The writers are getting lazy again

“’Double mutant’ Covid variant found in India” — although it doesn’t seem to be linked to an increase in cases there. Yet.

Important information about Indy Health

Arkansas Medicare Part D pharmacy benefits insurer Indy Health is under an order of rehabilitation (effective March 18). As part of that order, the Arkansas insurance commissioner has taken control of Indy Health.

Click here to read the full news release from the Arkansas Insurance Department. Click here for a FAQ document from Indy Health.

Click here for the Direct Member Reimbursement Form

LINET will accept Indy Health Medicare part D claims effective March 1–31 through the LINET program for transition coverage of prescription drugs. Indy Health claims will pay through LINET (Humana transition claims for Medicare D). GPhA members wanting additional information, please contact the Arkansas Department of Insurance, visit the GPhA website, or check your email for the latest information.

Part D members with questions and/or concerns should call 1-800-799-0927 or email customercare@indyhealthinc.com. Customers may also contact the Arkansas Insurance Department Consumer Services Division at 1-800-852-5494.

You get a vaccine! You get a vaccine! Everyone gets a vaccine!

Governor Kemp has opened Georgia’s Covid vaccine eligibility to anyone 16 and over, starting today (Thursday, March 25). “Confirm your spot in line as quick as possible,” Kemp said.

Can you get schizophrenia from your cat?

Maybe? Researchers in North Carolina have found a connection between Bartonella bacteria — think cat-scratch disease — and people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Of the 17 patients with schizophrenia, 12 had Bartonella DNA in their blood, as compared to only one of 13 in the control group. According to the questionnaires, both patients and controls reported similar pet ownership and flea exposures.

It’s obviously preliminary research, but it’s worth a comment at the water cooler, no?

Big news for technician members

It’s official: The Pharmacy Technician Certification Board has officially recognized GPhA’s immunization program for technicians.

That means you can take GPhA’s popular Immunization Delivery Training for Pharmacy Technicians course and it will now count towards PTCB’s Immunization Administration Certificate. W00T!

(Annnnd… earning that PTCB certificate is a step toward becoming an Advanced CPhT (CPhT-Adv), which comes with all the bragging rights and potentially a new business card.)

But wait, there’s more

We’ve added yet more dates for GPhA’s Immunization Delivery Training for Pharmacy Technicians: Saturday, April 24 and Saturday, May 22! So not only can you get six (6) hours of sweet CE credit, it’s also a step toward that PTCB certificate and becoming a CPhT-Adv.

So less reading, more signing up: Click here for info!

Time to update your high school bio textbooks

Scientists at Princeton have discovered an organelle in human cells — they don’t know what it does, other than “govern very important chit-chat within and between cells,” and play a role in bone metastasis. They’ve nicknamed it the “frodosome*.”

[T]his is the type of unapologetic basic cell biology research that ultimately leads to potential treatments for diseases such as bone metastasis.

* After the Lord of the Rings character who failed in his mission to destroy the One Ring.

Obamacare notes

President Biden has extended ACA insurance signup though Healthcare.gov through August 15, 2021 — another three-month extension.

Apparently it’s popular: More than 200,000 people have signed up or upgraded their insurance since Healthcare.gov reopened in mid-February.

The latest ACA expansion makes health insurance more affordable for more people, but it ain’t cheap. And it ain’t cheap because it’s still private insurance.

The reliance on private plans — a hard-fought compromise in the 2010 health law that was designed to win over industry — already costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars each year, as the federal government picks up a share of the insurance premiums for about 9 million Americans.

Alexa, buy yourself something nice

Being trapped in the World of Covid has apparently made people realize how dependent they are on machines — keeping in touch, doing their work, escaping from their drab, wretched lives, and so on.

And that — say USC researchers — has made them nicer to machines.

[W]hen people are distracted by something distressing, they treat machines socially like they would treat other people. We found greater faith in technology due to the pandemic and a closing of the gap between humans and machines,

The somnambulist

For one patient, too much tapentadol seems to have started her sleepwalking. She started on the regular stuff and was transitioning to the extended release — but she was taking 600mg/day of the ER version, when the max is supposed to be only 500mg.

Caveats (besides the fact that it’s a sample size of one): She had suffered a traumatic brain injury after being hit by a car eight months before, although the researchers say they ruled that out as a cause.

Debbie downers

If you think the Covid-19 news has been negative, well … welcome to American news. No, really.

A Dartmouth economics professor thought the news he was seeing was waaaaay too negative, so he did a study. Result: From Fox News to MSNBC, Reuters and the New York Times, the US media was painting a much more negative picture than the rest of the world.

We are doing a good job telling you why Covid cases are rising in some places and how the vaccines are imperfect — but not such a good job explaining why cases are falling elsewhere or how the vaccines save lives. Perhaps most important, we are not being clear about which Covid developments are truly alarming.

My favorite example comes from the Atlantic (“World’s Most Depressing Magazine”). Headline: “Don’t Be Surprised When Vaccinated People Get Infected”. Smaller print: re-infections are “very rare.”

ICYMI

Dr. Vivek Murthy was confirmed as surgeon general.