November 19, 2025 • 8 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 a bad flu season incoming and antidepressants effect on sexual development
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jim Keeney is with US doctor Jim, chief medical officers
for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, Jim, Good morning Mill.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Okay, do we want to do the antidepressant story first,
because I know you think that's pretty important, or the
new flu virus. I'm going to throw it to you.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Let's let's do the flu virus first and then we
can talk a little bit longer about the antidepressant one.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Okay, the flu virus. I take one. Every year, I
get one. And what am I looking at this year?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah? So this year the interesting information out is that
there is an emerging strain that they're seeing more commonly
in places like the UK, Japan, and Canada that are
already starting to see it. It's called subclade K and
it's one of the you know, we have all those
H and N variants for influenza influenza A, and this
(00:56):
is the H three N two that's the one that
has what we call antigenic drift. It means that the
antigens that that's what your antibodies attack, can drift a
little bit and change so that they evade the immune system.
That's why they are frequent causes of outbreaks, and that's
why the flu is so successful as an organism, you know,
(01:18):
to reproduce and be able to evade all of our defenses.
And in this case it's it wasn't in this flu shot,
this particular strain was not known. It wasn't it wasn't included,
but it still shows that the current in the UK,
they're shown that the current flu data is about seventy
five percent effective with that influenza vaccine for children and
(01:41):
about thirty to forty percent effective against this particular strain
for adults. It's still that's not bad protection, not horrible.
And the kids are the little They're like little concentrated
vectors that are putting this stuff out. They have higher
viral loads, they excrete more virus, and they do it
for longer than adults do. So really, children are the
(02:05):
little careers for this thing that get us all sick.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Now every year we talk about this and effectively what
medicine does. These flu baby factory vaccine manufacturers they kind
of guess which variant is coming down the pike, and
in anticipation of that, they create the vaccine. Do I
have that right?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, Yeah, so okay, they look in the southern hemisphere
because it's winter, you know, for us in the summer.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So it's something they if they guess right, then obviously
seventy eighty percent and it's a win. What if the
guess is just wrong, is a flu vaccine just not
helpful at all? Or you get some protection no matter what.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, so if they guess wrong, you do get less protection.
We get a bigger outbreak that you could are you
then in a bigger outbreak, maybe you know, that little
bit of protection is more important for you, especially if
you're one of the high risk groups like elderly, you know,
people with lung to these like emphysema, asthma, those type
(03:14):
of things, or young children. So you know, you do
get some benefit from it. It does reduce your chances
of being hospitalized or being you know, or dying from
it as well. And you know, you know, tens of
thousands of people die every year from this and are hospitalized.
And last year was a big year. It was a
record year for a people hospitalized for the flu. And
(03:37):
that was with a flu that was not something new.
It was the standard what we had seen in the past,
and the vaccine. It didn't seem quite as effective as
we hoped it would be because it was it really
wasn't a new variant at that point, So that this
year is going to be a tough year and they're
going to be looking at things like wastewater surveillance. COVID
(03:57):
gave us that, So now we're doing a lot better
job of surveillance and knowing we can now know that
that signal will elevate. You know, a week or two
before that everybody starts showing flu symptoms, so we'll have
some early warning. Now.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And you're thirty years in the er, I'm assuming you've
seen more than your share of people dying of the flu.
Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah? But you know, thirty years ago people stayed home
and died. You know, it's just so now they go
to the er and die.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Hey, I have a question. You ever look at someone
who's just died on you and you say something like, hey,
better you than me?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Probably not never done that.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
See, I wish i'd been a doctor, all right, Jim
and a depressants and teen sexual development? Yeah, let me
ask you questions. You know, aren't teens already pretty sexually developed?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Sexually. I mean no, yeah, no, no, no, because we're
talking about their brains. We're not talking about Oh.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Oh, I'm sorry because I when when I was a teenager,
I you know, I would have screwed a tree except
for the flint splinters a tree not so anyway, Oh,
we don't have to get into that.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Let's talk about to tell you please. Yeah. The issue
the issue here is that you know this, this hasn't
been studied very extensively in teens now. Number one, First,
I want to start by saying SSRI, like like prozac
and those type of things are life saving and they
are extremely safe, unlike a lot of the other medicines
(05:32):
we'd use to treat severe depression. That's probably lowered the
threshold though for people giving them out because they are
so safe. And there's a difference between a teen brain
and an adult brain. So when you're depressed as an
adult and you they are, they are literally stuck in
that depression. What happens is you stop, the neuroplasticity stops,
you stop making new synaptic connections and uh, and you
(05:55):
just kind of get stuck in a depression. That So
these work very well. What we call the neuroplastic you know,
the neurotropic hypothesis of depression. This is why when you
take prozac, it immediately elevates your serotonin, but it doesn't
work for like two to three weeks. That's because it
needs to, you know, increase connections. It needs to create
(06:16):
new neurons, increase synaptic connections, and it has to create
new memories and new processes in your brain. And that
works for an adult. But as a team that's already
happening to a very high degree. They already are extremely
you know, neotropic we call it. Their brain is growing,
they're they're pruning back certain connections, they're creating new connections,
(06:40):
and it's just going on at a very high level.
And now when you throw this monkey wrench in there
and you are affecting their their serotonin levels, which then
affect all those things. It's through a chemical called brain
derived neurotropic factor that's increased in this situation. We don't
really know what that does. Now. Again, I'm saying it
(07:03):
cautiously though, because so many teens have been helped by the.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Same Yes, so let me ask you this. The takeaway
for me is that you don't give out these psychotropic drugs.
The prose acts very lightly. It takes real depression and
where is that line?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, I mean you're you're on the right track exactly.
So you don't want to give it out for sadness, right,
that's normal human experience. We all get sad. Sometimes there's grieving, right,
we don't we agree. When you have a loss, you
have grief, and that's a normal human experience. But sometimes
grieving turns into a severe depression. And there's a definition
(07:45):
for you know, severe depression, and the doctors can identify
that and say, look, I mean, especially once people when
teens are feeling suicidal or so impulsive that they're at
risk for suicidal behavior, that's when this becomes life saving.
So it definitely takes a high threshold. And despite how
safe these drugs are, there's reason to really believe that
(08:07):
they are impacting because when you look at animal models,
for sure, they show that adolescent animals who are given
this have much less interest in sexual behaviors and that
type of thing. And that probably is a reflection of
your interest in in bonding and connection in general. So
(08:28):
what effect may this be having on the two million
teams that are taking the drug in the United States currently.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Okay, fair enough, Jim. We'll talk again next Wednesday. Love
and the Show with your stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Talk to you. Take care,
Jim Keeney is with US doctor Jim, chief medical officers
for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in Long Beach.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, Jim, Good morning Mill.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Okay, do we want to do the antidepressant story first,
because I know you think that's pretty important, or the
new flu virus. I'm going to throw it to you.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Let's let's do the flu virus first and then we
can talk a little bit longer about the antidepressant one.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Okay, the flu virus. I take one. Every year, I
get one. And what am I looking at this year?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah? So this year the interesting information out is that
there is an emerging strain that they're seeing more commonly
in places like the UK, Japan, and Canada that are
already starting to see it. It's called subclade K and
it's one of the you know, we have all those
H and N variants for influenza influenza A, and this
(00:56):
is the H three N two that's the one that
has what we call antigenic drift. It means that the
antigens that that's what your antibodies attack, can drift a
little bit and change so that they evade the immune system.
That's why they are frequent causes of outbreaks, and that's
why the flu is so successful as an organism, you know,
(01:18):
to reproduce and be able to evade all of our defenses.
And in this case it's it wasn't in this flu shot,
this particular strain was not known. It wasn't it wasn't included,
but it still shows that the current in the UK,
they're shown that the current flu data is about seventy
five percent effective with that influenza vaccine for children and
(01:41):
about thirty to forty percent effective against this particular strain
for adults. It's still that's not bad protection, not horrible.
And the kids are the little They're like little concentrated
vectors that are putting this stuff out. They have higher
viral loads, they excrete more virus, and they do it
for longer than adults do. So really, children are the
(02:05):
little careers for this thing that get us all sick.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Now every year we talk about this and effectively what
medicine does. These flu baby factory vaccine manufacturers they kind
of guess which variant is coming down the pike, and
in anticipation of that, they create the vaccine. Do I
have that right?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, Yeah, so okay, they look in the southern hemisphere
because it's winter, you know, for us in the summer.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So it's something they if they guess right, then obviously
seventy eighty percent and it's a win. What if the
guess is just wrong, is a flu vaccine just not
helpful at all? Or you get some protection no matter what.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, so if they guess wrong, you do get less protection.
We get a bigger outbreak that you could are you
then in a bigger outbreak, maybe you know, that little
bit of protection is more important for you, especially if
you're one of the high risk groups like elderly, you know,
people with lung to these like emphysema, asthma, those type
(03:14):
of things, or young children. So you know, you do
get some benefit from it. It does reduce your chances
of being hospitalized or being you know, or dying from
it as well. And you know, you know, tens of
thousands of people die every year from this and are hospitalized.
And last year was a big year. It was a
record year for a people hospitalized for the flu. And
(03:37):
that was with a flu that was not something new.
It was the standard what we had seen in the past,
and the vaccine. It didn't seem quite as effective as
we hoped it would be because it was it really
wasn't a new variant at that point, So that this
year is going to be a tough year and they're
going to be looking at things like wastewater surveillance. COVID
(03:57):
gave us that, So now we're doing a lot better
job of surveillance and knowing we can now know that
that signal will elevate. You know, a week or two
before that everybody starts showing flu symptoms, so we'll have
some early warning. Now.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And you're thirty years in the er, I'm assuming you've
seen more than your share of people dying of the flu.
Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah? But you know, thirty years ago people stayed home
and died. You know, it's just so now they go
to the er and die.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Hey, I have a question. You ever look at someone
who's just died on you and you say something like, hey,
better you than me?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Probably not never done that.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
See, I wish i'd been a doctor, all right, Jim
and a depressants and teen sexual development? Yeah, let me
ask you questions. You know, aren't teens already pretty sexually developed?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Sexually. I mean no, yeah, no, no, no, because we're
talking about their brains. We're not talking about Oh.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Oh, I'm sorry because I when when I was a teenager,
I you know, I would have screwed a tree except
for the flint splinters a tree not so anyway, Oh,
we don't have to get into that.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Let's talk about to tell you please. Yeah. The issue
the issue here is that you know this, this hasn't
been studied very extensively in teens now. Number one, First,
I want to start by saying SSRI, like like prozac
and those type of things are life saving and they
are extremely safe, unlike a lot of the other medicines
(05:32):
we'd use to treat severe depression. That's probably lowered the
threshold though for people giving them out because they are
so safe. And there's a difference between a teen brain
and an adult brain. So when you're depressed as an
adult and you they are, they are literally stuck in
that depression. What happens is you stop, the neuroplasticity stops,
you stop making new synaptic connections and uh, and you
(05:55):
just kind of get stuck in a depression. That So
these work very well. What we call the neuroplastic you know,
the neurotropic hypothesis of depression. This is why when you
take prozac, it immediately elevates your serotonin, but it doesn't
work for like two to three weeks. That's because it
needs to, you know, increase connections. It needs to create
(06:16):
new neurons, increase synaptic connections, and it has to create
new memories and new processes in your brain. And that
works for an adult. But as a team that's already
happening to a very high degree. They already are extremely
you know, neotropic we call it. Their brain is growing,
they're they're pruning back certain connections, they're creating new connections,
(06:40):
and it's just going on at a very high level.
And now when you throw this monkey wrench in there
and you are affecting their their serotonin levels, which then
affect all those things. It's through a chemical called brain
derived neurotropic factor that's increased in this situation. We don't
really know what that does. Now. Again, I'm saying it
(07:03):
cautiously though, because so many teens have been helped by the.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Same Yes, so let me ask you this. The takeaway
for me is that you don't give out these psychotropic drugs.
The prose acts very lightly. It takes real depression and
where is that line?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, I mean you're you're on the right track exactly.
So you don't want to give it out for sadness, right,
that's normal human experience. We all get sad. Sometimes there's grieving, right,
we don't we agree. When you have a loss, you
have grief, and that's a normal human experience. But sometimes
grieving turns into a severe depression. And there's a definition
(07:45):
for you know, severe depression, and the doctors can identify
that and say, look, I mean, especially once people when
teens are feeling suicidal or so impulsive that they're at
risk for suicidal behavior, that's when this becomes life saving.
So it definitely takes a high threshold. And despite how
safe these drugs are, there's reason to really believe that
(08:07):
they are impacting because when you look at animal models,
for sure, they show that adolescent animals who are given
this have much less interest in sexual behaviors and that
type of thing. And that probably is a reflection of
your interest in in bonding and connection in general. So
(08:28):
what effect may this be having on the two million
teams that are taking the drug in the United States currently.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Okay, fair enough, Jim. We'll talk again next Wednesday. Love
and the Show with your stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Talk to you. Take care,
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