UGA leads Georgia Tech … but not in a good way

It ranked #3 among American colleges for cases of Covid-19, behind the University of Texas in Austin and the University of Central Florida. Georgia Tech ranked #14 — you can see the whole list over at the New York Times.)

That’s probably not the DEA calling you

Scammers have a new trick: Faking a DEA number with their Caller ID, calling people, and demanding money with the threat of revoking their licenses.

“Registrants should be aware that no DEA agent will ever contact members of the public by telephone to demand money or any other form of payment or threaten to suspend a registrant’s DEA registration,” says the agency.

If you get such a call, use DEA’s “Extortion Scam Online Reporting” tool to let them know. Then don’t bother to think about what happens to someone who impersonates a federal agent.

We’re with you, Dawn!

Dawn Baker, a news anchor at WTOC in Savannah, is the first person to receive an experimental Covid-19 vaccine (this one is from Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases).

“We all sit around and we think that we’re helpless, we can’t do anything. We wear our masks, we stay away from people, but we really have seen that that’s not really enough. So I thought that it was an amazing opportunity to be a part of the solution.”

(Scroll down for more Covid-19 vaccine tidbits.)

Sup-sup-suppertime (with a side of bacteria)

If you think you’re doing your dog a favor by feeding it raw food, think again. While Fido may really like it, that raw food (researchers found) can carry a host of drug-resistant bacteria.

All nine of the raw food samples tested positive for multidrug-resistant enterococci, while only one of the wet food and none of the dry food samples had lineages resistant to antibiotics.

So next time you shun that Purina One in favor of some artisanal raw victual, ask yourself who will take care of your pets while you’re recovering in the hospital?

It’s clay shootin’ time!

What happens when you mix ZZ Top, “Deliverance,” flying rocks, and Georgia pharmacists? You get “Ready. Aim. Phire!” — the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation’s amazing clay-shootin’ fundraiser featuring beer, shotguns, golf carts, and an airtight liability waiver.

Meet Mike. BIG Mike.

He’ll be your guide at the Big Red Oak Shooting Preserve — just an hour or so south of Atlanta in the town of Gay. Big Mike’s got huge tracts of land (2,500 acres of primeval hunting land, to be specific), so no wonder it’s favorite sporting destination for outdoor lovers.

In this case, the prey is clay: clay sporting pigeons. It’s an afternoon of taking out your frustrations on flying hunks of ceramic, while you hang out (dare we say “network”?) and have a great day away from 2020.

It’s Friday, September 25, 2020, from 1:00 to 5:30 pm.

Single players and foursomes are welcome, and survivors can enjoy a raffle, BBQ, and beer at the end of the day.

Sign up today at GPhA.org/ready-aim-phire!

Boom boom boom!

Polishing the crystal ball, pharma style

What will be the biggest-selling drugs in five years? The data geeks at EvaluatePharma think they know. Merck’s Keytruda and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo top the list, but you’ll have to click the link to see all 10.

Sorry, no answer

If you have a few minutes to kill and are curious whether artificial sweeteners are good or bad … well, don’t bother with this HealthDay article. It spends 700 words to say “We don’t know.”

“I wonder what’s in here” —Pandora

Do these people not know what year it is? Why, in the name of all that’s holy, would anyone even think to “Awaken Deep Sea Bacteria After 100 Million Years“?

Despite needing oxygen to survive, the bacteria were able to make due with only trace amounts and almost no food for more than 100 million years. Once reanimated, most of the microbes were able to feed and multiply with seemingly no ill effects attributed to their long period of rest.

It’s called “Bald’s eyesalve”

Onion and garlic aren’t just for making sure no one sits next to you in a meeting. It seems that “1,000-Year-Old Onion And Garlic Remedy Kills Antibiotic-Resistant Biofilms in The Lab.”

Specifically, the recipe calls for “garlic, onion or leek, cow bile, and wine.” And researchers — brave researchers — tested the salve and found that indeed, it not only kills Staphylococcus aureus, it smashes through the biofilms the bacteria uses to protect itself.

Covid-19 news, vaccine edition

It worked on monkeys, so Johnson & Johnson is moving to human trials for its vaccine.

In an unusual and welcome move, the U.S. government has committed to buying 100 million doses of whatever vaccine finally emerges.

“It’s a gamble, but a reasonable one,” said Dr. Walter Orenstein, an epidemiologist at Emory University who worked for the Clinton administration as director of the United States immunization program. “What the government is doing here, which I think is a good thing, they’re helping gear up production so that if this vaccine is licensed, it will be available in large quantities.”

https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/30/a-huge-experiment-how-the-world-made-so-much-progress-on-a-covid-19-vaccine-so-fast/?utm_campaign=rss

The Long Read: Having a vaccine is one step; distributing it is going to be another big one. Now is when we should be preparing.