Category: Brief Messages or Announcements

UI Hospitals & Clinics Gets U.S. News & World Report Recognition

This is just a shout-out to The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics for once again being recognized as one of the top hospitals in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

The Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Department ranked 6th in the nation.

The Empire Fires Back

I saw this reply tweet posted to the web. It was the reply of Sean Kirkpatrick, PhD, the director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in reply to the testimony of the witnesses at the House Committee’s UAP hearing on July 27, 2023. I’m not sure we’ll hear much more about it.

What’s Up with Shared Clinical Decision Making for the RSV Vaccine?

There are probably some questions about the new Respiratory Syncitial Virus (RSV) vaccine. Because I’ve seen TV commercials about the new website RSVandMe, I checked on a few things the other day.

The RSVandMe website and the companion website are both produced by the RSV vaccine maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). As such, I consider them marketing commercials.

I checked the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website and saw that the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended approval of the RSV vaccine at their June Meeting (covered earlier on this blog):

Adults 60 years of age and older may receive a single dose of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine, using shared clinical decision-making.

The term “shared clinical decision-making” is clarified on the CDC webpage at this link.

The upshot of shared clinical decision-making is that it’s up to the provider (the list of providers include pharmacists). So far the list of recommended vaccines does not yet include RSV, so it probably needs updating. It looks like the ACIP MMWR recommendation page also needs updating.

Video of the Raccoon in the Mulberry Tree

Sena said I should use the short video of that big raccoon I filmed in lumbering around and eating breakfast in our mulberry tree the other day. I didn’t include it in the original post, but when Sena and I looked at it together, she persuaded me that it was worth posting.

Selected Highlights of CDC ACIP Meeting on Covid-19 Vaccines

Today I’m highlighting a few items of interest to older adults from the summary slide set on Covid-19 vaccines presented on June 23, 2023 at the CDC ACIP meeting last week. Information for other age groups are included in the slide set.

Covid-19 continues to be a major health threat for the population, especially older adults and the immunocompromised. Vaccines are still the most effective intervention. However, the bivalent vaccine uptake was very low; most people didn’t get it.

A new Covid-19 monovalent vaccine with an XBB.1.5 composition, is expected to be available this fall.

In the fall, the vaccine manufacturers will switch to the commercial marketplace. In order to continue making Covid-19 vaccines available to the uninsured, there is a Bridge Access Program for Covid-19 Vaccines and Treatments” which is described at the HHS website.

Covid-19 Variants in the News

Sena alerted me to a CBS news item with the headline “CDC tracking new Covid variant EU.1.1.” The story seemed a bit misleading because the FDA just announced approval of vaccines for XBB.1.5. beginning in the fall.

I checked the CDC Data Tracker for variants and noticed XBB.1.5 is still the most common Covid-19 subvariant in the U.S.

While the EU.1.1 is on the list of subvariants tracked, it’s pretty far down the line and is much less common than the news headline seems to suggest. And it’s not clear the new vaccine for XBB.1.5 wouldn’t protect against EU.1.1 as well.

Brief Remarks on CDC ACIP Vaccines Meeting This Week

My impressions of the first couple of days of the CDC ACIP meeting on vaccines will be brief. My wife and I were interested in learning more about the new Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine. It sounds like the vaccine was upvoted with only a few no votes. Most committee members thought the vaccine was a good idea. It sounds like the decision to get the RSV vaccine should be in the context of a shared-decision making conversation with your doctor.

We didn’t get a chance to hear the presentation on the Polio vaccine. The slides were available and it looks like most people are vaccinated. The recommendation is that if you’re not already vaccinated or incompletely vaccinated, or you’re a health care worker likely to encounter patients with polio, a laboratory worker who might handle material with the polio virus in it, or traveling to regions where you might contract it, then the vaccine would be recommended.

Here is a link to the presentation slides.