Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qnfv4rY0L/ The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Anker now recall Anker EverFrost Battery Powered Cooler Model A17A0,1, and 2.  The lithium-ion batteries in these coolers overheat with fire and burn hazards. About 5480 coolers were sold in the US and about 160 were sold in Canada at Best Buy, TD Synnex, and other stores nationwide and online at kickstar...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qmoJGrBSx/ The Consumer Product Safety Commission and System Sensor are recalling Honeywell System Sensor L-Series Low Frequency Fire Alarm Sounders Model #s HWL-LF and HWL-LF-BP10.  The sounders and strobes on these units are defective and fail to deploy and alert in the case of a fire. About 29,000 of these sounders were installed by Honeywell authorized i...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qlp88rrZV/ The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Best Buy are recalling Insignia Air Fryers and Air Fryer Ovens.  These air fryers overheat and melt their own handles, while the air fryer ovens overheat and shatter the oven door glass.  All this leads to fires, burns, and lacerations. About 187,400 fryers and fryer ovens were sold in the US, and about 9...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qkiPurK-Q/ The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the US boiler company are recalling U.S. Boiler, New Yorker Boiler, Advantage, FORCE and Archer brand gas-fired hot water residential boilers.  The blocked vent shutoff switch can fail with boilers installed above 5,400 feet in altitude leading to toxic levels of carbon monoxide output and poisoning of ho...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gjZVdrHew/ The Eli Lilly company is now selling many of its drugs, including the sought-after diet drug tirzepatide, branded Zepbound, directly to you at low prices.  This cuts out the intermediaries including the wholesaler, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, and insurance companies who tack on additional costs as the medications pass through their hand...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gic7bLroi/ The first coronary balloon catheter that not only opens these critical heart-feeding arteries but helps to keep them open has now won FDA approval for marketing.  Boston Scientific’s Drug Coated Balloon or DCB, coated with paclitaxel,  reduces the risk of vessel reblocking during a one year period by 38%.   The superiority of this DCB, branded as...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4ghnWwr6iL/ During this season of award shows, the medical community won’t be left out.  One dermatology professional association, the American Contact Dermatitis Society has named sulfites the Allergen of the Year for 2024. Sulfites as a family of chemicals can be present in foods, drinks, cosmetics, and therapeutic skin creams both over-the-counter and pres...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4ggwWnr9X4/ Novo Nordisk, the Danish manufacturer of the diabetes drug semaglutide, repurposed for weight loss and branded as Wegovy and Ozempic, is once again screaming a warning to all those who are searching for this drug in a market where it is in very short supply.  While these warnings have been coming from the company and the FDA since late last year,...

x https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gTotpLcsd/ Those children with autism spectrum disorder, ASD, commonly carry the SCN2A genetic variation.  This mutation that affects the flow of electrical signals in and out of brain cells has broad impacts on the developing neurologic system.   These include a likelihood of seizures but also changes to the eyes’ motor controls.  UC-San Francisco neurologists have...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gS3KPLeVF/ Using a clever DNA barcoding selection system, bioengineers and immunologists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified lipid nanoparticles or LNPs that selectively accumulate in the lungs.  These molecules than become ideal transport mechanisms for delivery of mRNA to lung tissues.  Such mRNA can be specifically created to trigger the pro...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gR-gkrLco/ Small biopsies of a patient’s pancreatic cancer can be grown out into a 3D cell matrix that provides an advanced look at how effective any given chemotherapy might be inside the human body.  Researchers at La Jolla California’s Salk Institute now report the optimal method for rapidly growing these organoids. The harvested cancer cells grow in liqu...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gQ6IVr85r/ Women monitored with magnetic resonance imaging following initial treatment for BRCA1 positive breast cancer enjoy a 3.5-fold lower risk of mortality compared with those not monitored with such imaging.   This the conclusion of a multisite collaborative study by the Hereditary Breast Cancer Clinical Study Group.   The study reviewed the cases of 2...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gQIISLcq2/ A new method for rapidly identifying bacteria, fungi, and other microbes is here thanks to a database that catalogues the molecules characteristically produced by these germs, that is their chemical fingerprints.  This tool, named microbeMASST, with MASST standing for mass spectroscopy search tool, has been developed by UC-San Diego pharmacologist...

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gPLBTLnTz/ Urinary tract infections trigger a local nerve overgrowth that plagues patients with continuing pain.  A multi-disciplinary team of Duke University pathologists and immunobiologists report this discovery after their clinical and mouse model studies. Beginning with a study of patients with recurrent urinary tract infections, they found that bacterial growth...

Vidcast:  https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=955970275479680&ref=sharing The CDC has erased the current 5 day quarantine rule that applies after you test positive for CoVid.  It now says that you can go out in public as soon as 24 hours after diagnosis as long has you have no or improving symptoms and no fever over that 24 hour time.   Actually, the new CDC rules apply to anyone with any respir...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4gMqTirith/ No surprise, but the CDC now announces the appearance of a new CoVid variant.  BA.2.87.1 has just surfaced having infected 9 persons in the Republic of South Africa.  So far, there are no cases of BA.2.87.1 in the US or outside of South Africa, and, for that matter, no significant bump in Covid within South Africa.   That suggests this new variant...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4MBiAYLxft/ Soliton Inc., an Abbvie company, is touting its non-surgical therapy for cellulite called Resonic.  The device delivers high frequency pulses to affected skin that effectively break up fibrous bands beneath the surface eliminating the mottled, orange rind-like skin that is cellulite.   The company reminds us that 90% of women develop cellulite ove...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4MAXiKLe0p/ There is a nasal antiseptic preparation called Nozin Nasal Sanitizer being touted on TikTok,Twitter, and Facebook as an effective nasal antiseptic against not only bacteria such as Staph aureus but also CoVid and other viruses.  On February 6, 2024, the FDA fired off a warning letter to the company manufacturing Nozin warning it to cease and desis...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L_nzTLCia/ The FDA warns the public that there is no approved wearable device, no smartwatch and no smart ring, that can capably measure or control blood sugar levels on its own.  The agency contrasts this situation with watch and phone applications that work with skin-piercing sensors such as Libre, and Dexcom. Manufacturers of these freestanding watch and...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L-mmcrixL/ Injecting a herd of a patient’s own white cells known to kill that patient’s malignant skin cancer is effective court-of-last-resort therapy for advanced melanoma resistant to other treatments.  A multi-site study of 153 with such tumors showed that this treatment known as TIL or Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes induced significant tumor regression...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L93kbrvEV/ A 15 minute exposure to red light can lower blood glucose levels by nearly 28%.  This the finding by investigators at University College London following their study of 15 healthy adults in light treatment and control groups.  Both groups of participants were given sugar doses prior to serial measurements of their blood sugar.  The light appears t...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L8irNrMGq/ Eating a diet rich in healthy plant-based foods or a pure vegetarian diet is associated with a 16-20% improvement in breath-holding during sleep.  On the other hand, wolfing down unhealthy plant-associated offerings led to a 22% sleep apnea exacerbation.   These are the overall conclusions by Australian investigators reviewing dietary and sleep qu...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L6tenL5_X/ Boys as well as girls do starve themselves to death.  In fact, the mortality rate of anorexia nervosa is as 1.5 to 6 times higher for males than females. The guys most at risk for developing anorexia are those engaged in so-called strength focused sports including cycling, running, and wrestling.  The male groups who most often suffer anorexia inc...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L6Ch7rgcC/ We know that vaccinating girls against carcinogenic strains of Human Papilloma Virus saves them from the heartbreak of cervical cancer later.  Now, a study from the University of Edinburgh shows that the optimal age to vaccine is at age 12 years. Reproductive health investigators there reviewed data from the Scottish cervical cancer system coverin...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L5UUmrBLK/ Injuries to electric bike riders have spiked 30 fold over the past 5 years.  This from a UC-San Francisco reviews of data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System that covers data from all US emergency departments. Over the same period, e-bike related hospitalizations increased 43-fold,  ebike injuries in children under 18 increased...