients with steal risk factors, using the smaller end of the graft placed at the arterial anastomosis, although this has not yet been proven to reduce the incidence of steal. Indications for Treatment Intervention is recommended in lifestyle-limiting cases of Grade II and all Grade III steal cases. If left untreated, the natural history of steal syndrome can result in chronic limb ischemia, causing gangrene with loss of digits or limbs. Treatment Options Conservative management relies on observation and monitoring, as mild cases of steal syndrome may resolve spontaneously. Inflow stenosis can be treated with endovascular intervention (angioplasty with or without stent) Ligation is the simplest surgical treatment, and it results in loss of the AV access. This is preferred in patients with repetitive failed salvage attempts, venous hypertension, and poor prognoses. Flow limiting procedures can address high volumes through the AV access. Banding can be performed with surgical cutdown and placement of polypropylene sutures or a Dacron patch around the vein or graft. The Minimally Invasive Limited Ligation Endoluminal-Assisted Revision (MILLER) technique employs a percutaneous endoluminal balloon inflated at the AVF to ensure consistency in diameter while banding Plication is when a side-biting running stitch is used to narrow lumen of the vein near the anastomosis. A downside of flow-limiting procedures is that it is often difficult to determine how much to narrow the AV access, as these procedures carry a risk of outflow thrombosis. There are also surgical treatments focused on reroute arterial inflow. The distal revascularization and interval ligation (DRIL) procedure involves creation of a new bypass connecting arterial segments proximal and distal to the AV anastomosis, with ligation of the native artery between the AV anastomosis and the distal anastomosis of the bypass. Reversed saphenous vein with a diameter greater than 3mm is the preferred conduit. Arm vein or prosthetic grafts can be used if needed, but prosthetic material carries higher risk of thrombosis. The new arterial bypass creates a low resistance pathway that increases flow to distal arterial beds, and interval arterial ligation eliminates retrograde flow through the distal artery. The major risk of this procedure is bypass thrombosis, which results in loss of native arterial flow and hand ischemia. Other drawbacks of DRIL include procedural difficulty with smaller arterial anastomoses, sacrifice of saphenous or arm veins, and decreased fistula flow. Another possible revision surgery is revision using distal inflow (RUDI). This procedure involves ligation of the fistula at the anastomosis and use of a conduit to connect the outflow vein to a distal artery. The selected distal artery can be the proximal radial or ulnar artery, depending on the preoperative duplex. The more dominant vessel should be spared, allowing for distal arterial beds to have uninterrupted antegrade perfusion. The nondominant vessel is used as distal inflow for the AV access. RUDI increases access length and decreases access diameter, resulting in increased resistance and lower flow volume through the fistula. Unlike DRIL, RUDI preserves native arterial flow. Thrombosis of the conduit would put the fistula at risk, rather than the native artery. The last surgical revision procedure for steal is proximalization of arterial inflow (PAI). In this procedure, the vein is ligated distal to the original anastomosis site and flow is re-established through the fistula with a PTFE interposition graft anastomosed end-to-side with the more proximal axillary artery and end-to-end with the distal vein. Similar to RUDI, PAI increases the length and decreases the diameter of the outflow conduit. Since the axillary artery has a larger diameter than the brachial artery, there is a less significant pressure drop across the arterial anastomosis site and less steal. PAI allows for preservation of native artery's continuity and does not require vein harvest. Difficulties with PAI arise when deciding the length of the interposition graft to balance AV flow with distal arterial flow. 2. Ischemic Monomelic Neuropathy Definition Ischemic monomelic neuropathy (IMN) is a rare but serious form of steal that involves nerve ischemia. Severe sensorimotor dysfunction is experienced immediately after AV access creation. Etiology IMN affects blood flow to the nerves, but not the skin or muscles because peripheral nerve fibers are more vulnerable to ischemia. Incidence and Risk Factors IMN is very rare; it has an estimated incidence of 0.1-0.5% of AV access creations.6 IMN has only been reported in brachial artery-based accesses, since the brachial artery is the sole arterial inflow for distal arteries feeding all forearm nerves. IMN is associated with diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, and preexisting peripheral neuropathy that is associated with either of the conditions. Patient Presentation Symptoms usually present rapidly, within minutes to hours after AV access creation. The most common presenting symptom is severe, constant, and deep burning pain of the distal forearm and hand. Patients also report impairment of all sensation, weakness, and hand paralysis. Diagnosis of IMN can be delayed due to misattribution of symptoms to anesthetic blockade, postoperative pain, preexisting neuropathy, a heavily bandaged arm precluding neurologic examination. Treatment Treatment is immediate ligation of the AV access. Delay in treatment will quickly result in permanent sensorimotor loss. 3. Perigraft Seroma Definition A perigraft seroma is a sterile fluid collection surrounding a vascular prosthesis and is enclosed within a pseudomembrane. Etiology and Incidence Possible etiologies include: transudative movement of fluid through the graft material, serous fluid collection from traumatized connective tissues (especially the from higher adipose tissue content in the upper arm), inhibition of fibroblast growth with associated failure of the tissue to incorporate the graft, graft “wetting” or kinking during initial operation, increased flow rates, decreased hematocrit causing oncotic pressure difference, or allergy to graft material. Seromas most commonly form at anastomosis sites in the early postoperative period. Overall seroma incidence rates after AV graft placement range from 1.7–4% and are more common in grafts placed in the upper arm (compared to the forearm) and Dacron grafts (compared to PTFE grafts).7-9 Patient Presentation and Workup Physical exam can show a subcutaneous raised palpable fluid mass Seromas can be seen with ultrasound, but it is difficult to differentiate between the types of fluid around the graft (seroma vs. hematoma vs. abscess) Indications for Treatment Seromas can lead to wound dehiscence, pressure necrosis and erosion through skin, and loss of available puncture area for hemodialysis Persistent seromas can also serve as a nidus for infection. The Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) guidelines10 recommend a tailored approach to seroma management, with more aggressive surgical interventions being necessary for persistent, infected-appearing, or late-developing seromas. Treatment The majority of early postoperative seromas are self-limited and tend to resolve on their own Persistent seromas have been treated using a variety of methods-- incision and evacuation of seroma, complete excision and replacement of the entire graft, and primary bypass of the involved graft segment only. Graft replacement with new material and rerouting through a different tissue plane has a higher reported cure rate and lower rate of infection than aspiration alone.9 4. Infection Incidence and Etiology The reported incidence of infection ranges 4-20% in AVG, which is significantly higher than the rate of infection of 0.56-5% in AVF.11 Infection can occur at the time of access creation (earliest presentation), after cannulation for dialysis (later infection), or secondary to another infectious source. Infection can also further complicate a pre-existing access site issue such as infection of a hematoma, thrombosed pseudoaneurysm, or seroma. Skin flora from frequent dialysis cannulations result in common pathogens being Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, or polymicrobial species. Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas are highly virulent and likely to cause anastomotic disruption. Patient Presentation and Workup Physical exam will reveal warmth, pain, swelling, erythema, induration, drainage, or pus. Occasionally, patients have nonspecific manifestations of fever or leukocytosis. Ultrasound can be used to screen for and determine the extent of graft involvement by the infection. Treatments In AV fistulas: Localized infection can usually be managed with broad spectrum antibiotics. If there are bleeding concerns or infection is seen near the anastomosis site, the fistula should be ligated and re-created in a clean field. In AV grafts: If infection is localized, partial graft excision is acceptable. Total graft excision is recommended if the infection is present throughout the entire graft, involves the anastomoses, occludes the access, or contains particularly virulent organisms Total graft excision may also be indicated if a patient develops recurrent bacteremia with no other infectious source identified. For graft excision, the venous end of the graft is removed and the vein is oversewn or ligated. If the arterial anastomosis is intact, a small cuff of the graft can be left behind and oversewn. If the arterial anastomosis is involved, the arterial wall must be debrided and ligation, reconstruction with autogenous patch angioplasty, or arterial bypass can be pursued. References 1. Morsy AH, Kulbaski M, Chen C, Isiklar H, Lumsden AB. Incidence and Characteristics of Patients with Hand Ischemia after a Hemodialysis Access Procedure. J Surg Res. 1998;74(1):8-10. doi:10.1006/jsre.1997.5206 2. Ballard JL, Bunt TJ, Malone JM. Major complications of angioaccess surgery. Am J Surg. 1992;164(3):229-232. doi:10.1016/S0002-9610(05)81076-1 3. Valentine RJ, Bouch CW, Scott DJ, et al. Do preoperative finger pressures predict early arterial steal in hemodialysis access patients? A prospective analysis. J Vasc Surg. 2002;36(2):351-356. doi:10.1067/mva.2002.125848 4. Malik J, Tuka V, Kasalova Z, et al. Understanding the Dialysis access Steal Syndrome. A Review of the Etiologies, Diagnosis, Prevention and Treatment Strategies. J Vasc Access. 2008;9(3):155-166. doi:10.1177/112972980800900301 5. Sidawy AN, Gray R, Besarab A, et al. Recommended standards for reports dealing with arteriovenous hemodialysis accesses. J Vasc Surg. 2002;35(3):603-610. doi:10.1067/mva.2002.122025 6. Thermann F, Kornhuber M. Ischemic Monomelic Neuropathy: A Rare but Important Complication after Hemodialysis Access Placement - a Review. J Vasc Access. 2011;12(2):113-119. doi:10.5301/JVA.2011.6365 7. Dauria DM, Dyk P, Garvin P. Incidence and Management of Seroma after Arteriovenous Graft Placement. J Am Coll Surg. 2006;203(4):506-511. doi:10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2006.06.002 8. Gargiulo NJ, Veith FJ, Scher LA, Lipsitz EC, Suggs WD, Benros RM. Experience with covered stents for the management of hemodialysis polytetrafluoroethylene graft seromas. J Vasc Surg. 2008;48(1):216-217. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2008.01.046 9. Blumenberg RM, Gelfand ML, Dale WA. Perigraft seromas complicating arterial grafts. Surgery. 1985;97(2):194-204. 10. Lok CE, Huber TS, Lee T, et al. KDOQI Clinical Practice Guideline for Vascular Access: 2019 Update. Am J Kidney Dis. 2020;75(4):S1-S164. doi:10.1053/j.ajkd.2019.12.001 11. Padberg FT, Calligaro KD, Sidawy AN. Complications of arteriovenous hemodialysis access: Recognition and management. J Vasc Surg. 2008;48(5):S55-S80. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2008.08.067
In this episode I talk about the cutting-edge world of bionic eye technology, diving into how devices like the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis are helping patients with retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration regain rudimentary vision. Alongside this futuristic topic, I also reflect on the challenges of practicing in the ICU as a young intern and the complexities of addressing patient needs with innovative surgical techniques. Takeaways: Ophthalmology Subspecialties: Dr. Flannery provides an overview of the subspecialties within ophthalmology, from refractive and cornea surgery to retina, pediatric, and neuro-ophthalmology, highlighting their unique roles in patient care. The Power of Second Opinions: He emphasizes the importance of seeking a second opinion for high-cost treatments like LASIK or in-office dry eye therapies to make informed decisions about eye care. Foreign Bodies in Eyes: Dr. Flannery describes the tools and techniques he uses to remove foreign objects, from cat hair to rust rings, showcasing one of the more unusual aspects of his work. Sixth Nerve Palsy Case: He shares a compelling story about a young patient diagnosed with a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, illustrating the importance of timely and accurate diagnoses in eye care. Safe Eye Drops Matter: He answers fan questions about redness-relieving drops like Lumify, advising against generics linked to dangerous Pseudomonas infections and explaining the benefits of trusted brands. — To Get Tickets to Wife & Death: You can visit Glaucomflecken.com/live We want to hear YOUR stories (and medical puns)! Shoot us an email and say hi! knockknockhi@human-content.com Can't get enough of us? Shucks. You can support the show on Patreon for early episode access, exclusive bonus shows, livestream hangouts, and much more! – http://www.patreon.com/glaucomflecken Also, be sure to check out the newsletter: https://glaucomflecken.com/glauc-to-me/ If you are interested in buying a book from one of our guests, check them all out here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dr.glaucomflecken If you want more information on models I use: Anatomy Warehouse provides for the best, crafting custom anatomical products, medical simulation kits and presentation models that create a lasting educational impact. For more information go to Anatomy Warehouse DOT com. Link: Anatomy Warehouse Plus for 15% off use code: Glaucomflecken15 Today's episode is brought to you by DAX Copilot from Microsoft. DAX Copilot is your AI assistant for automating clinical documentation and workflows helping you be more efficient and reduce the administrative burdens that cause us to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. Produced by Human Content Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode I cover a wide range of topics, including a detailed breakdown of the subspecialties in ophthalmology. From the most common fields like cataract and refractive surgery to the rare gems of neuro-ophthalmology and pediatric ophthalmology, I explain what each specialty focuses on and why some are harder to find than others. I also discuss the importance of getting a second opinion for high-cost treatments, share stories about removing foreign bodies like cat hair from patients' eyes, and recount a memorable case of sixth nerve palsy caused by a life-threatening cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Takeaways: Ophthalmology Subspecialties: Dr. Flannery provides an overview of the subspecialties within ophthalmology, from refractive and cornea surgery to retina, pediatric, and neuro-ophthalmology, highlighting their unique roles in patient care. The Power of Second Opinions: He emphasizes the importance of seeking a second opinion for high-cost treatments like LASIK or in-office dry eye therapies to make informed decisions about eye care. Foreign Bodies in Eyes: Dr. Flannery describes the tools and techniques he uses to remove foreign objects, from cat hair to rust rings, showcasing one of the more unusual aspects of his work. Sixth Nerve Palsy Case: He shares a compelling story about a young patient diagnosed with a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, illustrating the importance of timely and accurate diagnoses in eye care. Safe Eye Drops Matter: He answers fan questions about redness-relieving drops like Lumify, advising against generics linked to dangerous Pseudomonas infections and explaining the benefits of trusted brands. — To Get Tickets to Wife & Death: You can visit Glaucomflecken.com/live We want to hear YOUR stories (and medical puns)! Shoot us an email and say hi! knockknockhi@human-content.com Can't get enough of us? Shucks. You can support the show on Patreon for early episode access, exclusive bonus shows, livestream hangouts, and much more! – http://www.patreon.com/glaucomflecken Also, be sure to check out the newsletter: https://glaucomflecken.com/glauc-to-me/ If you are interested in buying a book from one of our guests, check them all out here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dr.glaucomflecken If you want more information on models I use: Anatomy Warehouse provides for the best, crafting custom anatomical products, medical simulation kits and presentation models that create a lasting educational impact. For more information go to Anatomy Warehouse DOT com. Link: Anatomy Warehouse Plus for 15% off use code: Glaucomflecken15 Today's episode is brought to you by DAX Copilot from Microsoft. DAX Copilot is your AI assistant for automating clinical documentation and workflows helping you be more efficient and reduce the administrative burdens that cause us to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. Produced by Human Content Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On episode #70 of the Infectious Disease Puscast, Daniel and Sara review the infectious disease literature for the weeks of 12/5/24 – 12/18/24. Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Sara Dong Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of Puscast! Links for this episode Viral Epidemiology of Dengue— Puerto Rico, 2010–2024(CDC MMWR) Takeda Announces Voluntary Withdrawal of U.S. Biologics License Application (BLA) for Dengue Vaccine Candidate TAK-003(Takeda) Global health and economic burden of chikungunya from 2011 to 2020 (BMJ Global Health) Bacterial Biomarker-Guided Antibiotic Duration for Hospitalized Patients With Suspected Sepsis (JAMA Network) Say it ain't Steno: a microbiology nudge comment leads to less treatment of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia respiratory colonization(Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology) Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Management of Urinary Tract Infections in Pediatrics and Adults(JAMA Network) Epidemiology and Outcomes of Antibiotic De-escalation in Patients with Suspected Sepsis in US Hospitals (CID) Effectiveness of ceftazidime–avibactam versus ceftolozane–tazobactam for multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in the USA (CACTUS): a multicentre, retrospective, observational study (LANCET Infectious Diseases) Bedaquiline Monotherapy for Multibacillary Leprosy (NEJM) Fungal The Last of US Season 2 (YouTube) Histoplasmosis Associated With Bat Guano Exposure in Cannabis Grower (OFID) Parasitic TWiV 1175: A hitchiker's guide to virology(microbeTV) Diverse RNA viruses of parasitic nematodes can elicit antibody responses in vertebrate hosts (Nature Microbiology) Neurocysticercosis school outbreak in Belgium (LANCET) Miscellaneous Maintenance of Certification: Is a Knowledge-Based Assessment Really Necessary? (CID) Living happily ever after? The hidden health risks of Disney princesses (BMJ) How to transport a polar bear, and other idiosyncrasies in providing emergency medical services in the Arctic (BMJ) Music is by Ronald Jenkees Information on this podcast should not be considered as medical advice.