Something to look forward to (not)

Once this Covid nightmare is over, you know what’s coming? No, not just the murder hornets. Measles. That’s the prediction in an article in the Lancet. A combination of vaccines being put off, plus poor nutrition during lockdowns — especially vitamin A deficiency — means that

“All these factors create the environment for severe measles outbreaks in 2021, accompanied by increased death rates and the serious consequences of measles that were common decades ago.”

A simple polypill saves lives

A daily pill combining atenolol, ramipril, hydrochlorothiazide, and a statin — plus aspirin — “cut the risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths by nearly one third in a large international study.”

After just over four years on average, aspirin alone did not make a significant difference, and the polypill alone showed a trend toward modest benefit. However, the polypill plus aspirin showed clear value, reducing the heart-related problems and deaths by 31%.

Francisco Franco is still dead

Hydroxychloroquine still does not help treat Covid-19. Vanderbilt University researchers are the latest to prove it.

When an off-label use is ‘reversing heart failure,’ pay attention

Empagliflozin, which is supposed to be for diabetes, can “effectively treat and reverse heart failure in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients” — at least, according to researchers at Mount Sinai.

Their clinical trial showed that this medication can improve the heart’s size, shape, and function, leading to better exercise capacity and quality of life, which will reduce hospitalizations for heart failure patients.

Bacterial bone healing

If you have a rat with a broken leg that needs a titanium implant to heal, coating that implant with Lactobacillus casei bacteria — yes, that’s the same L. casei in yogurt — can make that bone heal faster.

Researchers in Wuhan, China — yes, that Wuhan — “found there was a 27 per cent increase in bone tissue in the rats with the bacteria-covered implants compared with a 16 per cent increase in rats with regular implants.”

Even better, not only did the bone heal faster, it was also more resistant to MRSA infection. Nifty!

Elsewhere: Bad Move edition

New York decided to add a tax to opioids — the idea was to both punish opioid manufacturers and generate revenue to treat addiction. But manufacturers and wholesalers simply decided not to sell opioids in New York, and the ones that still do increased their prices to above what Medicaid and Medicare will reimburse.

“[Independent pharmacies] have little choice but to eat the cost, drop certain prescriptions or pass the expense along.”

Elsewhere: Good Move edition

The U.S. may be bungling its response to Covid-19, but within our borders the Cherokee Nation is doing the opposite. It’s got the virus under control. How? “We acknowledged early on we should defer to the expertise of our public health staff to let them do what they do best.”

That means mask mandates, “free drive-through testing, hospitals well-stocked with PPE, and a small army of public health officers fully supported by their chief.” The result:

[T]he Cherokee Nation has seen no cases of workplace transmission; Sequoyah High School, with rapid testing and masks, reopened for in-person learning this fall; and elective medical and dental procedures have been widely restored.

So about that Covid vaccine…

PFAs — chemicals used in a gadzillion products, from non-stick pans to pizza boxes — are in most Americans’ bodies. There’s evidence they cause all sorts of health issues (and, let’s face it, will probably be banned eventually).

But here’s the thing: Kids exposed to PFAS had “significantly reduced antibody concentrations after given tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations.” You know where this is going. But one more tidbit: One particular kind of PFA likes to accumulate in the lungs.

So… all that said, how much of an effect will PFAs have when the Covid-19 vaccine rolls around? (Optimist: There’s a good chance that the people in the human trials have as much PFA exposure as anyone, so those 90+ percent numbers should hold.)

ICYMI

In what is a surprise to absolutely no one, Amazon has launched its online pharmacy.