Kimberly Blumenthal

speaker

187 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard 17 Jul

Kimberly Blumenthal’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Freakonomics Radio · Are You Really Allergic to Penicillin? (Update) · 17 Jul 2026 podcast

How much money could you save by doing this?

Just my health care system would be millions.

If we evaluated penicillin allergy, delabeled the appropriate ones, we would save millions of dollars, just my health care system.

So it must be in the billions.

You save on antibiotic expenditure.

Yes.

You'd save on adverse effect avoidance.

Yes, and some of these adverse effects lead you to the emergency room and another hospitalization.

You'd save on surgical infections, a tremendously costly thing.

In our hospitals, without an allergist involved, there is sort of algorithmic care that can clear allergy in low-risk situations with just a protocol, just a little bit more observation.

You're ready in the hospital.

You're being observed.

We do it when patients have infections.

So we don't do it electively, like if you're there for something not related.

But if you have an infection that an allergy is getting in the way of best care, we have a two-step drug challenge process.

And as long as the patient's healthy enough to do that, we do it.

So we give a small amount, watch the patient, give a full amount, watch the patient.

And then if that's the drug that they need to be treated with, they just continue that drug right then and there.

You would kill some people by accident.

And in America, it's just a non-starter.

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