Pharmacists will be able to give Covid antivirals

The headline says it: HHS has (somewhat quietly) allowed pharmacists to administer antivirals for Covid-19 when they become available.

As usual, there are important caveats.

[A] notice in the Sept. 14 Federal Register [link] explains that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is expanding the authorization of a “qualified person” able to order and administer antivirals to include licensed pharmacists; licensed or registered pharmacy interns and qualified pharmacy interns may administer — but not order — COVID-19 antivirals.

THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Tracy Dabbs, emergency preparedness pharmacist with the Georgia DPH will be hosting two informational sessions — via Zoom — for GPhA members regarding molnupiravir, Merck’s antiviral product for the treatment of Covid-19. You’ll get available product information and have your questions answered.

None of this is news

Omicron is still out there keeping headline writers busy. No one knows just how much more contagious it is — or if it’s more deadly. Vaccine makers are working on boosters for it.

Meanwhile, everyone ought to get a current booster, wear a mask, keep away from crowds, wash your hands … you know the drill.

E-transfer of controlleds

If you get an electronic prescription for a controlled that you can’t fill, you’re not allowed to transfer it. Silly, right? If it was on paper you could just hand it back to the patient.

The DEA apparently thinks so too — it’s considering changing the rules to allow those initial e-prescriptions to be transferred just like their old-fashioned paper versions.

DEA regulations currently do not include any provision for a pharmacy to transfer an [electronic prescription for a controlled substance] to another pharmacy. The regulations also do not describe how a pharmacy should handle an EPCS that it receives but cannot fill. At present, a pharmacy that receives an EPCS that it is unable to fill can only notify the patient that the prescription cannot be filled.

But first — the comment period! So stay tuned….

Antihistamines vs cancer

Oooh, check this out: Histamine apparently can help some tumors resist immune checkpoint inhibitors. When those don’t work, the tumor can evade drugs.

So reduce the histamine and the tumors can’t hide as well — so they’re more susceptible to drugs that include those immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Hmm. I wonder if there are any available drugs that can block histamines. Some sort of … anti-histamine, perhaps?

Why yes, found a team of American and Chinese researchers in a study:

[P]atients who happened to be taking antihistamine treatment responded better to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy than those not on antihistamines.

They went on to uncover how it works (the histamine binds to the HRH1 receptor, as you probably guessed) and will continue to investigate.

PPIs mess with lung cancer treatment

Once again, it seems like proton pump inhibitors interfere with other medications. In the latest case, research out of Australia’s Flinders University found that

PPI use was associated with worse survival in patients with advanced cancer treated with atezolizumab plus chemotherapy, but not in those that received chemotherapy alone

It seems that PPIs decreased the effectiveness of the immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Back in July we learned that PPIs can help create create antibiotic resistance, and in January we found out that breast-cancer patients taking PPIs had cognitive issues.

Today’s ‘Coffee is good for you’ story

Aussie researchers have found that habitual coffee drinkers seem to experience slower cognitive decline, and even less buildup of those nasty Anzheimer’s plaques.

Higher baseline coffee consumption was also associated with slower Aβ-amyloid accumulation over 126 months, and lower risk of progressing to “moderate,” “high,” or “very high” Aβ-amyloid burden status over the same time-period.

Bonus: The paper twice mentions that ‘coffee is one of the most popular beverages consumed.’

That boxed wine is looking pretty good right now

Unexpected consequences: Between slowdowns* at the ports, the need for glass bottles for vaccines, and the fact that people have been drinking more during the pandemic … well, now there’s a shortage of glass bottles for liquor. Figures.

* A lesser person would have said “bottlenecks.”

Reproduction by piling on

CNN headline: “World’s First Living Robots Can Now Reproduce”

New Scientist headline: “Living robots made from frog cells can replicate themselves in a dish”.

Cooler than you think: These human-made multicellular organisms called “xenobots” reproduce in a totally new way. They don’t split like an amoeba, or make sweet, sweet love — they work together to collect cellular material and build new xenobots like some kind of microscopic golem.

“One [xenobot] parent can begin a pile and then, by chance, a second parent can push more cells into that pile, and so on, generating the child.”

This is how they make wide receivers