Heart, Brain & Immunity: New Clues After a Heart Attack
PodcastDX
After a heart attack, the story doesn’t end in the arteries. In this episode of PodcastDX, Lita and Jean Marie explore new science showing how the heart, brain, and immune system talk to each other during and after a heart attack—and how that three-way conversation can either protect the heart or make damage worse. We break down a “triple‑node” loop discovered in recent research, where vagus‑nerve sensory fibers in the heart send danger signals to the brain, the brain ramps up fight‑or‑flight output, and the immune system responds in ways that can change healing, scarring, and...
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Blood and Tissue Donation
PodcastDX
This week's episode does not have a guest, we are going to be discussing blood and tissue donations in medicine. The Vital Role of Blood and Tissue Donation in Modern Medicine Blood and tissue donation are indispensable components of modern healthcare, providing life-saving resources for a wide range of medical conditions and emergencies. Blood donations are crucial for patients undergoing major surgeries, battling cancer, managing chronic illnesses, and recovering from traumatic injuries. A stable supply of blood and its components, such as plasma, is essential for medical treatments and...
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Colonoscopy and Cancer Screening
PodcastDX
Early colorectal cancer usually causes no symptoms, which means the only way to catch it at a truly curable stage—or even prevent it altogether—is through regular screening, especially colonoscopy. During a colonoscopy, doctors can not only find cancers earlier, when treatment is more effective and survival rates are much higher, but also remove precancerous polyps on the spot, stopping many cancers before they ever form. National guidelines now recommend that average‑risk adults begin colorectal cancer screening at age 45 and continue at regular intervals, using...
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The Shift in Dementia Care from Control to Connection
PodcastDX
Today we’re continuing our Medicine in Transition theme with a topic that is deeply personal, professionally important, and long overdue. This episode is titled “The Shift of Dementia Care: From Control to Connection.” But we’re not doing this one alone. We’re joined by a special guest, Jennifer Stoner.Jennie is a retired professor from Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois, where she taught in recreation administration and therapeutic recreation, helping train future professionals to design meaningful, person‑centered programs for older adults and...
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Cancer Care in Transition
PodcastDX
In this week’s episode, “Cancer Care in Transition: Precision Medicine, Immunotherapy, and Patient Choice,” we look at how cancer treatment is changing at the exact moment when patients are trying to move from crisis mode into something like a new normal. Precision medicine now uses a person’s genes, tumor markers, and even lifestyle to match them with targeted drugs or immunotherapies instead of one‑size‑fits‑all chemo, while immuno‑oncology has created a growing group of survivors living with long‑term effects and unique follow‑up needs. At the same time, shared...
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The Dark Side of Patient Advocacy on Social Media
PodcastDX
The dark side of advocacy is that the same social media platforms that help health advocates reach millions can also expose them to relentless trolls, coordinated pile‑ons, and even threats to their safety and careers. Studies of physicians and public‑health advocates show that a large share—sometimes more than half—have been personally attacked online for speaking about vaccines, gun violence, or other health issues, facing abuse that targets not just their ideas but also their gender, race, disability, or identity. What starts as “just comments” can quickly escalate into doxxing,...
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Various Types of Dementia
PodcastDX
Various Types of Dementia This week on PodcastDX, we’re stepping into the complex world of dementia—not as a single diagnosis, but as a family of conditions that affect memory, thinking, behavior, and independence in different ways. We’ll introduce the most common types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and mixed dementia, where more than one process—often Alzheimer’s plus vascular changes—are happening in the brain at the same time. We’ll also touch on less common causes, such as dementia related to...
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Rethinking DX: A Digital DSM and the Roots of Mental Health
PodcastDX
“Rethinking DX: A Digital DSM” looks at how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) quietly shapes almost every part of mental health care—from who gets a diagnosis and insurance coverage to how people understand their own symptoms and identities. In this conversation, Lita and Jean Marie unpack what the DSM actually is, why the current DSM‑5‑TR matters, and how a future, fully digital “DSM‑6” could function as a living document that updates more quickly, links to decision‑support tools, and better integrates real‑world data from electronic health...
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The Next Decade in Medicine
PodcastDX
Over the next decade, medicine won’t just add new gadgets—it will change what it feels like to be a patient. In this episode of PodcastDX, we explore how AI as a clinical co‑pilot, stem cells and regenerative medicine, genomics and precision care, wearables, and hospital‑at‑home models could reshape everyday care. We talk about the promise of earlier detection and more personalized treatment, the risks around bias, privacy, and hype, and why equity and shared decision‑making must stay at the center as technology races ahead. Most of all, we ask how patients and caregivers can be...
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Patients as Partners: Shared Decision Making in Medicine
PodcastDX
This week we are discussing the rise of a new type of health care where the patients play a vital role in their medical care. Patients as partners in care are at the heart of shared decision making (SDM), a model where clinicians and patients deliberately work together to choose tests and treatments that fit both best evidence and the patient’s values and life context. What shared decision making means SDM is a collaborative process in which clinicians contribute clinical expertise while patients contribute their goals, preferences, and lived experience. Core...
info_outlineVaccination is one of the best ways to prevent diseases. Over the past 50 years, essential vaccines saved at least 154 million lives (1). During the same period, vaccination has reduced infant deaths by 40%. Together with governments, vaccine manufacturers, scientists and medical experts, WHO's vaccine safety program is constantly helping monitor the safety of vaccines. This helps ensure that vaccines are safe for you and your family.
In the United States, a number of safeguards are required by law to help ensure that the vaccines we receive are safe. Because vaccines are given to millions of healthy people—including children—to prevent serious diseases, they’re held to very high safety standards.
Every authorized or approved vaccine goes through safety testing, including:
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Testing and evaluation of the vaccine before it’s licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommended for use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
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Monitoring the vaccine’s safety after it is recommended for infants, children, or adults
Before a vaccine is ever recommended for use, it’s tested in labs. This process can take several years. FDA uses the information from these tests to decide whether to test the vaccine with people.
During a clinical trial, a vaccine is tested on people who volunteer to get vaccinated. Clinical trials usually start with 20 to 100 volunteers, but eventually include thousands of volunteers. These tests can take several years and answer important questions like:
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Is the vaccine safe?
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What dose (amount) works best?
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How does the immune system react to it?
Throughout the process, FDA works closely with the company producing the vaccine to evaluate the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. All safety concerns must be addressed before FDA licenses or authorizes a vaccine.
Once a vaccine is approved or authorized, it continues to be tested. The company that makes the vaccine tests batches to make sure the vaccine is:
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Potent (It works like it’s supposed to)
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Pure (Certain ingredients used during production have been removed)
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Sterile (It doesn’t have any outside germs)
FDA reviews the results of these tests and inspects the factories where the vaccine is made. This helps make sure the vaccines meet standards for both quality and safety.
Once a vaccine is recommended for use, FDA, CDC, and other federal agencies continue to monitor its safety.
The United States has one of the most advanced systems in the world for tracking vaccine safety. Each of the systems below supplies a different type of data for researchers to analyze. Together, they help provide a full picture of vaccine safety.
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Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS): VAERS is an early warning system managed by CDC and FDA that is designed to find possible vaccine safety issues. Patients, health care professionals, vaccine companies, and others can use VAERS to report side effects that happen after a patient received a vaccine. Some side effects might be related to vaccination while others might be a coincidence (happen by chance). VAERS helps track unusual or unexpected patterns of reporting that could mean there’s a possible vaccine safety issue that needs further evaluation.
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The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD): VSD is a collaboration between CDC and several health care organizations across the nation. VSD uses databases of medical records to track vaccine safety and do research in large populations. By using medical records instead of self-reports, VSD can quickly study and compare data to find out if reported side effects are linked to a vaccine.
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Post-licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring System (PRISM), links to an external website, opens in a new tab: PRISM is part of the Sentinel Initiative, which is FDA’s national system for monitoring medical products after they’re licensed for use. PRISM focuses on vaccine safety—it uses a database of health insurance claims to identify and evaluate possible safety issues for licensed vaccines.
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Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project (CISA): CISA is a collaboration between CDC and a national network of vaccine safety experts from medical research centers. CISA does clinical vaccine safety research and—at the request of providers—evaluates complex cases of possible vaccine side effects in specific patients.
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Biologics Effectiveness and Safety (BEST) System: A system that uses multiple data sources and rapid queries to detect or evaluate adverse events or study specific safety questions.
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Additional research and testing: The Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Indian Health Service (IHS) have systems to monitor vaccine safety and do vaccine safety research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy (OIDP) also support ongoing research on vaccines and vaccine safety. During emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, additional safety activities are utilized to help evaluate the data in quickly and with special populations. For example, a new smartphone tool called V-safe uses text messaging and surveys to check in with COVID-19 vaccine recipients after vaccination. (CREDITS)