Study: Gifts lead to opioid deaths

A study published Friday in JAMA Network Open found a direct correlation between gifts given to doctors and the number of opioid deaths.

From the New York Times:

It found that counties where opioid manufacturers offered a large number of gifts and payments to doctors had more overdose deaths involving the drugs than counties where direct-to-physician marketing was less aggressive.

Anti-vaxxers are a health threat: WHO

The World Health Organization has added the misguided anti-vaccination movement — what it calls “vaccine hesitancy” — to its list of the top 10 health threats facing the world.

Amid the latest U.S. measles outbreak (in Washington State), Forbes explains why “Measles Outbreaks Show Why Anti Vaxxers Made WHO’s 10 Global Health Threats.”

Alzheimer’s + epilepsy drugs = hospital

Alzheimer’s patients who take anti-epileptic drugs tend to spend more time in the hospital, at least according to a new study out of Finland (and published in the Journal of American Medical Directors Association).

Gut bacteria turn meds into dopamine

A common gut bacteria might make Parkinson’s meds ineffective, finds a new study.

Gut bacteria metabolizes levodopa, a common Parkinson’s medication, into dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Since dopamine can’t pass through the blood-brain barrier, it saps the levodopa of its effectiveness

Solution: Use a a decarboxylase inhibitor, obviously.

Tiny Swiss swimmers might deliver meds

A Swiss team has created a “microswimmer robot” that could someday be able to deliver drugs directly to specific locations in the body.

“[It] is a few millimeters in length and made using a folding technique similar to the Japanese art of origami, helping it adapt to the environment around it” and can be controlled from the outside of the body. Science, baby!

The long read: Fax machines in medicine

Why, in 2019, do American medical practices still use fax machines? The basic answer is that the laws that digitized medicine considered storing information but didn’t take into account the need to share it. But there’s plenty more to the story.

Elsewhere: Across the pond

Could be worse, could be in Britain where people are stockpiling medication in fear of a chaotic, no-deal Brexit in March. (The government there says ‘Don’t worry!’ because “Plans have been drawn up for the use of alternative transport routes and prioritisation of medicines.”)