Opinion: FDA’s pendulum swings too far

Big shout-out to Scott Brunner, executive vice president of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (and former CEO of GPhA), who has an opinion piece running in Stat News: “FDA’s overreach will harm compounding pharmacies and the patients they serve.”

The FDA has overreached in implementing [new safety provisions required by Congress], all but halting common compounding practices that have been safely performed for years and on which patients with legitimate needs for compounded medications rely.

The FDA, Brunner says, “is about to throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

Leesburgian* named interim assistant dean at UGA CoP

Congrats to Melody Clay Sheffield of Leesburg, who was named the interim assistant dean of the UGA College of Pharmacy’s extended campus!

* Leesburger?

Guess who’s back!

If you said “tiny flying insects of disease and death,” you win!

Where will the money come from?

As drug prices rise, employers are expected to spend six percent more on employees’ healthcare in 2020 — the highest increase in four years.

Hey Google, should I take the red pill?

If you’re going to ask an artificial intelligence about your drugs, it’s better to speak with Google Assistant rather than either Alexa or Siri, according to a new study in Nature Digital Medicine.

Google Assistant understood 92% of brand name medicines, and 84% of generics, they found. Siri had just over 58% comprehension of brand names and 51% with generics, while Alexa came in at 55% and 46%, respectively. Google Assistant showed similar results even for people who spoke with different accents, but Siri and Alexa had lower comprehension rates in those instances.

Win-win

Great news! Both Joe Biden* and Donald Trump say they’re going to cure cancer!

* All right, all right — yes, Biden oversaw the “cancer moonshot” project and helps put a lot of money into cancer research. But let’s be realistic, shall we?

Medicaid work requirements: Pretty much the definition of “backfire”

Arkansas enacted Medicaid work requirements to entice low-income people to get jobs or training (to qualify for health coverage). How that work out? Not so good, according to an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It turns out that 97 percent of those people already had jobs — just not very good ones. But the new requirements still ended up costing 18,000 of them their health coverage … and then increasing the unemployment rate among Medicaid recipients.

Work requirements might sound good in a stump speech, but it seems in reality they just hurt the people who actually need help.

Two plus two still equals four

Despite everything that’s come out about how Purdue Pharma pushed OxyContin like a desperate streetcorner dealer, the Sackler family still insists it isn’t to blame.

As Vanity Fair succinctly (and politely) puts it, “This defies the widely accepted understanding of the opioid epidemic.”

Sackler continues to insist that OxyContin isn’t that addictive, telling Vanity Fair that addiction rates are “between 2 and 3 percent” and only rise to nearly 5 percent when including more typical dependence and misuse. In reality, reviews of the research have estimated addiction rates at 8 percent and misuse rates as high as 26 percent.

Diet question and answer

“Cucumber Diet Review: Does It Work for Weight Loss?”

Answer: No.

Elsewhere: Bridge Out™ Edition

Remember Brexit, the world’s slowest-moving train wreck? Oh, it’s still going on, it’s just been postponed till October 31. And if there’s no deal and Britain “crashes out” of the EU… well, the pharma industry is saying it will be Double Plus Ungood.