Health Sciences In The Media

University Arizona Distinguished Professor of Public Health Dr. Richard Carmona, the 17th Surgeon General of the United States, is interviewed about his role as Gov. Doug Ducey's senior advisor on public health emergency preparedness.

The addition of pembrolizumab to chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab, significantly improved PFS and OS among women with persistent, recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer, results of the randomized phase 3 KEYNOTE-826 study showed. Bradley J. Monk, MD, FACS, FACOG, a professor at the College of Medicine – Phoenix and director of gynecologic oncology research at US Oncology Network, said KEYNOTE-826 will rapidly launch pembrolizumab as the global standard of care in first-line metastatic cervical cancer.

More than 10,000 Americans have reported tinnitus as a possible side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, and some are now questioning why the FDA and CDC are not taking a deeper look into their claims about hearing problems. "Tinnitus is a serious thing," said Elizabeth Connick, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at College of Medicine – Tucson. They're not making it up, and it's very important not to have them feel marginalized."

A clinical study at the University of Arizona is underway, working to understand COVID-19 infection and the transmission of the virus among vaccinated people. Elizabeth Connick, MD, chief of infectious diseases and professor of medicine and immunobiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson, said their goal is to answer the question of whether or not vaccinated people who are exposed to COVID-19 still shed the virus from their nose and mouth and infect others.

Pima County has 65.3% of its population partially vaccinated and only 55% fully vaccinated. That’s one of the best in the state but is still far from what’s needed. Joe Gerald, MD, PhD, an associate professor of public health policy and management at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, has been the go to numbers guy since the beginning of the pandemic 18 months ago. “I think it’s almost certain that we will be living with Covid-19 in some form or another for years to come,” he said. “Maybe forever in all likelihood.”

The Arizona's Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center has had 19 reports related to ivermectin so far this year, including eight who were hospitalized, said Steven Dudley, PharmD, DABAT, director of the UArizona Poison and Drug Information Center, in an email. "People tend to be using ivermectin in doses much higher than what it has been approved for," Dudley wrote in an email. "Another point is ivermectin can interact with other medications and make your potential for toxicity worse than someone else's."

Out of all the states in the U.S. that are endemic to Valley fever, Arizona is best equipped to handle the rise in cases of Coccidioides, cocci for short. The Valley Fever Center for Excellence, housed within the University of Arizona, helps facilitate collaboration between doctors and researchers across multiple counties within Arizona and develops strategies for diagnosing and treating Valley fever.

Roberta Brinton, PhD, director of the Center for Innovation in Brain Science, received a $15.1 million grant from the National Institutes on Aging to investigate perimenopausal brain aging.

As interest grows around COVID-19 booster shots, there is still a lot of uncertainty around getting a third dose. People with weakened immune systems can already get a booster, but the benefit to everyone else is unclear. Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, a professor of immunobiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson, said that it's clear a booster could be beneficial. A booster, he said, might reduce the chance that a person would get infected and develop symptoms. What's less clear is how much a national booster strategy would help control the spread of the coronavirus. "It just doesn't seem like vaccinated breakthrough infections are the major source of transmission," he said.

The complexity of the body’s immune system makes the impact of a booster shot difficult to assess. Antibody levels from any vaccine or natural infection will decline over time, says Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, an immunologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson. Yet “the ones that are left tend to be of higher quality, so it takes far fewer of them to protect against disease,” Bhattacharya says, adding that it is difficult to tell exactly how much additional protection a booster shot would provide. This article was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.