Category Archives: Uncategorized

In my last blog piece, I wrote that we have seen a number of diseases that are not endemic to the U.S. pop up and cause outbreaks. Some of these are infections that we have not previously seen people acquire in the continental U.S., but rather were involving international travelers who acquired the infection elsewhere,Continue reading “What is Dengue Fever?”

Part I I don’t live my life in fear, but I also don’t subscribe to living my life in blissful ignorance and just accept whatever may come my way, or worse, just throwing caution to the wind. My personal approach is to be aware of the risks to the extent possible and reasonable, and thenContinue reading “We are being far too complacent about COVID-19 and potential future pandemics”

It is estimated that 18.2% of adults over the age of 18 have had the updated COVID-19 vaccine booster as of the first week of this month. That same percentage for children ages 6 months – 17 years is only 7.8%. No doubt there is greater vaccine hesitancy due to rampant vaccine disinformation and anti-vaxContinue reading “What if you think you are protected from moderate or severe COVID-19, but aren’t?”

A growing body of research is all coming to the same conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 reinfections are cumulatively increasing the risks for long-term health consequences. A recently published study from Canada (Experiences of Canadians with long-term symptoms following COVID-19 (statcan.gc.ca) is one of the more recent studies on this subject. In a survey of Canadians, as ofContinue reading “The Risk for Long COVID increases with each Infection”

Many Americans will travel either domestically or internationally during the upcoming holiday season, either for business, vacation or to visit family and friends.  Unfortunately, in my experience, most people do not consider the potential for getting ill while away from home, where they would go for health care if they became ill especially on aContinue reading “Medical Considerations for Domestic and International Travel During the Holidays”

Last week, the CDC issued a media release (U.S. Syphilis Cases in Newborns Continue to Increase: A 10-Times Increase Over a Decade | CDC Online Newsroom | CDC) warning of a 10-fold increase in the numbers of congenital syphilis cases resulting from the rapidly accelerating epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases (specifically, gonorrhea and syphilis) inContinue reading “Another Public Health Epidemic in the U.S.”

For some time now, I have raised the potential for liability against employers in lawsuits brought by their employees for failing to provide certain basic protections against infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, especially in the case of health care employers. In the specific case of hospitals and nursing homes, we have already seen a numberContinue reading “COVID-19 Liability Cases are Beginning to Make their Way Through the Courts”

When a novel virus (novel means a new virus or new strain of virus to which the population would not be expected to have preexisting immunity, and little, if any, cross-immunity [i.e., immunity to other strains of viruses that might be similar enough to provide some protection against the new strain based upon prior infectionContinue reading “In-Hospital Spread of Epidemic and Pandemic Coronaviruses”

By David C. Pate, M.D., J.D. Background In May of 2020 at the World Health Assembly, a resolution was passed recognizing that managing mis-and disinformation would be critical to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, and then on September 23, 2020, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) declared an “infodemic” in a joint statement by the WHO andContinue reading “A Comprehensive Response to Disinformation Campaigns by Physicians”

Boost Now or Wait for the New Booster? I have been asked many times in the last few weeks, especially now that we are having signs of a new surge (as a reminder – when I use the word surge, I mean a significant and sustained increase in COVID-19 cases; I am not using itContinue reading “The Most Common Question I get Now”