CHOP investigates fentanyl poisoning among kids | Philly Health Insider
Plus, predictions on Nobel Prizes
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Good morning. Today, we explore research out of CHOP sounding alarms on a devastating ripple effect of the opioid crisis — a rise in fentanyl poisonings among young children. Plus, an hospital letter wrongly told a woman she had no signs of breast cancer. And we’ve got predictions for who might win this year’s Nobel Prizes.
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— Aubrey Whelan, Inquirer health reporter, @aubreyjwhelan
What’s your first course of action when treating a child who is listless, confused, or having trouble breathing? If it’s not a dose of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, maybe it should be.
That’s one takeaway from early research that’s getting national attention out of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which has seen at least four children die of opioid poisonings since 2012. More have experienced severe side effects: 11 children’s hearts stopped.
An abstract of the not-yet-published study was presented last weekend at the American Academy of Pediatrics’ conference. The research digs into 69 cases that were referred to CHOP’s child abuse team, which has seen a fourfold increase in opioid poisoning investigations in the past five years. (And there were likely more cases at CHOP that didn’t trigger an abuse investigation.)
Most of these patients were under two years old, and the youngest was 19 days old.
Another stat stood out to former CHOP fellow Maria Quidgley-Martin, who conducted the research: Among the children who were brought to hospitals by paramedics, just a third had gotten naloxone beforehand.
No one knows why, but Quidgley-Martin thinks doctors or first responders may not always suspect opioid poisonings in children, or may not feel comfortable giving naloxone to a child, though it’s safe for them.
Around the country, meanwhile, the number of children who accidentally swallow opioids is actually going down. That’s probably because kids are most likely to ingest prescription pills containing opioids, and doctors aren’t prescribing as many these days.
But that encouraging news is offset by a rise in kids swallowing fentanyl and other increasingly deadly illicit opioids. The result? They’re at a higher risk for serious complications like brain injuries and even death.
For more on how and why childhood opioid poisonings happen, read my deep dive into the research out of CHOP that is sounding alarms.
The latest news to pay attention to
A patient at Jefferson Einstein got good news after a recent mammogram: She had no signs of breast cancer. But the letter had been sent in error — the woman’s results were inconclusive, and a year later another mammogram found she had cancer. State inspectors found that Einstein didn’t do enough to prevent such mistakes from happening again.
Philly used millions from opioid lawsuit settlements to repair homes and help small businesses in Kensington, the neighborhood hardest-hit by the opioid crisis. But earlier this summer, a state committee ruled it was an inappropriate use of the funds. Now, Philly is appealing the decision, arguing that its efforts are based in evidence and reduce overdose risks.
Virtua Health tests all of its pregnant patients for drugs — a policy that violates antidiscrimination and privacy laws, a lawsuit from the New Jersey Attorney General now contends. The suit highlights two women who ate poppy seeds before giving birth and then tested positive for opioids, resulting in months-long child-abuse investigations.
By the numbers
This week’s big number: 23,000.
That’s the approximate number of doses of the latest COVID-19 vaccine given out in Philadelphia since the vaccines became available in late summer.
It’s enough for about 1.5% of the city’s population.
This is something of a post-pandemic trend: Uptake of COVID vaccines, locally and statewide, tends to lag behind the flu vaccine. About half of Pennsylvania residents get a flu vaccine each year. But just 24% got an updated COVID vaccine last year.
Even with many people behaving like the pandemic is over, COVID killed 50,000 people last year and is still not something to mess around with. (Neither is the flu, which kills about 40,000 every year.) And now, ahead of sick season, is a very good time to protect yourself with a vaccine, health officials say.
Each week, we highlight state safety inspections at hospitals in the area. Up this week: Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia. In February, the hospital was cited for failing to document whether staff were trained on safely administering alcohol-based antiseptic skin solutions, which can be combustible.
Penn Primary Care internist Jeffrey Millstein doesn’t find it too hard to convince his patients to get a flu shot. COVID shots, though, are another matter.
“When I ask my patients why they don’t want more COVID vaccines, they usually say that they ‘have had enough,’ are ‘no longer worried’ about COVID, or ‘the pandemic is over,’” he writes for The Inquirer.
But COVID is still a threat, especially to the unvaccinated, he wrote. Read more on why patients might feel this way, and why that worries Millstein.
Karen E. Knudsen, the first female CEO of the American Cancer Society, will step down from the role to pursue new avenues to advance treatment options and support services.
Knudsen, a former director of Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, joined the American Cancer Society in 2021. She’ll stay on as an executive strategic adviser through early 2025.
Though she declined to give details on where she might work next, Knudsen said she plans to stay in Philly and wants to work on creating partnerships that speed up cancer treatments and improve the lives of patients’ families.
It’s Nobel season, and Philly has a slew of potential candidates for science’s most prestigious prizes, which will be announced starting Oct. 7.
There’s Carl June, the Penn physician behind the genetic engineering technique CAR-T that revolutionized treatment for some cancers, and Virginia Man-Yee Lee, the Penn researcher who specializes in brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. Then there are Charles Kane and Eugene Mele, the physicists who predicted the existence of a wafer-thin material that could be used in future generations of fast computers at — you guessed it — Penn. (Plus, the scientists who discovered the mRNA technology underlying the first COVID-19 vaccines at Penn won last year.)
Simply existing at the University of Pennsylvania is not enough for a Nobel, of course. But all three Penn contenders have won another good predictor of a trip to Stockholm — a Breakthrough Prize, known as the “Oscars of science.” (This does beg the question: What is the Nobel’s Hollywood equivalent? Getting a very long ovation at Cannes?)
The Philly-based Clarivate Analytics has predicted 75 future Nobel winners over the years based on a variety of metrics, including producing research that is frequently referenced by other scientists. Their list this year doesn’t include anyone from Philly, but does name two Princeton professors. If they win — eh, that’s close enough.
📮 Do you work with anyone who you think has a shot at this year’s Nobel Prizes? (Are you self-confident enough to tell us you deserve a Nobel?) For a chance to be featured in this newsletter, email us back.
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