Dakota Johnson and Tracee Ellis Ross in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Focus Features
Reviewed By Jeffrey Sanzel
The High Note is an entertaining if softened look at the high end domain of the music business. It has a sweet center and skirts many of the bigger issues that seem to peek around the corners. It is fortunate that it contains strong performances from many of its players, resulting in an enjoyable rom-com/behind-the-music hybrid.
The film features a vibrant Tracee Ellis Ross as Grace Davis, a star of grand proportions on the threshold of middle age. Ross is the daughter of Diana Ross — but the film is in no way about that legendary icon. Instead, it is actually a much smaller movie about a transitional moment in an epic career.
Davis’s personal assistant is the earnest and overwhelmed Maggie Sherwoode (played with just the right eagerness by Dakota Johnson). She has been Grace’s assistant for three years but her dream is to be a record producer; this drives the simple through-line.
After a misstep with Grace, she meets and befriends a gifted musician, David Cliff (charismatic Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), who is both self-effacing and unexplainably rich. Much to Maggie’s confusion, David plays supermarket openings and bar mitzvahs and doesn’t seem to want to move beyond these comfortable gigs. Maggie sees great potential and makes a move that ends up both bold and dishonest, temporarily fracturing their budding relationship, and causing damage she did not anticipate.
The best scenes are those that focus on Grace and her frustration with being told who she is. Following a scene in which she faces off with executives who basically explain to her what her brand should be, she has a powerful scene with Maggie venting that this is the world she has had to face her entire career.
Ross (best known for her portrayal of Rainbow Johnson on ABC’s sitcom Blackish) is able to navigate the humor that surrounds the over-the-top and extravagant life of a diva with the inner core of someone who has faced incredibly challenging hurdles and obstacles.
Grace is not The Devil Wears Prada; played by Ross, she is a human being who has made difficult decisions because of both her race and gender. As she weighs the option of a Vegas residency, we see her question her own judgment as a creative artist. A revelation later in the film (that is not a huge surprise) speaks volumes to the course of Grace’s life.
Kelvin Harrison, Jr., is pure charm and ease. Even in stillness, there is a warmth and openness that makes us hope for him to get his professional due. Dakota Johnson is an actor who is easy to like. She is always watchable and makes Maggie’s growth understandable if unsurprising.
Ice Cube plays Jack Robertson, Grace’s longtime manager, who has been with her since the beginning. He takes a role that could slide into predictability and caricature and infuses it with genuine mind and heart.While he mines all of the laughs, it is his understanding of the business that show both fire and passion. His commitment to Grace is real and goes beyond their fiscal connection.
Bill Pullman appears briefly Maggie’s supportive father. He isn’t given much to do but he has a pleasant, uncomplicated presence. Eddie Izzard has a cameo as a musician from whom Maggie asks a large favor. The scene takes place in a sauna and is as strange as one would expect with the off-beat Izzard.
One of the film’s strongest elements is the exceptional soundtrack. Both Ross and Harrison provide their own terrific vocals.It should be noted that this is the first time Ross has sung publicly, and it as a powerhouse debut. “Stop for a Moment” is nothing short of glorious.
There are not a great deal of fireworks in Flora Gleeson’s screenplay nor in Nisha Ganatra’s direction; the film eschews melodrama for real interactions. Together, with a first-rate cast, they have made The High Note tell a hopeful story in an engaging way.
Rated PG-13, The High Note is available On Demand.
Over 30 million people in the United States suffer from some form of eczema. Stock Photo
Most treatments focus on managing symptoms of itchiness or redness
By David Dunaief, M.D
Dr. David Dunaief
Referred to more broadly as atopic dermatitis, the cause of eczema is unknown, but it is thought that nature and nurture are both at play (1). Eczema is a chronic inflammatory process that involves symptoms of pruritus (itching) pain, rashes and erythema (redness) (2).
Eczema is common in both children and adults. In the United States, it’s estimated that over seven percent of the adult population is afflicted (3), with twice as many females as males affected (4). Ranging in severity from mild to moderate to severe, adults tend to have moderate to severe eczema.
Treatments for eczema run the gamut from over-the-counter creams and lotions to prescription steroid creams to systemic (oral) steroids and injectable biologics. Some use phototherapy for severe cases, but the research on phototherapy is scant. Antihistamines are sometimes used to treat the itchiness. Also, lifestyle modifications may play an important role, specifically diet. Two separate studies have shown an association between eczema and fracture, which we will investigate further.
Let’s look at the evidence.
Eczema isn’t just superficial
Eczema may also be related to broken bones, according to several studies. For example, one observational study showed that those with eczema had a 44 percent increased risk of injury causing limitation and an even more disturbing 67 percent risk of bone fracture and bone or joint injury for those 30 years and older (5). And if you have both fatigue or insomnia and eczema, you are at higher risk for bone or joint injury than having one or the other alone. One reason for increased fracture risk, the researchers postulate, is the use of corticosteroids in treatment.
Steroids may weaken bone, ligaments and tendons and may cause osteoporosis by decreasing bone mineral density. Chronic inflammation may also contribute to the risk of bone loss. There were 34,500 patients involved in the study, ranging in age from 18 to 85. For those who have eczema and have been treated with steroids, it may be wise to have a DEXA (bone) scan.
Supplements’ effectiveness
The thought of supplements somehow seems more appealing for some than medicine. There are two well-known supplements for helping to reduce inflammation, evening primrose oil and borage oil. Are these supplements a good replacement for – or addition to – medications? The research is really mixed, leaning toward ineffective.
In a meta-analysis (involving seven randomized controlled trials, the gold standard of studies), evening primrose oil was no better than placebo in treating eczema (6). The researchers also looked at eight studies of borage oil and found there was no difference from placebo in terms of symptom relief. One positive is that these supplements only had minor side effects. But don’t look to supplements for significant help.
Injectable solutions
Dupilumab is a biologic monoclonal antibody (7). In trials, this injectable drug showed good results, improving outcomes for moderate to severe eczema sufferers when topical steroids alone were not effective. Like any drug therapy, it is not without side effects, though.
Topical probiotics
When we think of probiotics, we think of taking a pill. However, there are also potentially topical probiotics with atopic dermatitis. In preliminary in-vitro (in a test tube) studies, the results look intriguing and show that topical probiotics from the human microbiome (gut) could potentially work as well as steroids (8). This may be part of the road to treatments of the future. However, this is in very early stage of development.
What about lifestyle modifications?
In a Japanese study involving over 700 pregnant women and their offspring, results showed that when the women ate either a diet high in green and yellow vegetables, beta carotene or citrus fruit there was a significant reduction in the risk of the child having eczema of 59 percent, 48 percent and 47 percent, respectively, when comparing highest to lowest consumption quartiles (9).
Elimination diets may also play a role. One study’s results showed when eggs were removed from the diet in those who were allergic, according to IgE testing, eczema improved significantly (10).
From an anecdotal perspective, I have seen very good results when treating patients who have eczema with dietary changes. My patient population includes about 15 to 20 percent of patients who suffer some level of eczema. For example, a young adult had eczema mostly on the extremities. When I first met the patient, these were angry, excoriated, erythematous and scratched lesions. However, after several months of a vegetable-rich diet, the patient’s skin had all but cleared.
I also have a personal interest in eczema. I suffered from hand eczema, where my hands would become painful and blotchy and then crack and bleed. This all stopped for me when I altered my diet many years ago.
Eczema exists on a spectrum from annoying to significantly affecting a patient’s quality of life (11). Supplements may not be the solution, at least not borage oil or evening primrose oil. However, there may be promising topical probiotics ahead and medications for the hard to treat. It might be best to avoid long-term systemic steroid use; it could not only impact the skin but also may impact the bone. Lifestyle modifications appear to be very effective, at least at the anecdotal level.
Dr. David Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com.
A temporary sign asking for donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) to Stony Brook University Hospital, April 2019
Face masks (top to bottom): surgical, N95, and handmade, Port Jefferson, May 2019
The Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook has announced that they will be seeking the collection of objects, images and stories as related to the COVID-19 coronavirus to document for future generations on how Long Island responded during the crisis.
Titled Collecting Our History: Long Island During COVID-19, the compilation will serve as a record of the community’s shared history, and will influence future exhibitions, programs, research, and other projects. The LIM is particularly interested in seeking material that exemplifies how the virus has impacted victims, medical personnel and other frontline workers, the operation of businesses, schools, religious and cultural organizations, and the structure and interactions of our daily lives both large and small.
“The COVID-19 coronavirus is the most severe pandemic to impact Long Island since the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919,” said Jonathan Olly, Curator at the LIM. “It is affecting our lives in dramatic and sometimes tragic ways.”
People living or working on Long Island, in Brooklyn and in Queens are invited to offer contributions of any digital or physical item that documents their experience and that of their community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material may include photographs, audio, and video, signs and posters, artwork, masks and other personal protective equipment, home recipes, journals, and planners.
An empty paper goods aisle at Stop & Shop, Setauket, March 2019
Digital items can be emailed to [email protected]. Photos should be in JPG, PNG, or TIF format, audio in MP3 or WAV, videos in MP4, AVI, WMV, or MOV, and documents in PDF, TIF, PNG, or JPG. All submissions must be by persons 18 years or older, and convey copyright (if applicable) to the Long Island Museum and include a description and contact information.
“The LIM helps to preserve the experiences of Long Islanders and so we’re reaching out to our community to share with us the objects and images that help tell this story. In the coming years Collecting Our History: Long Island during COVID-19 will allow us to be able to look back on this time and see how it changed us, and how we persevered,” said Olly.
Select online submissions may be featured on the LIM’s website and/or social media platforms. Due to the volume of submissions the LIM may be unable to individually notify people if or when their digital submissions will be posted. The LIM prefers not to have objects sent to the Museum at this time, as the offices are currently closed.
For further questions, please email the LIM’s Assistant Collections Manager, Molly McGirr at [email protected], or LIM’s Curator, Jonathan Olly at [email protected].
New York may have started Phase One of its reopening and other states may have reopened shops and businesses, but life won’t change much for Angie Tempio.
A native of Commack who had been working at the front desk at Funt Orthodontics in Setauket since 2017, Tempio received a heart transplant last summer and plans to do everything she can to protect herself amid threats from the pandemic.
Tempio, who was preparing to rebuild her life outside of an apartment she shares in Yaphank with her boyfriend James O’Brien, plans to remain as isolated as possible, lowering the chance of contracting COVID-19.
Angie Tempio with her boyfriend James O’Brien
“The world is opening back up,” Tempio said. “For me, it’s not. Nothing will change for a few months. I’m used to being left behind.”
Tempio, however, doesn’t feel sorry for herself or rue her situation. She now focuses on new possibilities.
Diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy when she was 11, she slowly went into heart failure. She struggled for a few years before her transplant, but the last year was the toughest. She said her pacemaker kept her alive.
Tempio, who recently turned 26, had made her peace with death, particularly when she struggled to walk two steps at a time and when her failing heart beat only 30 times per minute. “I was lucky,” she said. Two months after she went on the transplant list, she “got the call, which is a miracle in itself.”
While Tempio feels overwhelmingly blessed that she can consider having children, she said she is also sensitive to the over 1,870 residents who died from COVID-19 in Suffolk County.
Tempio had a rare heart condition that caused her to be a small statistic. Even with the overall mortality rate for COVID-19 below one percent, she empathizes with people and their family who are on the other side of those small numbers.
“Experiencing being a small statistic has definitely made me look at things differently,” she said. “In my head, anyone can [be such a statistic] and most people aren’t realizing that and that’s what’s making me overly cautious.”
Tempio said she was a gymnast and was seemingly healthy before she developed the rare heart disease.
“Although I haven’t experienced the virus itself, I’ve been through the same obstacles,” she explained in an email.
Even when the coronavirus first started infecting people on Long Island, Tempio wore masks to the classes she is taking at Suffolk County Community College, where she hopes to study to become a transplant coordinator. She said she felt judgment from people who thought she was being overly concerned about the virus.
“Most people didn’t realize” how much more vulnerable she was to the virus than the typical person walking around Long Island, she said.
While she’s waiting for the moment when she can emerge from a home cocoon, Tempio has been connecting with a network of friends and a close-knit heart transplant support group. She and 13 others are a part of a group that shares a profound and unique experience that brings them together and helps them connect with, and support.
“They have been my outlet during one of the hardest times in my life and I am so grateful to have them,” she said.
Tempio said she feels a responsibility to live her best and healthiest life. She believes she is “now living for my donor,” she said, and plans to “take the best care of this heart that I can.”
Dr. Frank Darras, Clinical Professor of Urology and Clinical/ Medical Director of the Renal Transplantation Program at Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine Hospital, has performed over 1,700 kidney transplants since 1990.
This year has been especially challenging for the surgeon, as he has had to enhance safety procedures to protect patients who are on immunosuppressants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As part of the new normal for kidney transplants, Stony Brook takes time to test patients for coronavirus. In the first few weeks after the virus hit Suffolk County, the tests took all day. In recent weeks, the labs have produced test results within one to three hours.
Through late April, Darras said the hospital hasn’t had to send anyone home who had a positive COVID-19 test.
The long-term effects of COVID-19 on the function of normal kidneys is difficult to predict, he said. Many of the patients with the most severe symptoms from the virus not only needed ventilators, but also needed dialysis treatments. In the majority of cases where people recovered from the virus, their kidneys also recovered.
The hospital has also seen patients who received kidney transplants who have contracted the virus. “Several of these [transplanted patients] had diminished function, but all of them recovered their kidney function,” Darras said.
The longer-term effects of the virus are unknown. Some patients who were severely ill may have recovered, but have kidney problems that slowly escalate over time.
“I would not be surprised to see that happen, whether that’s months or years down the road,” Darras said.
Another unknown is how the virus would affect the transplant community in the longer term. “In the worst case, it’ll make our living donor pool smaller,” he said. About one out of three kidney transplants comes from a living donor. “On the other hand, in the best case scenario, [the virus will have] relatively little impact. It’s too early to tell,” he added.
According to Darras, people who need kidney transplants can extend their life expectancy by two to three times. He estimated that about five to six percent of the people waiting for a transplant died while on a kidney waiting list.
Darras explained that “time is of the essence” for many patients because the “longer patients are on dialysis, the more urgent [the need] to get them transplanted,” and added that finding donors is critically important, particularly during the pandemic.
“There is a concern about trying to make sure that we can get enough kidneys,” he said. “Our job and the job of LiveonNY is to raise awareness about organ donation.”
Yolanda Reed-Anthony took this selfie 15 minutes before her transplant.
By Daniel Dunaief
Yolanda Reed-Anthony’s grandparents, Dr. Frank Darras, and an anonymous donor likely saved the life of this devoted wife, mother, and daughter.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) to shut down most of New York’s economy and limit hospital activities to emergency procedures, Reed-Anthony had an unusual dream. In the dream her late grandparents, William and Rose Evans, brought her a white box. When she opened it, multicolored butterflies fluttered around her.
Intrigued by the dream, Reed-Anthony read that it suggested a new transition in life.
Sure enough, later that day, the Holbrook resident received the kind of call her brother Richard Reed, Jr. and her father, Richard Reed had gotten for themselves: a kidney was available, thanks to an anonymous donor who was a match for her.
The family has struggled with a kidney condition known as focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), which necessitates the use of dialysis at least twice a week.
The timing for Reed-Anthony made the decision about whether to accept the incredibly rare gift of a new organ problematic. “The thought” of passing up the kidney on March 12, in the midst of the pandemic “crossed my mind, but I quickly dismissed it because of the dream,” she said in a recent interview.
Yolanda Reed-Anthony with her brother Richard Jr. after his kidney transplant in January.
Reed-Anthony entered Stony Brook University Hospital, where Dr. Frank Darras, the Clinical Professor of Urology and Clinical/ Medical Director of the Renal Transplantation Program at Stony Brook Renaissance School of Medicine, awaited, along with a transplant team.
As Suffolk County became an epicenter for infections, with the number of sick in hospital and Intensive Care Unit beds increasing, people in need of organs faced increasingly difficult odds of finding a life-saving organ.
For starters, every person who became sick or died from COVID-19 was immediately ineligible to be a donor. Without effective treatment or a cure for the virus, the transplantation of an organ from an infected person into someone who needed the organ but likely couldn’t survive the infection raised the risk of such an operation above the benefits of the procedure.
The immunosuppressant drugs each organ recipient takes after the operation reduces the likelihood that the person will reject the organ. These drugs also, however, raise the chance that an infection of any kind, much less a lethal virus, would threaten the health and life of the recipient.
Reed-Anthony said the Stony Brook staff let her know that the hospital process would be different even than for her brother, who received his kidney in January.
The doctors and nurses made sure no one who wasn’t supposed to be in her room entered. “They were like secret service for me,” Reed-Anthony said. “They took precautions for me that were different than for my brother and father,” adding that she was well aware of the viral struggle that so many others in the hospital were enduring at the same time. She was in the hospital for five days by herself, with no visitors other than the medical staff.
Reed-Anthony said the staff was ad-libbing in the precautions they took with her, minimizing the risks during her period of extreme vulnerability. Several days after surgery she needed to walk, which is something her brother and father did up and down the hospital hallway. She never left her room, circling from the bed to the window to the bathroom at least six times.
Yolanda Reed-Anthony with her father Richard after his kidney transplant.
The social workers, meanwhile, stood by the door to ask questions, while the dietician wasn’t allowed in the room, with the nurses bringing the food tray in and out of the room.
Dr. Darras, who performed the surgeries for Yolanda, her father and brother, explained that the transplant team understood and appreciated the extreme demands COVID-19 placed on Stony Brook University Hospital and on the health care system throughout Long Island.
“We knew we had to work within the framework of the administration and the hospital to try to do what we needed to do for our patients without infringing on the big picture,” Darras said. “We knew we had to be good team players because every department had to have a redeployment of staff into other areas of the hospital.” Still, within the unprecedented needs of the rest of the hospital, the transplant team still felt like they could do what they needed safely for patients working against the unkind ticking of a clock.
While it took significant effort to find safe areas for the transplant group to use, Darras and other surgeons performed life-enhancing and saving surgeries in the midst of the COVID-19 firestorm.
Indeed, Darras led one of the transplants at 3:30 am on a Saturday night, when so many of the staff might otherwise have been sleeping, relaxing or stepping away from the intense health care drama that surrounds them. The mood in the room, however, was positive.
“Everybody that was involved felt that it was a really happy moment,” Darras said. “You couldn’t have found a happier group of people.”
The health care workers appreciated the opportunity to use their training towards a positive outcome. “Out of being in the fire, something good was happening,” said Darras. “It was a happy surgery. It gave people a reprieve and they wanted to do this again.”
Darras appreciates the heroic efforts of so many of his colleagues, who have done yeoman’s work in the face of the pandemic. He also believes the efforts of the transplant teams were heroic in taking care of patients who had life-altering surgeries in a unique environment.
At the same time that doctors and support staffs found safe places for these procedures, LiveOnNY, which is the nonprofit organ procurement organization for New York City, Long Island, Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley, has struggled to find donors during the pandemic.
For starters, everyone who contracted the virus became ineligible to donate an organ. Even those people who had filled out organ donor cards couldn’t save or extend the lives of others if they had the disease. “With so many deaths related to COVID, the potential for organ donation has been drastically reduced,” Helen Irving, the CEO of LiveOnNY said. In January and February, LiveOnNY was involved with 51 organs donations each month. In March, that number surged to 67. In April, as New York reached its viral peak, the number of organ donations fell to 10.
While Stony Brook University Hospital performed organ transplants during the pandemic, other donation programs slowed or stopped due to the virus. That is starting to normalize now, according to LiveOnNY.
Irving said the reduction in the ability to perform these operations is “quite devastating.” She has been acutely aware of the hospital deaths during the pandemic. New York State law requires hospitals to call any death into the organ procurement organization. At one point, LiveOnNY was receiving over 600 calls each day, when the normal number is closer to 150.
Additionally, with people avoiding the hospitals, even when they might have life-threatening conditions, the potential for organ donation also declines.
In normal times, LiveOnNY receives about 12 referrals per day from cardiac arrests or strokes. During the peak of the pandemic in early April, they averaged four. “If someone dies at home, there is no potential there to be an organ donor,” Irving said, although they can become a tissue donor.
Through the pandemic, Irving suggested that LiveOnNY will continue to search for the needle in a haystack that saves or extends someone’s life. The nonprofit is a part of a network that extends across a wider geographic area beyond New York. The group is part of 58 organ procurement organizations nationwide.
Irving encouraged New Yorkers to sign up to become donors, particularly in a post-COVID world. Typically, she would be making the case for signing up to become organ donors through community events. At this point, however, most of those events are no longer being held because of limitations on large gatherings.
“We have to educate the community that needs to know that organ donation is still possible,” Irving said. “Patients can’t wait on a transplant list. That message is far more important today than ever before. You can save someone’s life by signing up on the registry.”
People who would like to sign up can do so through the LiveonNY.org web site, by calling (866) NY-DONOR (693-6667) or through [email protected].
Organ donations were “always a miracle to begin with,” Irving said. “Now we’re asking for a bigger miracle.”
Reed-Anthony has signed up to be an organ donor herself. She is prepared to donate any organ a recipient might need. After all she and her kidneys have been through, she suggested those organs might not be the best choice.
Bailee Williams of Setauket snapped thisphoto of her adorable new 9-week-old puppy, Winnie, at the end of May. The English Bulldog is settling in quite nicely with her new family during quarantine. She enjoys playing in the garden and is looking forward to a fun summer
Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin poses beneath an oil portrait of her great-great grandfather, William K. Vanderbilt II, as a child. Hola magazine photo
Hola!, a popular, weekly celebrity-news magazine, recently published an eight-page feature article on the Vanderbilt Estate, home of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum.
The story, which included stunning photos and aerial views, focused on Vanderbilt family history and the development of its railroad empire. (The magazine, based in Madrid, Spain, publishes 30 international editions in nine languages.)
The feature also concentrated on William K. Vanderbilt II’s great-great-granddaughter, Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin, and her husband, Rafael Feldman. The couple was photographed in several rooms of the mansion.
Eagle’s Nest, a 24-room, Spanish Revival mansion, was built in stages from 1910 through 1936, on 43 hilly acres above Northport Bay in Centerport. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Bruce Stillman, the CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, last week won the Dr. H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, which is considered the most distinguished scientific prize from the Netherlands.
The prize, which has been awarded to 13 researchers who have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, includes a $200,000 award and a crystal trophy.
Stillman earned the award, which began in 1964 and is given every two years in categories including Medicine, Environmental Sciences and History, for his decades of work on mechanisms involved in the replication, or copying, of eukaryotic DNA.
The understated Stillman, who was born and raised in Australia, expects he’ll put the prize money into a foundation, although he hasn’t thought much about it given the other concerns that dominate his time, including not only running his own lab amid the COVID-19 pandemic but also overseeing a facility where he has been the Director since 1994 and its CEO since 2003.
Stillman said the lab has had “extensive discussions” among the faculty about whether to pursue additional research fields on an ongoing basis to combat the current virus as well as any future public health threats.
While CSHL is not an infectious disease center, the facility does have a historical precedent for contributing to public health efforts during a crisis. Indeed, during World War II, the laboratory helped create a mutated strain of fungus that increased its yield of the drug penicillin.
At this point, CSHL does not have a high containment facility like Stony Brook University where it can handle highly infectious agents.
“We may have to have one here,” Stillman said. “The reality is there are tons of infectious diseases” and the lab might need to repurpose its scientific skills towards coming up with answers to difficult questions.
Even without such a Biosafety Level 3 designation, CSHL researchers have tackled ways to understand and conquer COVID-19. Associate Professor Mikala Egeblad has been exploring whether neutrophil extracellular traps, which are ways bodies fight off bacterial infections, are playing a role in blood clotting and severe respiratory distress.
These NETS may be “promoting severe symptoms in COVID,” Stillman said. Egeblad is working on a case study with several other collaborators who have focused on these traps. Egeblad is also studying the effectiveness of NETS as a biomarker for the most severe patients, Stillman said.
CSHL is also investigating a small molecule compound to see if it inhibits viral infection. Researchers including Assistant Professor Tobias Janowitz are about to participate in a combined Northwell Health-CSHL double blind study to determine the effectiveness of famotidine, which is the active ingredient in the ulcer-treating medication Pepcid.
The coronavirus treatment, which will include patients who don’t require hospitalization, would require a higher dose than for heartburn.
As a part of this study, the scientists will use a patient tracking system that has been used for cancer to determine the effectiveness of the treatment through patient reporting, without requiring laboratory tests.
Stillman is pleased with how CSHL has “repurposed ourselves quickly, as have many institutions around the world.” He highlighted the constructive interactions among scientists.
The public health crisis has “generated a different kind of behavior in science, where there’s a lot of interaction and cooperation,” Stillman said. The preprint journal BioRxiv, which CSHL operates, has had nearly 5,000 papers about COVID-19 since January. The preprints have “not only helped disseminate information rapidly [to the scientific community], but they are also “being used to determine policy by government leaders.”
Stillman urged scientists to apply the same analytical technique in reading preprinted research that they do with peer-reviewed studies, some of which have required corrections.
As for the government’s response, Stillman believes a retrospective analysis will provide opportunities to learn from mistakes. “I don’t think the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has done a very good job,” he said. He suggested that the well-documented problems with the roll out of testing as community transmission was increasing, was a “disaster.”
The CSHL CEO also said the balkanized medical system, in which every state has a different system and even some local communities have their own processes, creates inefficiencies in responding to a fluid and dangerous public health crisis.
Coordinating those efforts “could have been done very, very rapidly to develop a modern, clear [polymerase chain reaction] test of this virus and yet states and federal agencies had regulations about how these tests can be approved and controlled and regulated that are far too bureaucratic and did not set a national standard quickly,” he said.
He hopes agencies like the CDC, FDA and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority have better coordination. The country needs a national response, like it had after the Homeland Security effort following 9/11.
Optimistically, Stillman expects a therapeutic antibody will be available by the end of the summer to treat COVID-19. The treatment, which will use monoclonal antibodies, will likely be injectable and will be able to prevent infection for a month or two. These treatments could also help limit the severity of symptoms for people who have been infected.
Regeneron has taken the same approach with Ebola effectively. Stillman doesn’t think such treatments can be used with everybody in the world, which increases the need to develop a vaccine. Creating a safe vaccine, which could be available as early as next year, is a “massive, under-recognized undertaking.”
Between now and next year, a second wave of the virus is certainly possible and may be likely, given that other coronaviruses have been seasonal.
“This happened with the influenza pandemic a century ago, so we have to be careful about this,” Stillman said. He believes that the medical community has learned how to treat severe patients, which should help mitigate the effects of a second wave in the United States.
That may not be the case in developing countries, which is a “concern,” he said.
Novel for kids 8 to 12 explores art, growing pains, and Long Island native Walt Whitman
Reviewed by Melissa Arnold
Author Kristin McGlothlin. Photo by Ron White
Kristin McGlothlin’s greatest passions are art and writing, and as a longtime art historian, she was able to enjoy the best of both worlds. But the desire for something more continued to tug on McGlothlin’s heart, and she ultimately left museum work behind to pursue a writing career.
Her debut novel for middle-schoolers, Drawing with Whitman, is the first in a collection called Sourland Mountain Books. Inspired by a rural, mountainous region in central New Jersey, the books explore art, music, family dynamics and coming of age through the eyes of the neighborhood kids.
Drawing with Whitman finds 13-year-old Catalynd Jewett Hamilton on a journey of recovery after a car accident leaves her badly injured and her mother battling depression. She finds solace in art and literature, encouraged along the way by the kind neighborhood painter, Benton Whitman — a descendant of Huntington native Walt Whitman.
What was your childhood like? Were you interested in writing early on?
I was born in Detroit, and then we moved to Toledo, Ohio — we stayed there until I was in high school, and then we ended up in Jacksonville, Florida. I’m an only child, so I’ve always enjoyed being by myself.
I loved both art and writing from a young age. Art was a huge part of my life — Detroit has an incredible art museum — and I loved to write letters to pen pals and friends. As a preteen, I got to take art classes in Toledo and spend time at their art museum as well. I grew up in a standard suburban neighborhood, but we also had a cottage near Lake George in Michigan. I loved to explore in the woods and go swimming in the lake.
It was around the age of 13 that I really felt that writing was what I wanted to do. I even came up with two of the characters from a later book in the Sourland Mountain series at that time.
What was your favorite book as a child?
My favorite book was From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.
Did you go to college? What did you end up doing for work?
I did my undergrad at the University of Delaware. They have an amazing art history program there, and my mom suggested I would enjoy it because it combined both writing and art. I learned so much from the Northeast, getting to visit museums in D.C., Philadelphia, and New York.
After graduation in 1992, I moved back down to Florida and got a job as the assistant curator of education at the Norton Museum of Art. I learned a lot, and I’m so glad I went on that journey, but after a while I realized it wasn’t where I wanted to be. The desire to pursue writing was still there. I ended up going back to school at Florida Atlantic University and got my master’s in English literature in 2013.
How did you start writing professionally? Was it hard to take that step?
I had a strong belief in myself, and I really wanted to introduce kids to art through writing, so I left the museum and began writing full-time. I went to a lot of writers’ conferences to learn everything I could about the profession.
Why did you decide to write a middle- grade novel?
When I first started working on the book, I actually wrote for a general audience. But as I began to formulate Cat’s character, and the ins and outs of being 13, I was really drawn to that age. You’re not in high school yet, and a lot of people that age still have a more childlike curiosity. It’s an interesting time. The stories I want to tell don’t have any violence or sex, so that also fits in well with middle-grade readers.
When did you first come up with the idea for the Sourland Mountain series? What inspired it?
Sourland Mountain is a real place in central New Jersey — my parents moved there around the time I went to college. It started with the idea of incorporating art lessons into a narrative. I
In graduate school, I took a class on Walt Whitman and read a lot of his work. There’s a book of his called “The Wound Dresser,” a collection of journal entries and incredible letters written to his family that I really enjoyed, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate him into the book somehow.
He was a great patriot and his work is still relevant today, and I want to share that with kids to hopefully inspire them. So that’s how I developed Benton Whitman, a landscape painter who is a descendant of Walt Whitman.
Your characters have very unique names. How did you decide on them?
It’s funny, because Cat’s name is Catalynd Jewett Hamilton, but then her brother is named Buddy! I sat down and started playing with names, and for Cat it started with the name Caitin, and the word “catalyst.” Jewett comes from a favorite author of mine from the late 1800s, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Hamilton is honestly for the Broadway musical. I saw a commercial on TV and it just fit!
As for Benton, he gets his name from the American painter Thomas Hart Benton, and of course his ancestor, Walt Whitman.
This book deals with a lot of tough issues. Why did you decide to write about injury, depression, and loneliness?
It feels like an act of service to address the tough things that kids can go through. When I was researching the kind of books that were out there for middle grades, I had trouble finding books that featured a parent living with depression. It can be hard for kids to understand what’s going on when someone they love has a mental health issue, and I wanted to write something that made them feel understood and supported. For Cat, who is in casts and a wheelchair after an accident, she finds that art is an outlet for her to figure things out and make sense of her experiences.
Is this your first book?
I wrote a picture book called “Andy’s Snowball Story” about the contemporary artist Andy Goldsworthy. But this is my first chapter book, and my first book for middle grades.
How did you go about getting published?
It’s incredibly difficult to get an agent, especially as an unknown author who’s never been published before. Self-publishing has gained a lot of respect in recent years, and I knew I wanted to publish my first book quickly, in time for Walt Whitman’s 100th birthday. I found an amazing self-publishing company called Girl Friday, and they helped me put the book together and connected me with the cover illustrator, Kristina Swarner, who did a beautiful job.
Working with Kristina was such a cool experience. I had an idea of what I wanted — to have a mountain and a barn in the background, and for Cat to look a certain way. Even the most basic pencil sketch she sent me was so sweet and detailed. There were very few changes in the final version. I was really happy.
What message do you hope kids take away from the book?
I want them to know that, sometimes, there’s a lot that can happen to a family unit, and that they don’t have to go through difficult times alone. It’s important to express what you’re going through in a healthy way, whether that’s through therapy or talking to a trusted adult.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on the next book in the Sourland Mountain series, called “Listen.” The main character is Cat’s next-door neighbor, Gwilym Duckworthy, a 13-year-old boy who loves jazz music and plays the trumpet. His mother left the family behind to pursue a career in music when he was very small, and now she’s returned. There will eventually be a total of four books in the series.
The recipient of the 2019 Moonbeam Silver Medal Award for Pre-Teen Fiction, Drawing with Whitman is available online at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Target.com. Keep up with Kristin McGlothlin at her website, www.sourlandmountainbooks.com, and on Instagram @McGlothlinKristin for updates and live readings.
Why did you decide to write a middle- grade novel?
Prev
