Opinion | ‘You have a little pain, you have a little gain:’ What We Heard This Week

“If you have a little pain, you have a little gain.” — Kathryn Edwards, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, discussing the question of whether a strong reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is a sign of having better immunity.

“The degree of body weight reduction is unprecedented.” — Daniel Weghuber, MD, of Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria, on how once-weekly 2.4-mg semaglutide (Wegovy) plus lifestyle intervention helped adolescents with obesity shed an average of 33.7 lb over 68 weeks.

“To have a union and a voice at the table, that’s the biggest thing that we want.” — Isuree Katugampala, MD, MPH, a third-year pediatrics resident at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, talking about efforts by resident physicians and fellows to unionize there.

“It is even more concerning that we may be underestimating — pretty significantly — the amount of benzene that we’re finding.” — David Light, CEO of Valisure, on dry shampoo being the most recent addition to the growing list of cosmetic and hygiene products that contain the carcinogen benzene.

“This mosquito is different than the ones that usually transmit malaria parasites in Africa.” — Fitsum Tadesse, PhD, of Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Ethiopia, on Asian mosquitoes causing an alarming surge of malaria this year.

“The question is what can be done to decrease these preventative deaths, which are even more pronounced among young adults.” — Andrew Talal, MD, MPH, of the University at Buffalo, discussing the CDC’s finding that one out of every eight deaths in Americans ages 20 to 64 resulted from drinking too much alcohol.

“They are embedded in clinical practice, so visits are linked to those that would normally occur outside of a clinical trial.” — Sarah Planchon, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, discussing the value of pragmatic clinical trials for increasing population diversity in clinical trial enrollment.