Campbell oversaw two major clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and on the Anschutz Medical Campus. He says while the vaccines available are up to 94% effective, people with compromised immune systems are less responsive to the shot, and their effectiveness drops between 50 and 40%.
Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, said she hopes enough people will get vaccinated to start bending the curve of new infections, but right now, the “rapid” growth in the numbers doesn’t offer much cause for optimism. “Things look like it’s getting worse,” she said.
“We really have never seen anything like this rapid growth in kids presenting with mental health problems and the severity of those problems. I’ve never seen this in my entire career,” said Jenna Glover, the director of psychology training at Children's Hospital Colorado [and associate professor of psychiatry at CU School of Medicine].
Well, benzene is a known carcinogen. No level of exposure is considered safe. That said, the levels found in sunscreens were relatively low. So by themselves, they don't pose a big risk. That's according to Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum of the Colorado School of Public Health. He spent decades studying benzene exposure. But he says the problem is that we are exposed to low levels of benzene from various sources all the time, in the air we breathe from things like petrochemical refining and vehicle exhaust. “And that, of course, adds up. And that's why low levels of any single product used repeatedly combined with all of our background exposures increases the rates of cancer in the population.”
Children under 12 are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, which both leaves them vulnerable to the virus and means there still will be outbreaks this upcoming school year, said Beth Carlton, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health. Since it is possible the virus will be circulating in schools, other measures to reduce transmission — masking, physical distancing and adequate ventilation — will likely still be needed, she said.
“The Control-IQ system can significantly improve time in range between 70 mg/dL and 180 mg/dL, bringing it closer to the [American Diabetes Association] goal of 70%,” Laurel H. Messer, PhD, RN, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, told Healio. “This is a huge win for children and adolescents, who particularly struggle with glycemic control.”
“Right now there doesn’t seem a reason to need a booster,” said Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado [School of Medicine]. “There are legitimate concerns about the motivations about Pfizer’s statement, given it’s in their financial interest to promote this concept. That doesn’t mean to say they’re wrong, but we need to follow the science.”
“We were introduced by email, so we just continued emailing,” said Dr. Grossman, who specializes in emergency medicine. She is currently the medical director of the UCHealth Integrative Medicine Center, and a faculty member of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, both in Denver.
