GERM
00:00:10.400 – 00:00:11.360
Ndewo! My name is Germ.

WORM
00:00:11.360 – 00:00:12.240
I’m Worm.

GERM
00:00:12.320 – 00:00:25.280
Welcome to episode 126 of the Germ and Worm Travel Health Podcast. A growing dengue outbreak in Florida. It’s a big planet. See it in Good Health. I’m Dr. Paul Pottinger. You could also call me Germ. I’m an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Washington.

WORM
00:00:25.600 – 00:00:31.120
I’m Dr. Chris Sanford, also known as Worm, also a physician, family medicine doctor, also at the University of Washington.

GERM
00:00:31.440 – 00:04:32.900
On this podcast, we answer your questions about travel health and safety. This week is no exception. We’ll talk today about dengue in Florida. How big is the outbreak and what should travelers know? War wounds in Ukraine: Is there a new approach to bad superbugs? What’s the risk of hepatitis A if I visit Cuba? And will there finally be a cure for the common cold?

A reminder to our listeners. Please contact us with your travel health questions, your stories and and your tips for success. Visit us online germandworm.com or send us an email germandworm@gmail.com we always give you the same medical disclaimer and it has not changed.

This podcast is designed to inform, inspire and entertain. But before you travel, please see a qualified healthcare professional for recommendations specific to you and to your itinerary.

Hey, Chris, I wanted to share with you and our listeners.

You know, I did just get back from South Africa yesterday, but before that I was in dc, our nation’s capital, for our big society meeting called ID Week. Every year, infectious diseases specialists from around the world come together for a national meeting where we talk about scientific advancements.

We also connect with each other, tell stories and are really inspired by each other. It’s a way for us, as a professional society of doctors, pharmacists, epidemiologists, microbiologists, nurses.

Everybody comes together to share our stories. In this case, there were about 12,000 of us at the meeting. It was incredible.

And I wanted to share with you a couple of highlights, some of the best things that come from this meeting or the individual conversations you have with folks, either old friends or new acquaintances. That idea that you meet with people one to one. But there are also large lectures where we all hear from the same inspiring experts.

A couple that come to mind for me were Dr. Celine Gounder, who’s a wonderful ID attending and an expert at explaining what we do for a living. You’ll find Dr. Gounder on national news outlets all the time.

She was extremely important, communicating the realities and the science during COVID 19.

But she’s an expert in all areas of ID and she gave a lecture, sharing her experience, going through that process of basically the torture and the torment from the radical right and other people who were basically crazy and trying to tear us apart as a society of experts in id. And hearing her experiences and her stories was both humbling and also infuriating and really inspiring at the same time.

We also heard from a doctor called Atul Gawande who’s a surgeon by training and a well known author as well. And he also ran USAID when it was largely destroyed, at least attacked, of course from the federal government.

It was his job to try to explain why USAID was important and to speak truth to power. And he did that on a couple occasions during this meeting was very inspiring.

I’ll call out to our listeners because I know people out there in German Nation are of a certain opinion about what we should do with our world.

If you are curious about what the U.S. agency for International Development does, please go online and find free a documentary that Dr. Gawande has created. It’s called Rovina’s Choice. R O V I N A. If you look up Robina’s Choice, you’ll find it free of charge online and it’s 20 minutes.

That’s worth your time. It’s very difficult to watch. It’s about one particular person’s, the impact on her life and her family because of the defunding of usaid.

And it’s brutal to watch. And it’s. If you come through that, that video and you’re not moved to tears and there’s something wrong with you, it really was quite profound.

And you know, I would emphasize currently USAID has been quietly defended by people on the left and the right. Actually we’re now, I think down about 20%. So about 80% of pre Trump funding is still there, which on the one hand sounds great.

On the other hand, I don’t know. Look at your hand. You got five fingers. Decide which one of those you want to cut off with a butcher’s knife. Right.

It’s still four is better than better than three, but you’d still be scarred for life. And so that’s what Rovena’s Choice is about. It’s about those enduring brutalities of what we’ve gone through with the defunding of USAID.

It is inspiring and simultaneously check that out. Yeah, please do.

WORM
00:04:32.900 – 00:05:12.460
I am envious that you got to hear Atul Gawande. I read everything that I can find that he’s written. He is phenomenally articulate when he writes and I assume he’s the same when he Speaks.

It’s a little frustrating for me because I have to admit, as a doc, when I read a medical article, whether it’s by a doc or not, I kind of look for mistakes so I can look smart and I can’t do it with him. When I. He did a piece recently on Obamacare and health insurance and it was really complicated and long and I kept thinking, oh, good point.

Oh, that’s smart. Oh, I agree. Oh, I just learned something. So speaking as one in the trenches, he is one of my healthcare heroes.

GERM
00:05:13.130 – 00:06:36.660
Simultaneously humble and also very wise. I also want to do a special shout out. I was talking with a friend at this meeting who asked about the podcast.

I showed them what it looks like on iPhone. I’m an iPhone guy. And they said, ooh, I love the look of your podcast. And I thought, the look, what about the sound? Like you should listen to it.

But it occurred to me, Chris, I think you and I owe a big shout out to our friend Val Edemon. What Val has done. She’s our social media expert and she’s the one who puts together all the graphics for our podcast. And I went back.

You know, I don’t have that many podcasts that I follow on Apple, but I looked at every podcast I could find, including all the stuff that they pushed to me, all the advertising, the stuff that Apple wants you to listen to. Omg, I had no idea. I just, I had no. I didn’t realize. Our podcast is way better looking than anything out there. Like, by far. It’s just stunning.

It’s really interesting. There’s a lot of good podcasts. They sound good, I learned stuff. But God, their graphics are horrible.

So I want to call that out because I think we got the best looking podcast around. Maybe not the best looking podcasters, but somebody recently told me I had a voice for radio. I was like, oh, that’s great.

You usually say I have a face for radio. So the voice for radio. I’ll take it. Anyway, this. I thought Val was somebody who some of our listeners may not know.

That’s where the graphics come from. If you want to be connected to a wonderful graphic designer and social media expert, we will gladly connect you. Just shoot us a message.

Germanworm gmail.com we’ll gladly connect you to Val. And Val, you’re amazing. Thanks for all your hard work on behalf of the podcast.

WORM
00:06:36.660 – 00:06:42.880
Yeah, Val is a native of Argentina, now lives in Miami, and without her, we would be really ugly online,.

GERM
00:06:43.600 – 00:07:14.850
If not in person. Chris, here’s a question. This comes to us from that bastion of tropical medicine.

Some people call it a hell on earth, some people call it paradise, I call it Florida. And down in Florida they’ve got this mosquito borne infection called dengue. What is going on with dengue?

And I ask because we’re moving into the fall and soon enough the winter we’re going to have people going down to visit. Family members willingly are kicking and screaming. People are going to go to Florida in the wintertime. What should they know about dengue?

WORM
00:07:15.330 – 00:09:05.430
Well, dengue is a viral infection that’s spread by mosquitoes. It’s common around the world in the tropics. The US has generally been spared from dengue fever.

There have been a few tiny outbreaks in some of our warmer states like Hawaii or California or Texas or Florida. But these usually have very small numbers. They last for a small amount of time.

There is some concern, which is moving from hypothetical to potentially occurring, that as the planet warms and the tropics get further north, that some of the tropical illnesses may move north with this new climate.

And in fact what we’re seeing as we speak is the biggest outbreak of locally acquired dengue fever in the continental United states in almost 100 years. This is a huge outbreak by US dengue standards. Currently there are over 700 cases in Florida.

And this is, as I say, much bigger than what has happened before. It’s in three counties including Hillsborough county, which includes Tampa. It’s also in Orange, Broward and Miami Dade counties.

So is there a vaccine for this? Yeah, there is. It’s not available in the US which is a drag. It’s a good vaccine called Qdinga, but it’s available in about 40 other countries.

So if I was going to a country where dengue was common somewhere near the equator and I was going there frequently or long duration, this would be a good vaccine to get. You’d have to get it abroad. Of course.

In terms of Florida, if you’re going to one of these counties where there’s this recent outbreak of dengue, certainly use bug avoidant measures. So I’m talking DEET or picaritin to skin and permethrin to clothing. Should you avoid these counties? Personal decision.

If it was me, I would probably go, but I would be diligent about bug repellent. Paul, what would your level of concern be?

GERM
00:09:05.910 – 00:11:00.480
I want to bring a laser. We talked last episode about bringing frickin lasers. No, it’s. I mean, yes, this is another reason to be, you know, mosquito aware.

You can still visit Florida. It’s okay. Remember this is often seasonal as well.

It’s another feature to this particular outbreak is that we’re getting some of these cases that are now being reported as we move towards, you know, fully in the wintertime, as it gets colder, there will be fewer breeding mosquitoes. These numbers should go down. I mean, my hope is that we’ve seen the crest of this epidemic curve. Who knows, we’ll find out soon enough.

You can still visit down there. I really wish we had that vaccine. It’s something I’m looking forward to getting when I possibly can.

A few minutes ago I mentioned that I was at our national meeting in D.C. iD week.

You know, one of the things that happens at these big meetings is that all the pharmaceutical companies come out with their big fancy, shiny looking displays. And the company that makes Kudenga is called Takeda. It’s a firm pharmaceutical firm from Japan.

They were there and I went to talk to them and said, hey, what’s going on? When are you going to refile with the fda?

Remember they, they tried to get this vaccine approved here in the United States and the FDA said, no, we don’t like the way that there was something about the data formatting and the data tables that they were not happy with. It was a fine point of detail that they said, no thanks. And that was good enough for most other countries around the world, not good enough for us.

Fda, that’s fine. The question is, what are they waiting for? And so I went to the display to ask them about this and there was nobody there.

From Takeda’s vaccine group, there’s a bunch of folks who were making this interesting antiviral called Rubivir, which is a good antiviral, but they didn’t know anything about Qdenga. They said, everybody’s asking about that. It’s funny you ask about that too. I said, yeah, because everybody needs this crazy vaccine.

So let’s see what happens. Meantime, go visit Florida. Just don’t get bit by the mosquitoes.

And hopefully as we get into the wintertime, the number of mosquito bites will go down just by climactic events by itself. But rest assured, come next spring, this is going to remain a problem.

WORM
00:11:02.880 – 00:11:09.520
Now, Paul, yesterday, October 31, you were quoted in the New York Times. Can you tell us a little about that article?

GERM
00:11:09.920 – 00:15:57.960
Oh, yeah. A journalist who I know called Gina Colada reached out recently.

She was writing an article about new techniques, or rather some very old techniques being learned again by colleagues in Ukraine.

What’s happening with the war in Ukraine, of course, is there’s not Only the death due to trauma, but also death due to multiply drug resistant bacteria, AKA the superbugs. Superbugs are a huge problem in, in combat because. Well, we’ve learned this in our own experience in the Middle east.

And so too this is being learned again, unfortunately, in the very hard way by our colleagues in Ukraine who are trying to take care of people, civilians and military uniform personnel together who are being wounded during the Russian attack, usually by bombardment from above. But it could be small arms fire too.

And when they come to local hospitals and military hospitals, they tend to get very, very difficult to treat infections. This means that if you survive your wound and your injury, you may ultimately die of a difficult or impossible to treat bacterial infection.

That’s something that’s happening in Ukraine. That happened to U.S. service personnel and allied service personnel in the Middle east as well.

We don’t know exactly why it happens, but it does seem to be that in the soil and the dirt there are a whole variety of microbes that don’t normally requ human host, but they get into the wounds, they get onto our bodies, we become colonized with them.

And with a wound that’s there, that’s a perfect breach of our normal skin, our defense system, the bacteria moves in and it causes bloodstream infections and bone infections and brain infections and infections that we simply have to treat, but we cannot because they contain genes, genetic elements of drug resistance, usually right from the soil itself.

So what the folks in Ukraine are doing, this is what Gina Claude has written about, is they’re assuming that all of their wounded personnel coming into hospital are covered with these bad bugs and they are stripping them naked and they are scrubbing them from top to bottom with the most potent germicidal antiseptics that they can find. That sounds very obvious and straightforward. Get naked, take a shower.

And yet that’s something that has not traditionally been happening in military hospitals, including in some cases in our own US Hospitals. Think about the TV show mash, right?

They don’t remember people getting scrubbed down in the Korean War when they came into to these mobile hospitals, but that’s what they’re trying to do.

And so what the New York Times article was about is the nature of this problem in general and the kinds of things that they’re doing, which in my opinion, that’s why they reached out to me. I think these are very sensible, common sense things that are relatively low risk and have the potential for high reward.

And my thought is that if it works in their setting, this is something that all Military service hospitals should consider doing front to back, top to bottom. Where I work here in Seattle, I remember very well, we had a case of crab come to our hospital.

Crab stands for carbapenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii chalcoceticus complex or crab for short. Crab is a germ that normally lives in the dirt, but it is resistant or highly resistant to almost all the antibiotics we have.

And back in the day, in fact, the vulgar name was the Arachibacter instead of the Acinetobacter because it was often coming back in and on the bodies of people trying to survive their wounds. Being wounded in Iraq and subsequently Afghanistan, very difficult organism to get out of the hospital.

Once it’s in the hospital, it is an environmental, tenacious bug. So the idea in this group from Ukraine is stop these bad bugs from coming into the hospital in the first place. I love that idea.

So, so I think that’s important. But you know, you don’t have to go to Ukraine to get these bad infections.

In fact, I want to call out an article that was recently published by Centers for Disease Control linking superbug infections to fatality. And what they’ve said here is that in the United States of America, just the good old US of A.

There are approximately 55 000Americans who die because of these so called superbug infections every single year. I’ll say that again, 50,000Americans dying each year due to multiple drug resistant infections.

They’re often people who’ve had surgery, who have a breach of their normal defense system and they get often a healthcare associated infection and they cannot survive. It’s totally outrageous and it’s something that I think we should do better at. And so we have a number of strategies.

If you want to learn more about what the ID Society of America proposes, please visit us online idsociety.org you can see some of the legal maneuvers that we have laid out as bills, including bills that are currently before Congress to try to radically revolutionize the way we invest in pharmaceuticals to prepare for the next wave of bad bugs. Instead of treating it like a business, we treat it like a national security and human rights priority.

It’s a no brainer and hopefully when we retake both houses of Congress here in the next couple of days, we can get back on track with that.

WORM
00:15:58.280 – 00:16:22.900
And related question. Paul, regarding the war wounds in Ukraine, the common conception is the highest risk exposure for tetanus is a rusty nail.

But in fact tetanus is what we call a soil saprophyte. It Lives in dirt in soil.

Are you reading anything about these unfortunate soldiers in Ukraine or Russia who are getting soil blasted under their skin, getting tetanus lockjaw?

GERM
00:16:23.140 – 00:16:53.630
I have not read about that, but no doubt it’s a high risk situation. So hopefully in both of those societies there is standard military deployment of TDAP or tetanus toxoid before people go to theater.

Any one of those people coming into hospital, it’s so easy to simply give them a booster, whether I don’t know if they have access to toxoid only or if it’s like what we do here, which is usually the tdap. Any of that would be great. No, this is a ultra high risk situation.

In fact, you’ve seen that yourself, haven’t you, when serving people crushed and injured in the earthquake in Haiti, as I.

WORM
00:16:53.630 – 00:16:54.630
Recall, right? You bet.

GERM
00:16:54.790 – 00:17:26.330
Yeah. So that’s another thing that goes into this. The good news about tetanus is that it’s highly preventable with the use of this toxoid vaccine.

And if people do get infected, we can actually treat that one with antibiotics. But yet that’s another infection threat for people who survive their war wounds.

Chris, tell us about hepatitis A in Cuba. If people choose to visit Cuba from the United States or elsewhere, are they at increased risk of catching the viral infection hep A?

WORM
00:17:26.650 – 00:20:04.680
You bet. So first, hepatitis A, It’s a viral infection, it’s spread by food and water, is what we call a fecal oral route of spread, which is very appetizing.

Basically, it’s when people don’t keep their drinking water and their sewage separate. It’s a serious infection, very different than hepatitis B. Hepatitis B is spread essentially by blood and sex and from mother to infant.

Hepatitis A spread by food and water will make you, if you’re not vaccinated and you catch it, it’ll make you turn orangey yellow, it’ll make you feel like hell, you’ll be nauseated, your eyeballs will turn orange, and then the great majority of people will get better after several weeks. It does not tend to develop into a lifelong carrier state as hepatitis B often does. So it’s serious but rarely life threatening.

But it’ll, it’ll take you out of commission for a couple months. So spread by food and water, rare in the United States, common in low inc income countries.

So a lot of low income countries in Africa and Latin America and Asia. It is relatively common for many years now.

Since the 1990s, there has been a standard vaccination in the United States and most other high Income nations. For this, you get two shots for hepatitis A at least six months apart and you’re protected for life.

Highly efficacious infection with this after the vaccine is very rare. Now, Cuba is in a bit of flux. It’s tumultuous.

There’s the embargo, there’s some political instability, the government is corrupt, I will opine, and basically many public services are deteriorating.

And essentially there has been an uptick in hepatitis A cases in Cuba recently, and there have been some cases where people have visited from the US and other countries and gotten hepatitis A. It’s easy to prevent if you had two doses of hepatitis A as a kid.

So if you had standard vaccines since the 1990s, in all likelihood you are protected for life and don’t need a booster. If you only had one or you had none, you’ve never been vaccinated for hepatitis A.

Whether or not you’re going to Cuba, I would recommend getting the vaccine series. As I say, two shots and you’re good for life. In terms of going to Cuba, I’ve been there twice recently. I think it’s a great place.

It’s just a hop and a skip away from Miami. It’s inexpensive, people are friendly. Now, I’ll admit my last trip there was a little over two years ago and things are more unstable now.

So even two years ago there were power failures and there were gasoline shortages, so I got three meals every day, but not much else was assured. So I can’t say it’s going to be a luxury place, but it’s fascinating. It has great history.

If you get a chance to go there, I would recommend going there, back to hepatitis A. Just make sure you’re vaccinated before you go.

GERM
00:20:04.840 – 00:20:44.440
Yeah, thanks, Chris. I haven’t been. I’m looking forward to visiting Cuba. Would love to. It actually has a very proud tradition in terms of medical science as well.

She’s trained a lot of wonderful medical doctors. I’m keen to see how they’ve done that in spite of really Austin austere, difficult settings.

As we look here on the 1st of November, 2026, State Department has this listed as a Level 2 destination, meaning you can travel but use increased level of caution. I think it’s right in line with what you’ve said a moment ago.

It’s a dynamic situation, especially regarding all the blockades and the strangulation against petrol supply that the United States is doing. So this is something where things can change. So if you’re considering a trip to Cuba, do your due diligence right up to the moment.

Before you go and see if things may have changed.

WORM
00:20:46.110 – 00:21:17.280
Yeah. When Castro took power in 1959, the pros and cons of that are controversial.

And I won’t make any large statements, but I will opine that he did two things that were good. One is he raised literacy markedly and rapidly. He made teaching everyone to read and write a very high priority.

And the other thing is he made public health a very high priority.

Despite the relatively low income, Cuba actually has good statistics regarding vaccine rates and longevity and childhood mortality and other markers of public health.

GERM
00:21:18.240 – 00:21:40.360
Yeah. It’s such an interesting place. I’m very eager to go.

And by the way, just looking at this more carefully now, State Department has not revised their recommendation, their level 2 since May of 25. So in the last year and a half, a lot of things may have changed. I don’t know whether that’s considered reliable.

It sounds like this is a place that people should consider going to. You should have a plan for who you’re going to visit, what you’re doing, situation looks like when you arrive.

WORM
00:21:40.360 – 00:22:22.399
And just a little bit of history. The embargo started a year after Castro took power in 1960.

There was what was called the Obama Thaw, 2014-2016, where cruise ships started going there. There was more tourism. Americans were happy, Cubans were happy. That was reversed under Trump.

And interestingly, the reversal was not reversed under Biden. Biden kept the great majority of Trump’s restrictions. And of course, now with Trump, again, you can still go there. You can fly. I flew from Miami.

It’s fully legal. But there’s still the embargo and credit cards don’t work there.

So if you go there, plan ahead, book your reservations for lodging ahead and take some cash so you can exchange it.

GERM
00:22:22.560 – 00:22:23.200
Got it.

WORM
00:22:30.240 – 00:22:45.830
Paul? Next questions come for you. The common cold. Is there a cure for the common cold? Finally?

Certainly with all of our technology in 2026, I can tell people there is a cure for the common cold.

GERM
00:22:46.390 – 00:26:52.540
You can say that. In fact, if you say that, you might have a spot on the federal government. They’re full of beans. Just no. There is no cure yet.

But here’s what I would say. As you recall, the common cold, that’s caused by the rhino virus, something you would expect to see on safari. No, rhino, meaning the nose.

So it’s a nose virus. It’s a whole family of viruses. They’re very well adapted to living in our nose.

And when they do, they make us sneeze and that spreads the virus around. So these are ancient viruses.

We think that they have become adapted over a long period of time to do exactly what they’re supposed to, which is spread from person to person. So the cold is miserable. We’ve all had it. The reason there is no vaccine is in part because it’s not one virus. It’s a whole bunch of them together.

It makes it difficult to get immunologic mastery. And I’m also not sure that the pharmaceutical industry has been working on a vaccine for the cold. But that wasn’t your question.

Your question was, is there a treatment? Why not take a pill or something to get rid of the cold? And that does not exist.

If it did, I would have it stockpiled in my closet because I know I’m going to get one or two of these every single year. The average for most Americans is two or three per year. I am certainly no different. Paul Pottinger MD Worst immune system ever. It’s just so bad.

But there is actually some hope. And this is really interesting. There’s a study recently published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, which I was impressed by.

At least it caught my attention. And what’s happened is there’s a pharmaceutical group called gsk and they’ve created an intervention.

They’ve created a chemical, a medication that they think may be able to help. So this new medication’s not available. This is actually reports of a phase 1b study.

So this is part of a clinical trial, the early part of a clinical trial. But it is encouraging. These are actually inhaled molecules. You breathe them in. Don’t take it as a pill. You don’t use it as a shot.

You inhale these and it’s a novel group of molecules. They’re called the phosphatidylinositol 4 kinase beta inhibitors, PI 4 kb blockers. And what they did here was they took a bunch of people.

Maybe one of our listeners was a study participant. If you are share your stories with us, please and thank you for your service.

Basically, they gave rhinovirus 16, one of the common cold viruses, to a bunch of volunteers. And then after two days, that’s the typical incubation period. And then people started getting symptoms.

They were randomized to get either one of a couple of doses of this medication that they inhaled for 10 days, or they got placebo that they inhaled for 10 days. And I’ll say that again, they waited for people to have symptoms before they gave them the intervention.

That’s key because, you know, in the world of viruses, we often feel that doing Things preemptively is superior. But with a common cold, you just don’t know when you’ve got a cold that’s incubating. You’re going to know you have a cold when you have a clinical.

So that’s how they handled this. Kudos to them for doing that.

And what’s interesting is that they then asked people to grade the duration and severity of their symptoms and then they looked at the area under the curve. They actually added up the severity of all these different symptoms. Aching, fevering, runny nose, common symptoms that you would think of.

And it was better. People who got this particular inhaled molecule in either dose, the effect was about the same.

You know, they had about half as much intensity and severity. This cut the badness of the cold in half in this phase 1b study based on this. Oh, and by the way, it was very safe.

There were no safety signals that we were told about in the article. So this is a very positive study. And based on this, I can assure you they will almost certainly take this to phase two study.

Phase two study is an early clinical trial where again, they’re looking to see if there’s reproduction of the benefit. Phase one is really about dose finding in this case. Is it going to be three milligrams or one and a half milligrams? It was the same.

So I suspect the clinical trials we see will be 1.5 milligrams, but I suspect phase two will start enrolling soon. Maybe it already has. I don’t know. I’m not involved in the pharmaceutical industry, so this is really encouraging. It does seem to be well tolerated.

And even those folks with asthma, you know, inhaling a medication with asthma that can actually trigger an asthma flare, they did not see that in this particular case either. So hopefully this will come to a clinical trial near you. Stand by.

And again, if you’re one of the people who was participating in the trial, we’d love to hear from you. Me.

WORM
00:26:52.700 – 00:27:36.310
And that’s interesting.

And Paul, on a related topic, regarding something that’s available over the counter now, you and I were just talking about zinc pros and cons and sharing our respective opinions. Let me opine first, and this is controversial and there’s more data coming in on this, put me down as somewhat skeptical.

There’s been a lot of studies on zinc in the common cold. Some have showed no benefit, many have showed some benefit, but all have showed some side effects.

What I take from this is I’m not quite sold on it yet. I don’t do it myself. And I guess I think the side effects are such that I don’t think the potential benefit is worth it.

But I know that zinc for the common cold has some real fans. As an ID doc, what’s your take?

GERM
00:27:37.350 – 00:29:41.300
I wish. I wish this were a more obvious answer. I mean, I think if zinc really worked great for the cold, we wouldn’t even have to talk about it.

People would do it all the time. So what’s interesting is that early on, zinc was delivered to people with common cold as a nasal spray.

In fact, it was called Zycam spray zi for Zycam, because they thought it sounded like zinc or something. So Zycam spray, actually, as a direct nasal mist, did reduce the duration of symptoms of cold. And then a bad thing happened.

A number of people using Zycam spray lost their ability to smell. That’s called anosmia. And that. That’s. That’s bad. You do not want to make it hard for people to smell.

Now, fast forward all these years later when many of us have survived COVID 19. Some of us have lost the ability to taste food because of that. And that’s typical during the infection for some people, that endures.

And so the point is, I think the American public is now more sensitive to this issue of anosmia, that it’s an issue if you can’t smell the daisies, if you will. So for that reason, Zycam spray nasal spray was removed from the market.

It was actually one of our friends, Dr. Greg Davis, who’s been a guest here on our show German Worm. He’s one of the people who really figured this out on an experimental basis and was involved in those trials.

So major kudos to Greg Davis for paying attention to anosmia and helping us out. Having said so, what about oral zinc? What if you swallow it? Right.

Nobody knows exactly what dose is best, but there are some people who use a zinc lozenge, and there’s some studies that at some lozenge doses, you can reduce the duration of symptoms of your cold by a day. So do I have zinc lozenges in my house? No, I don’t. Maybe I’ll try it this year. I don’t know what to tell you.

You can get a weird taste in the back of your mouth. It can cause constipation. If zinc lozenges were the right thing to do, for sure, I would recommend it more heartily.

I would much rather people try a zinc lozenge than vitamin C. I’m just gonna put that out there. That I am just. I am not a fan of emergen C or these other. I think it’s snake oil.

When people say, oh, I’m gonna take a large dose of vitamin C to fight off this infection, I am not aware of any reliable data there. Whereas with zinc, there is some signal suggestion, although it’s a small benefit.

WORM
00:29:41.300 – 00:30:00.130
Yeah, I’m with you on that.

Linus Pauling was brilliant when it came to DNA and rna, but he was a swing and a miss with his theories on vitamin C. So vitamin C I’ll give a firm thumbs down to. I’ll say with zinc, the jury’s out is my take, but the jury hasn’t opined enough for me to start taking it.

GERM
00:30:00.130 – 00:30:09.570
Yeah, and love the shout out to the major mighty Lus Pauling, who was so, so smart about almost everything. It doesn’t. You know, I think he was wrong about vitamin C. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great guy.

WORM
00:30:09.570 – 00:30:10.130
Right? Just.

GERM
00:30:10.130 – 00:30:12.730
Means he. That was a swing and a m. None of us do.

WORM
00:30:12.730 – 00:30:13.490
Well all the time.

GERM
00:30:14.450 – 00:30:58.210
Except me. Except germ. That’s. That’s. That’s my. That’s my form, Everybody. Thanks so much for joining us here on 126 of germ and Worm.

As always, we welcome your questions on travel, health. Send them along or tips for success.

If you have any questions for us about what you’ve heard or questions you’d like us to answer in the future, we would be happy to hear from you. Just get us online germanwormmail.com or see our website germanworm.com if you like what you hear. We appreciate that.

Thank you in advance for giving us a favorable rating on your device or spreading the words with friends and family and following us on the socials. You’ll find us there with beautiful graphics. We look forward to your hearts and your thumbs up. Those are free ways to support this podcast. I’m term,.

WORM
00:30:58.290 – 00:31:00.930
I’m worm. It’s a big planet. See it in good health.

GERM
00:31:00.930 – 00:31:21.980
We’ll see you next time.

This podcast is designed to inform, inspire and entertain, but it does not establish a doctor patient relationship and therefore it should not replace your conversation with a qualified healthcare professional. Please see one before your next adventure.

The opinions you hear belong to Dr. Sanford and Dr. Pottinger along alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the University of Washington or UW Medicine.