October 8, 2025 • 11 mins
Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about 1 in 10 Americans taking an antidepressant, flesh eating parasite warning, common cause of liver disease, and ‘Monkeypox.’
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That year to remove these folks from the gene pool.
All right, it is time for medical news. Doctor Jim Keeney,
chief medical officer for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, Jim Martinville. Okay, there we go. Good for you.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now, we had lunch a few days ago and we
talked about this.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It came up in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
The name monkey pox for the monkey pox was changed.
It became impos and I guess, I guess for political
correctness purposes. Well, it's a monkey pox again, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, that's it's just a weird one. That's why we're
talking about. It's just so weird. Nobody, nobody asked to
change the name back. There was no political pressure. There's
no like researchers weren't saying this is incorrect. In fact,
you know, monkey pox is incorrect itself. It's monkeys have
nothing to do with this disease us. It's streads. The
animal vector is squirrels, so you know, And then what
(01:08):
happened was, you know, because there's this these rumors and
and you know, conspiracy theories that that the reason aids
spread is because of people having sex with monkeys. It
just creates kind of a big problem and a stigma
that doesn't need to be there because number one that
the AIDS thing isn't true, and that now we have
(01:30):
monkey pocks, which adds on to it. So you know,
it's getting People were being stigmatized by it, and that
was one of the reasons that the World Health Organization
wanted to change the name. But apparently, you know, anything
that the World Health Organization suggests at this point is
going to be not taken under consideration here.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, it's just completely crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And the myth we talked about that the myth of
people in Africa having sex with the chimpanzees and somehow
AIDS was transmitted on to humans. Big question was how
do you hold the chimpanzee still long enough to have
sex with it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
That's one of the big issues. The other issue is
the political correctness part.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And my high school I was I went to high
school at Birmingham High School in Vance and we were
the Birmingham Braves. No one complained about it, not a
word was said. Now, a few schools that had Indian
names were hit pretty badly in terms of the accusation
(02:33):
of political correctness. Nobody complained about the Birmingham Braves. Guess
what they're now, the Birmingham Tumors. No, that would that
would be great, But they're the Patriots. Now give me
a break, all right, that's just ridiculous. Now let's get serious.
(02:57):
One in ten Americans are taking an tied depressant.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So are you ready for this?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
In my family, I am, My kids are, my wife is,
our dog is taking prozac?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I am serious.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Little Izzy is taking prozac every single day. When you
get your dog to take it, boy, what does that
tell you about your family? One in ten Americans are
taking an antidepressant.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So what does that mean, Jim Oh?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I means we've got mental health issues in the United States,
and I don't know. To me, it's I guess it's
not surprising because I treat patients in the emergency department.
I get to see their medication lists, and it is
extremely common. I would have guessed a little bit higher
actually than ten percent, but and probably it should be
higher if you know that there may be more people
(03:53):
that are undertreated for mental illness and depression. That is
so not I know that it comes to surprised to
most people, but I'm not super surprised by that number,
and I can understand why a lot of people would
be surprised, But I mean, what happened was, you know,
in the past, we would treat with drugs that had
significant and serious side effects like MAO inhibitors and things
(04:17):
like tricyclic antidepressant. Those are still good drugs and there's
there's a place for them to be used. But at
this point, all the newer drugs, the SSRI I type drugs,
those are so safe with you know, minimal side effects.
There is weight gain, you know, the bothersons are you
can have weight gain, you can have some sexual dysfunction,
(04:38):
there's ways to overcome those and and but they're just safe.
People don't die from them, but they die from depression.
So it's a pretty easy, you know, risk benefit analysis.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And used to be well you could just go to
your doctor and say I'm depressed and the doctor would
just boom right there issue or give you a prescription.
So that's pretty easy to do, at least I found it.
Kaiser is a little bit more careful. I'm a member
of Kaiser, as everybody knows, and now they switch at
My internis can't do it. It takes a psychiatrist to
actually issue those drugs or to write prescriptions for those drugs.
(05:14):
And I go in every six or every year for
fifteen minutes just to you know, everything, okay, everything's flying?
Anything change? No, nothing has changed. Do you have any
problems now? I still want to run over kittens?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Really? No, of course not.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, people do mistake simple you know, sadness or grieving
process for depression. It's not depression. That's just a normal
human experience. But depression is something altogether different, and it
does take somebody to you know, have a serious conversation
with you to decide is this real depression? Are you
just going through, you know, a difficult time?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And how does an interness know?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Doesn't it take a mental health professional to really be
able to determine which one is which?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
No, I mean, you could just sit and talk to somebody,
But the problem is, right, most internets have fifteen minutes
with you. How are we going to get into your
life story and really understand the difference in fifteen minutes
where when Kayser sends you to a psychiatrist, they block
out a much longer period of time for that. They
keep their internests cranking at you know, one appointment every
ten to fifteen minutes, while they, you know, their specialists
(06:19):
can get a little more time with you. So it
kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, before we get to the flesh eating parasite story, Jim,
which is always a delight, and brought this up. And
this is something that is affects a lot of us.
Sugary drinks raise common liver disease, and diet drinks raise
common liver disease by sixty percent. So because of my
(06:45):
diet coke issue, I'm assuming my liver now looks like
a Jackson Pollock painting it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I really didn't think you would do this story based
on that alone. That you know, you don't want me
disparaging your diet coke.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Oh sure you you do? Well, No, actually you don't.
I have a lifetime of this from everybody else. But
you don't need much of this, do you.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well. I mean, that's the problem is that our bodies
were never made to take in all these chemicals, right,
and especially highly refined sugar and highly processed foods, ultra
processed foods. And we're seeing this in people's livers. The
liver is where all of this has to pass through,
and it's called first pass. A lot of your blood
flows straight from your stomach through your liver, and that's
(07:31):
to try and clean out any toxins right away. And
so your liver takes a beating when you don't eat well.
And so if you add that to metabolic disorders like
diabetes or even high blood pressure, high cholesterol, you add
that on top, what you're getting is fatty liver, and
that makes your liver dysfunctional. It doesn't work correctly, and
(07:51):
it can cause scarring over time and eventually can cause
liver failure. So we're talking like thirty percent of the
population has these fatty liver changes when you look at it,
and about five percent or one out of twenty actually
have this severe form of it called MASH, which is
metabolic associated dietosis hepatitis. And so just that's fancy for
(08:15):
fatty liver.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So let me ask this in terms of knowing if
your liver is fatty. Is that just done through a
simple blood test where you look at liver function.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
If it shows up in the liver function, it's probably
a bit too late. There's a way to do an
ultrasound that measures elasticity in the liver. That's a new test.
It's not a lot of places don't have it. It's
not done regularly. But if you're at risk, if you
have those risk factors, those metabolic conditions, it's probably reasonable
to look into getting this specialized ultrasound that looks for
(08:49):
fatty liver disease, and that's what it does. It looks
for the elasticity of the liver, and that's what determines
how far along you are in this process.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
How can you tell elasticity without pushing it, without pulling
it apart.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, a lubber band, they are pushing it. Yeah. Yeah,
the sound waves bounce off of it and they're pushing
and pulling and they can tell. But it's not a
normal ultra sell machine that's specialized.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Got it all right, real quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
We have to get into the flesh eating parasite warning
California health officials, how much flesh is being eaten?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah? So, I mean right now, it's just in Mexico,
but it's coming north, right, So it started at the
southern border of Mexico and it's been working its way north.
There's been about a little over seven hundred cases in Mexico.
But people who travel to Mexico now are at risk.
And then when you come back home, there's a risk
that you could spread this. So these are these burrowing
(09:42):
worms that we'll get into if you have an open wound, especially,
they can bite and bite and get in there and
then they burrow into your skin. It's kind of cool.
And then you know, and then all of a sudden,
it looks like an abscess, but what comes out are flies.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Now I'm assuming the Trump administry is able to stop
them at the border. And because it's uh, that sounds
absolutely disgusting if I look at if I'm looking at
an abscess and outcomes flies or a worm or something
that is very distressing.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's cool in a in a
way that you don't want to be involved with.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Hey, when you so when you pull a worm, like
a tapeworm or whatever out of a human being, uh,
do you you know, you go to the doctor's lounge
and hang out, and do you go to the other docks.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Hey, let me show you what I pulled out today. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely, we take pictures. We yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
That's fantastic and that's real.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Right, Okay, I mean Most of the time patients bring
it in either they fish it out of a toilet
or you know, somewhere, and then they bring it in
in a little plastic bag and then we get it
in a bucket, clean it up so we can take
some good pictures.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I told you about a friend of mine who was
an er doctor. I went to high school with her,
And there we are. They had their display, the little
museum of things they pulled out of people's rear ends
usually guys.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But okay, we're done, Jim.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
We'll talk again next week, and I'll probably see you
over the next few days, all right,
That year to remove these folks from the gene pool.
All right, it is time for medical news. Doctor Jim Keeney,
chief medical officer for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, Jim Martinville. Okay, there we go. Good for you.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now, we had lunch a few days ago and we
talked about this.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It came up in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
The name monkey pox for the monkey pox was changed.
It became impos and I guess, I guess for political
correctness purposes. Well, it's a monkey pox again, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, that's it's just a weird one. That's why we're
talking about. It's just so weird. Nobody, nobody asked to
change the name back. There was no political pressure. There's
no like researchers weren't saying this is incorrect. In fact,
you know, monkey pox is incorrect itself. It's monkeys have
nothing to do with this disease us. It's streads. The
animal vector is squirrels, so you know, And then what
(01:08):
happened was, you know, because there's this these rumors and
and you know, conspiracy theories that that the reason aids
spread is because of people having sex with monkeys. It
just creates kind of a big problem and a stigma
that doesn't need to be there because number one that
the AIDS thing isn't true, and that now we have
(01:30):
monkey pocks, which adds on to it. So you know,
it's getting People were being stigmatized by it, and that
was one of the reasons that the World Health Organization
wanted to change the name. But apparently, you know, anything
that the World Health Organization suggests at this point is
going to be not taken under consideration here.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I mean, it's just completely crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And the myth we talked about that the myth of
people in Africa having sex with the chimpanzees and somehow
AIDS was transmitted on to humans. Big question was how
do you hold the chimpanzee still long enough to have
sex with it.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
That's one of the big issues. The other issue is
the political correctness part.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And my high school I was I went to high
school at Birmingham High School in Vance and we were
the Birmingham Braves. No one complained about it, not a
word was said. Now, a few schools that had Indian
names were hit pretty badly in terms of the accusation
(02:33):
of political correctness. Nobody complained about the Birmingham Braves. Guess
what they're now, the Birmingham Tumors. No, that would that
would be great, But they're the Patriots. Now give me
a break, all right, that's just ridiculous. Now let's get serious.
(02:57):
One in ten Americans are taking an tied depressant.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So are you ready for this?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
In my family, I am, My kids are, my wife is,
our dog is taking prozac?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I am serious.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Little Izzy is taking prozac every single day. When you
get your dog to take it, boy, what does that
tell you about your family? One in ten Americans are
taking an antidepressant.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So what does that mean, Jim Oh?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I means we've got mental health issues in the United States,
and I don't know. To me, it's I guess it's
not surprising because I treat patients in the emergency department.
I get to see their medication lists, and it is
extremely common. I would have guessed a little bit higher
actually than ten percent, but and probably it should be
higher if you know that there may be more people
(03:53):
that are undertreated for mental illness and depression. That is
so not I know that it comes to surprised to
most people, but I'm not super surprised by that number,
and I can understand why a lot of people would
be surprised, But I mean, what happened was, you know,
in the past, we would treat with drugs that had
significant and serious side effects like MAO inhibitors and things
(04:17):
like tricyclic antidepressant. Those are still good drugs and there's
there's a place for them to be used. But at
this point, all the newer drugs, the SSRI I type drugs,
those are so safe with you know, minimal side effects.
There is weight gain, you know, the bothersons are you
can have weight gain, you can have some sexual dysfunction,
(04:38):
there's ways to overcome those and and but they're just safe.
People don't die from them, but they die from depression.
So it's a pretty easy, you know, risk benefit analysis.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And used to be well you could just go to
your doctor and say I'm depressed and the doctor would
just boom right there issue or give you a prescription.
So that's pretty easy to do, at least I found it.
Kaiser is a little bit more careful. I'm a member
of Kaiser, as everybody knows, and now they switch at
My internis can't do it. It takes a psychiatrist to
actually issue those drugs or to write prescriptions for those drugs.
(05:14):
And I go in every six or every year for
fifteen minutes just to you know, everything, okay, everything's flying?
Anything change? No, nothing has changed. Do you have any
problems now? I still want to run over kittens?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Really? No, of course not.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, people do mistake simple you know, sadness or grieving
process for depression. It's not depression. That's just a normal
human experience. But depression is something altogether different, and it
does take somebody to you know, have a serious conversation
with you to decide is this real depression? Are you
just going through, you know, a difficult time?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And how does an interness know?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Doesn't it take a mental health professional to really be
able to determine which one is which?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
No, I mean, you could just sit and talk to somebody,
But the problem is, right, most internets have fifteen minutes
with you. How are we going to get into your
life story and really understand the difference in fifteen minutes
where when Kayser sends you to a psychiatrist, they block
out a much longer period of time for that. They
keep their internests cranking at you know, one appointment every
ten to fifteen minutes, while they, you know, their specialists
(06:19):
can get a little more time with you. So it
kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, before we get to the flesh eating parasite story, Jim,
which is always a delight, and brought this up. And
this is something that is affects a lot of us.
Sugary drinks raise common liver disease, and diet drinks raise
common liver disease by sixty percent. So because of my
(06:45):
diet coke issue, I'm assuming my liver now looks like
a Jackson Pollock painting it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I really didn't think you would do this story based
on that alone. That you know, you don't want me
disparaging your diet coke.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Oh sure you you do? Well, No, actually you don't.
I have a lifetime of this from everybody else. But
you don't need much of this, do you.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well. I mean, that's the problem is that our bodies
were never made to take in all these chemicals, right,
and especially highly refined sugar and highly processed foods, ultra
processed foods. And we're seeing this in people's livers. The
liver is where all of this has to pass through,
and it's called first pass. A lot of your blood
flows straight from your stomach through your liver, and that's
(07:31):
to try and clean out any toxins right away. And
so your liver takes a beating when you don't eat well.
And so if you add that to metabolic disorders like
diabetes or even high blood pressure, high cholesterol, you add
that on top, what you're getting is fatty liver, and
that makes your liver dysfunctional. It doesn't work correctly, and
(07:51):
it can cause scarring over time and eventually can cause
liver failure. So we're talking like thirty percent of the
population has these fatty liver changes when you look at it,
and about five percent or one out of twenty actually
have this severe form of it called MASH, which is
metabolic associated dietosis hepatitis. And so just that's fancy for
(08:15):
fatty liver.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So let me ask this in terms of knowing if
your liver is fatty. Is that just done through a
simple blood test where you look at liver function.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
If it shows up in the liver function, it's probably
a bit too late. There's a way to do an
ultrasound that measures elasticity in the liver. That's a new test.
It's not a lot of places don't have it. It's
not done regularly. But if you're at risk, if you
have those risk factors, those metabolic conditions, it's probably reasonable
to look into getting this specialized ultrasound that looks for
(08:49):
fatty liver disease, and that's what it does. It looks
for the elasticity of the liver, and that's what determines
how far along you are in this process.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
How can you tell elasticity without pushing it, without pulling
it apart.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, a lubber band, they are pushing it. Yeah. Yeah,
the sound waves bounce off of it and they're pushing
and pulling and they can tell. But it's not a
normal ultra sell machine that's specialized.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Got it all right, real quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
We have to get into the flesh eating parasite warning
California health officials, how much flesh is being eaten?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah? So, I mean right now, it's just in Mexico,
but it's coming north, right, So it started at the
southern border of Mexico and it's been working its way north.
There's been about a little over seven hundred cases in Mexico.
But people who travel to Mexico now are at risk.
And then when you come back home, there's a risk
that you could spread this. So these are these burrowing
(09:42):
worms that we'll get into if you have an open wound, especially,
they can bite and bite and get in there and
then they burrow into your skin. It's kind of cool.
And then you know, and then all of a sudden,
it looks like an abscess, but what comes out are flies.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Now I'm assuming the Trump administry is able to stop
them at the border. And because it's uh, that sounds
absolutely disgusting if I look at if I'm looking at
an abscess and outcomes flies or a worm or something
that is very distressing.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's cool in a in a
way that you don't want to be involved with.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Hey, when you so when you pull a worm, like
a tapeworm or whatever out of a human being, uh,
do you you know, you go to the doctor's lounge
and hang out, and do you go to the other docks.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Hey, let me show you what I pulled out today. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Absolutely, we take pictures. We yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
That's fantastic and that's real.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Right, Okay, I mean Most of the time patients bring
it in either they fish it out of a toilet
or you know, somewhere, and then they bring it in
in a little plastic bag and then we get it
in a bucket, clean it up so we can take
some good pictures.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I told you about a friend of mine who was
an er doctor. I went to high school with her,
And there we are. They had their display, the little
museum of things they pulled out of people's rear ends
usually guys.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But okay, we're done, Jim.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
We'll talk again next week, and I'll probably see you
over the next few days, all right,
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