Outbreak News Interviews

H1N1, H7N9, H5N1--we hear this "alphanumeric" description of various influenza, or flu viruses all the time.

In this short clip from an older interview, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University and founder of Virology Blog, Vincent Racaniello, PhD explains more about the Hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA).

H1N1, H7N9, H5N1--we hear this "alphanumeric" description of various influenza, or flu viruses all the time.

In this short clip from an older interview, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University and founder of Virology Blog, Vincent Racaniello, PhD explains more about the Hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA).

The Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Dr Peter Hotez is concerned about measles in his state of Texas, so much that he is raising the alarm by predicting a measles outbreak could happen as early as the winter or spring of 2018.

In an article published in PLoS Medicine last fall, Hotez writes: Measles vaccination coverage in certain Texas counties is dangerously close to dropping below the 95% coverage rate necessary to ensure herd immunity and prevent measles outbreaks.

He tells me during the interview, “Something awful is happening in Texas,” Dr Hotez said. “Texas is becoming the epicenter of what looks like, some neo-antivaxxer movement”. There have been some 50,000 nonmedical or “reasons of conscience” exemptions to school immunization laws, almost double the number of exemptions in 2010.

According to an American Cancer Society annual report, in 2017 there will be an estimated 1.7 million new cancer cases diagnosed and more than 600,000 cancer deaths in the US.

Of this total, a quarter million breast cancer diagnoses and 40,000 deaths are estimated in US women in 2017--the most common cancer reported in women, accounting for nearly a third of all cancers in women.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the American Cancer Society, J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD joined me to discuss a number of issues concerning breast cancer.

For more information, visit the American Cancer Society website or call the Cancer helpline at 800.227.2345

There is likely no bigger accomplishment in medicine and public health that has saved so many lives and prevented so much misery over the decades as the introduction of vaccines.

In the U.S. alone, between 1963 and 2015 nearly 200 million cases of polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, adenovirus, rabies and hepatitis A — and approximately 450,000 deaths from these diseases — were prevented by vaccination, researchers estimate.

Public health physician and a vaccinologist, Melvin Sanicas, MD joined me to discuss several topics on vaccines to include how they are made, how they work and a look at several misconceptions.

Dr. Sanica's professional experience spans the globe and for the past 10 years he has been involved in different stages of drug and vaccine development and research in Asia Pacific, US, Africa, and Europe. He was a Global Health Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. a fellow of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and a fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), group B strep is the leading cause of sepsis and meningitis in a newborn’s first week of life.

July is International Group B strep awareness month and retired obstetrician and infectious disease specialist, Dr James A McGregor joined me to discuss a variety of topics related to Group B strep.

Dr McGregor also serves on the board of the Group B Strep International , an awareness organization.

Scientist and engineer, Sarah Ferrari, who is a member of the Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease, a coalition of subject matter experts and stakeholders formed to promote best practices on Legionnaires’ Disease prevention joined me in the second part of this interview on Legionnaires' disease and Legionella.

Legionnaires’ disease is caused by the bacterium, Legionella. The bacterium was named after an outbreak in 1976, when many people who went to a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion got sick with pneumonia.

In the United States, approximately 5,000 cases of Legionnaires’ disease are reported annually. However, Legionnaires’ disease is likely underdiagnosed and the true numbers are likely higher.

I was joined by two experts on Legionnaires’ disease, Legionella and water systems–civil engineering/environmental engineer and the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, Dr. Marc Edwards and scientist and engineer, Sarah Ferrari, who is a member of the Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease, a coalition of subject matter experts and stakeholders formed to promote best practices on Legionnaires’ Disease prevention.

An article published last year in the European Journal of Microbiology and Immunology, an international, peer-reviewed online journal, was the first to demonstrate the presence of Borrelia biofilm in human infected skin tissues making the spirochete resistant to treatment as the allows it to “hide out” from antibiotics.

Study lead author and Professor and Department Chair at the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven, Dr. Eva Sapi joined me to discuss the research in this 2016 interview.

“A biofilm is a complex aggregation of microorganisms growing on a solid substrate,” Sapi, who has chronic Lyme disease, said. “Unlike the more familiar free-swimming bacterial forms, cells in biofilms surround themselves with a complex matrix, better known as ‘slime,’ to protect the cells from environmental stresses such as the attack of the immune system or the exposure to antibiotics.”

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found evidence that the most difficult C. difficile cases, known as multiple recurring C. difficile infections (mrCDI), are rapidly becoming more common.

This is documented in a recent study published in the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine.

Lead author and Professor of Medicine in the Gastroenterology Division and Senior Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, James Lewis, MD to discuss the study, the findings and the use of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT).