Faculty News and Notes
MARCH 23, 2007
News and Notes
Several CCEB faculty have appeared in the news in recent months. A brief summary dating from late December follows in alphabetical order by faculty surname.
News
William C. Holmes, MD, MSCE, Assistant Professor of Medicine, General Internal Medicine, University of Pennsylvania SOM, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Senior Scholar in the CCEB, was interviewed for and quoted in the ABC online news article "Would You Condone Torture in War?" The article, which appeared on the 14th of February (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2872770&page=1), was based on Dr. Holmes's paper "Abuse of War Zone Detainees: Veterans' Perceptions of Acceptability," published in the February issue of Military Medicine (Mil Med 2007 Feb;172(2):175-81).
Dr. Holmes was also interviewed recently for Dr. Dan Gottlieb's segment on WHYY radio's Morning Edition segment regarding this study. The interviewed was aired on the 19th of March.
Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania SOM, was quoted in the China View on the 26th of January (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-01/26/content_5657627.htm) regarding her study on smoking and exercise (Sinner P, Folsom AR, Harnack L, Eberly LE, Schmitz KH. The association of physical activity with lung cancer incidence in a cohort of older women: the Iowa Women's Health Study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2006 Dec;15(12):2359-63.). The full article can be read here: http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/12/2359?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Schmitz+K&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=11/1/2006&resourcetype=HWCIT.
Samir Shah, MD, Senior Scholar, Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania SOM, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at CHOP, was interviewed for The Philadelphia Inquirer article "New Questions on Medicines Given to Young," by Josh Goldstein, published on the 6th of March (http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16841956.htm). The article appeared in response to the publication of Dr. Shah's study, which confirms in the largest-ever US pediatric study that "off-label" drug use is particularly common in hospitalized children. The full article (Shah SS, Hall M, Goodman DM, Feuer P, Sharma V, Fargason C Jr, Hyman D, Jenkins K, White ML, Levy FH, Levin JE, Bertoch D, Slonim AD. Off-label Drug Use in Hospitalized Children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007 Mar;161(3):282-90) can be read here: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/161/3/282.
Brian Strom, MD, MPH, Director of the CCEB, Associate Vice Dean, University of Pennsylvania SOM, was interviewed about his study on soy formula (which found no differences between those fed soy- vs. milk-based formulas as infants) in the column "Carnal Knowledge: Take that talk about soy with a grain or two of salt," which appeared on January 1st in The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/16359614.htm). Dr. Strom's study can be read at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/286/19/2402.
Dr. Strom was also quoted, along with Scott Halpern, MD, PhD, MBE, MSCE, a fellow in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine and senior fellow with the Center for Bioethics, and Ross Koppel, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Sociology in the Penn School of Arts and Sciences and an affiliate member of the CCEB, in an article that first appeared in the Saturday, January 13, 2007 edition of CIO Unified Communications: Australia's Magazine for Information Executives. The article, entitled "Right Tech Dose Helps Medicine Go Down," can be read here: http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;1249455314;fp;16;fpid;0.
Yu-Xiao Yang, MD, MSCE, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, Gastroenterology Division, University of Pennsylvania SOM, Senior Scholar in the CCEB, was quoted in Associated Press and Reuters articles that were picked up in numerous newspapers, including The New York Times and The Boston Globe, as well as by national and local TV news reports about his study reporting that people over 50 who took popular heartburn drugs for a year or more had a significant increase in the risk of breaking a hip. The study, co-authored by James Lewis, MD, MSCE, Associate Professor of Medicine, Gastroenterology Division, Senior Scholar in the CCEB, Solomon Epstein, MD, Division of Gastroenterology Penn SOM, and David C. Metz, MD, Division of Endocrinology, Penn SOM, was published in the December 27th issue of JAMA (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/24/2947).
Notes
Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, Associate Dean for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, University of Pennsylvania SOM, Director, Graduate Program in Public Health Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania SOM, and Senior Scholar in the CCEB, was one of three award winners to receive the Woman's Day Red Dress Award on February 1st in New York City in recognition of her work in the fight against heart disease in women. Dr. Sharon Hayes, from the Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Susan Bennett, from Georgetown Hospital, were the other recipients. This award, given annually since 2004, is based on nominations from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the American Heart Association, and former honorees.
Hedi Schelleman, PhD, a postdoc in the Epidemiology Department, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, won the Roger R. Williams Award for Genetic Epidemiology and the Prevention and Treatment of Atherosclerosis presented at the 47th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. She presented her abstract on Saturday, March 3rd in Orlando, FL as part of the special Third-Day Program entitled Translational Genomics: How To Design and Analyze Genome-Wide Association Studies for Cardiovascular Diseases. Dr. Schelleman's abstract was the one to achieve the highest average score among abstracts submitted in the genetic epidemiology category.
The Roger R. Williams Memorial Award for Genetic Epidemiology and the Prevention and Treatment of Atherosclerosis is named for Dr. Roger R. Williams' pioneering work in genetics of inherited lipid disorders and the prevention of atherosclerosis.