Opinion | ‘Everybody Is a Little Bit Anxious’: What We Heard This Week

“Everybody is a little bit anxious, and they are watching this.” — William Schaffner, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, on a study showing mammal-to-mammal transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a mink farm in Spain.

“We know that alcohol-based hand sanitizer kills more bugs than hand-washing removes.” — Janet Glowicz, PhD, RN, of the CDC, commenting on the new infection prevention guidelines jointly released by several organizations.

“They’re part-and-parcel to being human.” — Jeremy Kahn, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, after finding that doctors aren’t immune to political biases when it comes to decisions about COVID treatment.

“Likely much of this protection came from workplace policies.” — Mathew Kiang, ScD, MPH, of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, on how physicians had substantially lower excess mortality compared with the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We don’t have a magic wand that will fix the crisis of understaffing overnight.” — Nancy Hagans, RN, CCRN, president of the New York State Nurses Association, on the success of the recent nurses’ strike in New York City.

“People who see drug ads should question whether it is the best treatment for them.” — Michael DiStefano, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, on a study that reported more promotional spending on direct-to-consumer advertising for drugs with lower added clinical benefit ratings but higher total drug sales.

“There are many, many donors out there that are not being picked up by the system.” — Seth Karp, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, on the wide variation in the performance of organ procurement organizations, especially at individual hospitals, hindering the organ supply.

“The question is, if they did something to increase their availability of outpatient mental health [care], would you see ED visits drop?” — K. John McConnell, PhD, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, on the substantial regional variation among Medicaid enrollees’ emergency department visits for mental health conditions.

“For the first time, a neuroprotection study for acute stroke patients showed positive results in the primary outcome, which was safety.” — Marc Ribó, MD, PhD, of Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, on a novel anti-inflammatory aptamer given shortly after ischemic stroke onset for mechanical thrombectomy patients.