'The Significance Is We're Not Cows': What We Heard This Week

— Quotable quotes heard by 's reporters

MedicalToday
A female reporter holding two microphones takes notes on a pad

"The significance is we're not cows." -- Rainey Horwitz, MS, a medical student at St. Louis University School of Medicine, commenting on the fact there are actually an average of 10,280 nerve fibers in the clitoris, not the 8,000 previously assumed based on a study of cows.

"Ali is a vitally important part of our history and it is important we accurately document his Parkinson's disease." -- Michael Okun, MD, of the University of Florida in Gainesville, discussing Muhammad Ali's early-onset Parkinson's.

"[This] should go down in the conflict of interest Hall of Fame." -- Gary Ruskin, executive director of the watchdog organization U.S. Right to Know, speaking about the fact that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a "symbiotic relationship" with the food and pharmaceutical industries, including ultra-processed food companies.

"We will see a little bit of a rise, but it will not be as high as what we have seen in the past." -- Ali Mokdad, PhD, of the University of Washington, on the expected COVID uptick over this winter.

"I think a lot of the knee-jerk reaction is that this is discrimination and discrimination alone." -- Jennifer Bakkensen, MD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, on other factors playing into persistent gender gaps in medicine leadership, like how so many female physicians adjust their career trajectories for parenthood.

"Hopefully with this trial we will have a third antibiotic." -- Thomas Holland, MD, of Duke University in North Carolina, on a once-rejected antibiotic coming back from the investigational drug graveyard to show efficacy in treating complicated staph infections.