Petrie Dish

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has ordered a dramatic reduction in the number of vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. Does this mean you should change the number of vaccines your child receives? A practicing pediatrician in Texas is among the large number of children's health experts who say no.

New research from UT Health San Antonio finds a link between obstructive sleep apnea and persistent pain, suggesting that the intermittant lack of oxygen caused by apnea decreases a person's ability to recover from painful stimuli.

Research from an expert in sleep disorders at UT Health San Antonio has revealed that sleep disorders are common in the military, and the most common disorder impacts men and women in the military equally. It's COMISA, which is an acronym for comorbid insomnia and sleep apnea.

From announcing then backtracking on a cause for autism to slashing federal public health funding to changing childhood vaccine recommendations, the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services triggered an earthquake of change in U.S. public health policy. Infectious diseases doctor Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, assesses the still rattling landscape with TPR's Bonnie Petrie.

People who eat a strict keto diet are at risk for an accumulation of aged cells in their organs, but taking intermittent breaks from the diet can prevent these detrimental effects.

In a Petrie Dish collaboration with Public Health Watch, we explore what happens if you have a chronic illness like epilepsy in a state that has rejected the Medicaid expansion.

Heading into the holiday season this year, nearly half of U.S. adults said they expected the season to be more stressful than last year. San Antonio's Mental Health Officer offers advice on how to navigate this joyful but often fraught period.

Many people dismiss alternative therapies like auricular — which means ear — acupressure as unscientific, but a UT Health San Antonio researcher thinks it may be an effective way to reduce chronic pain for people with dementia that doesn't carry the risks associated with opioid medication.

A new technique for delivering radiation to glioblastoma brain tumors may allow doctors to use much higher doses while preserving healthy brain tissue. UT Health San Antonio's Andrew Brenner, MD, PhD, says this may give patients more time.

UT Health San Antonio researchers have teased out why some lipids spike in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and what that may mean for cognitive function, revealing a new target for potential treatments.

A newly constructed center for studying and treating diseases of the brain will open in San Antonio at the end of the year. The Center for Brain Health could revolutionize how we understand disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS.

People who live near the Houston Ship Channel live shorter, unhealthier lives than those who don't. One scientist has dedicated his career to understanding and exposing the threat, under great pressure to stay silent. We'll meet The Scientist Who Refused To Be Intimidated.

Up to 20% of all new mothers experience some degree of postpartum depression. That number spikes to up to 40% of Latina or Hispanic and Black mothers.

A San Antonio doctor who uses endoscopy to treat people who are too sick to survive surgery has become the first Texan to be named a Master Endoscopist by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

A San Antonio sleep disorder and PTSD researcher uses cognitive behavioral therapy to reduce the frequency and intensity of nightmares.

A San Antonio scientist thinks of the protein that drives most prostate cancers as a machine, and pioneers a method to visualize it for the first time. This could lead to much better treatments and, someday, prevention.

Tinnitus is the number one service-connected disability within the Veterans Administration, and for those with PTSD, it can cause significant distress. A UT Health San Antonio researcher who suffers from chronic tinnitus is studying the connection between the two and how to improve treatment.

Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Some critics call it a weakness that can be weaponized; others call it a sin. What is this ancient trait that drives humans not only to care about each other, but to act on those feelings? And why do some powerful people insist that you should ignore yours?

A team of San Antonio researchers is training artificial intelligence models to help improve the materials used to make things like cavity fillings and dental sealants, which currently tend to be either unattractive or not as durable as they could be. This could dramatically decrease the time it takes to get better products into dentists' offices and clients' mouths.

CTE can rob a person of their memories and ability to make decisions and plans. It can also cause a person to become a threat to themselves and, sometimes, others. But the disease, caused by repeated head trauma, can't be definitively diagnosed before death. A San Antonio researcher hopes to help change that.

One department at the University of Texas at San Antonio School of Public Health is focused on understanding the health challenges associated with a changing climate and developing solutions to mitigate or even prevent them.

Is there a connection? Bonnie Petrie talks with a pediatrician who specializes in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism about the president's claims on Tylenol and the MMR vaccine as potential causes of autism and a form of vitamin B9 as a potential treatment.

'Most people think carcinomatosis is a death sentence, but there are different treatment modalities that I offer to patients. And that's something that is pretty unique to UT Health San Antonio,' said Dr. Mio Kitano, a surgical oncologist.

A UT San Antonio Health Science Center researcher has found that people with resilient immune systems can live 15 years longer than those who don't, but what is immune resilience? How do you know if your immune system is lagging? Can you get some of those years back?

A San Antonio researcher is working on a drug that could treat Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma without lifelong side effects. It would be the first new treatment option for these childhood cancers in 30 years.

Malaria kills more than half a million people a year, and an effective vaccine has been elusive. But a San Antonio malaria researcher and her team have discovered a vulnerability in the malaria parasite's method of avoiding the human immune system that may make all the difference.

Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie sits down with Public Health Watch reporter Raquel Torres to talk about her story on the Alzheimer's crisis in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as a $3 billion proposal to fund Alzheimer's research in Texas that won't go forward unless Texans say yes at the polls in November.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men and the five year survival rate is 97%.

UT Health San Antonio Speech-Language Pathology program graduate students are helping local kids at risk for developing a language disorder through a program called LAUNCH. Angela Kennedy, SLP-D, CCC-SLP, is the director of clinical education and an assistant professor for the Speech-Language Pathology program in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

An anti-aging medication called rapamycin seems to work better in female mice than in males, and it's the only one studied as part of the National Institute of Aging's Interventions Testing Program to do so. Most of the medications singled out for their effectiveness in a recent review only work in male mice.

Once eradicated in the United States, a maggot that feeds on living, warm-blooded animals is inching back toward Texas. It may cross the Southern border before the end of the year. Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie talks with Sonja L. Swiger, Ph.D., from the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension about the screwworm, the threat it poses to animals and humans, and what can be done to minimize the damage.

If you’re experiencing chronic pain, adjusting your diet might help.

The UT Health San Antonio professor who is leading an effort to increase the number of South Texas teens who are vaccinated against the human papillomavirus hopes to see cervical cancer eliminated in the United States in her lifetime.

Loneliness and social isolation can make you as sick as obesity or 15 cigarettes a day.

TRC4 is a collaborative at UT Health San Antonio in partnership with the Department of Defense and the entire UT System to address an urgent need for improved trauma care both on the battlefield and at home.

Occupational therapy can help people with mental illness resume meaningful activities in their lives and create strategies that will improve their overall health. A San Antonio OT has developed a program she hopes will help people with a mental illness and type 2 diabetes achieve better control over their disease.

The Medicaid cuts add up to nearly a trillion dollars over ten years, and 12 million people could lose access to health care. Medicare also faces deep reductions in spending, even though it's not slashed in this legislation. It insures the elderly, and it may lose half a trillion dollars to sequestration. KFF Health News DC correspondent Julie Rovner told Bonnie Petrie that no one will be unaffected.

Be Well Texas is revolutionizing how substance use disorder is treated in Texas.

A UT Health San Antonio researcher confirms that how magnesium gets into immune system cells can determine whether they fight oral cancer or support tumor growth. The discovery offers hope for new ways to prevent and treat the disease.

At the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the brain bank is accepting deposits.

HHS Secretary Kennedy's decision to purge all 17 members of the CDC vaccine advisory board concerns public health experts. Some fear a new board will change vaccine recommendations, leading to reduced access for all and a surge in vaccine-preventable diseases.

Human immunity wanes as we age, but what if it could be restored? A UT Health San Antonio researcher who studies the thymus has confirmed that a certain protein can restore its size and function in mice, leading to a larger and more diverse T cell population that more closely resembles the T cells of youth.

If you’re in your 40s or 50s, there may be something you can do right now to fight Alzheimer’s disease. It involves Omega 3 fatty acids—the good stuff in fatty fish and fish oil, which has been linked to lower rates of dementia for a while.

Tinnitus is the number one service-connected disability within the Veterans Administration, and for those with PTSD, it can cause significant distress. A UT Health San Antonio researcher who suffers from chronic tinnitus is studying the connection between the two and how to improve treatment.

When people think about things they can do to stay healthy, they don’t think about their teeth nearly enough.

Mosquito season has begun in earnest, and until November, there is an increased risk for mosquito-borne illnesses, including dengue fever. CDC has urged U.S. doctors to watch for dengue, particularly in people who've traveled to countries where the virus is endemic. But several states, including Texas, have reported locally acquired cases of dengue over the last fifteen years.

A newly constructed center for studying and treating diseases of the brain will open in San Antonio at the end of the year. The Center for Brain Health could revolutionize how we understand disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS.

In the final installment of this three-part series, Bonnie Petrie and reporter Robin Berghaus go from an isolated stretch of desert along the Rio Grande, where wild peyote grows, to the exuberant rooms at SXSW, where they consider the future of psychedelics-as-medicine, and back to the hallowed halls of the Texas Legislature, where the future of the so-called Ibogaine Bill is uncertain.

A digital tool that uses artificial intelligence to analyze speech patterns could help doctors detect dementia in patients when other signs and symptoms are not perceptible.

A San Antonio collaborative is developing treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections using viruses known as phages. The effort is urgent as infections that don't respond to antibiotics are projected to kill 39 million people by 2050.