‘Your Brain Doesn’t Care What Hits It’: What We Heard This Week

“Your brain doesn’t care what hits it.” — Daniel Daneshvar, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, on how repeated head trauma endured by pro football players may be one of several potential risk factors for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

“That’s where I get a bit more nervous, because a very transmissible variant will be sweeping across the United States, and even if the rate of severe disease is low, if you’re talking about 330 million people, those numbers start adding up real quickly.” — Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, on the arrival of Omicron.

“We have a duty to make sure these deaths are properly certified, and we have to resist those challenges.” — James Gill, MD, Connecticut’s chief medical examiner, on requests to remove COVID-19 as the cause of death on death certificates.

“The trouble with natural immunity is you have to get infected to get natural immunity.” — Krishna Udayakumar, MD, of Duke Global Health Institute, during a House committee hearing on how infection can leave a person vulnerable to complications, long COVID, and death.

“I know that we have some work to do, but we have made tremendous progress.” — Sandra Lindsay, RN, DHSc, the first person in the U.S. to receive the COVID vaccine, on the year after her first dose.

“I felt really bad when I saw some of the comments…I don’t want to give any of these poor kids anxiety who are getting ready to apply to residency or anything like that.” — James Berry, DO, of the Riverside University Health System Medical Center in Southern California, on his study that came under fire for tying FICO credit scores with surgical residency performance.

“It’s really difficult to silo fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, breathing issues, and so on…. Sometimes treating fatigue, for example, can help with some cognitive dysfunction.” — Benjamin Abramoff, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, on new clinical guidance for managing long COVID symptoms.

“Regardless of the outcome here, there will certainly be a lot more work to do.” — Hillary Schneller, Esq, attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and co-lead counsel in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, on how the high court’s decision could impact healthcare providers.

“At the very beginning, no one really knew what was going on. But there were incidents where Black people were dying or becoming more sick, especially as essential workers.” — Leigh Evans, director of community development for Eastern Star Church in Indianapolis, on efforts to address COVID-related racial disparities.

“With COVID, and obviously more severe COVID infections in B-cell-depleted patients and the inability to respond to vaccination, I would actually argue that maintenance is a questionable practice in 2021 in follicular lymphoma.” — Brad Kahl, MD, of Washington University in St. Louis, on a randomized trial that favored retreatment over maintenance therapy.