E-cigarettes are illegal

Yes, you read that right. And it’s according to Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless. The issue is enforcement — the FDA has been using its “enforcement discretion” until now, but that is going to change.

Sharpless then clarified that all e-cigarettes currently on the market are illegal because they haven’t been assessed by the FDA. But Sharpless said the agency is still weeks away from finalizing any policies that would increase enforcement and remove products from the market.

Quick e-cig updates

Don’t miss our compounding workshop!

GPhA is offering a second date for our full-day compounding-rules workshop, and it’s still only $149 for members for the eight (8!) hours of CE.

The workshop is Saturday, October 5, 2019, from 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. at GPhA’s HQ classroom in Sandy Springs.
Get the details and sign up at GPhA.org/changin today!

Maybe you want to take that Zantac off the shelves

GlaxoSmithKline has stopped distributing ranitidine (aka, generic Zantac) in the U.S. over carcinogen fears. In India and Hong Kong, though, the company is actually recalling the products.

Sanofi, which makes the brand-name Zantac, stopped selling it in Canada, “but doesn’t have any plans to stop distributing Zantac elsewhere.” German and Italy have ordered a recall of some generic ranitidines as well.

All this has happened before, all this will happen again

A popular drug, tasty fruit flavoring, mysterious deaths … no, we’re not talking vaping — this was in 1937.

Diabetics and the ACA

So what has Obamacare done for diabetics? Apparently it got care to almost two million of ’em.

When applied to the nonelderly population of 2015 to 2016, 1.9 million additional people (1.2 million with low income) were estimated to have gained health insurance after ACA implementation.

You know those ads looking to sue pharma companies?

The Federal Trade Commission is as annoyed with them as everyone else. The difference: The FTC can do something, at least when those commercials cross the line into deception. And now it has, sending letters to seven of those law firms telling them to cut it out.

According to the letters, some of the lawsuit ads may make deceptive or unsubstantiated claims about the risks of taking blood thinners and drugs for diabetes, acid reflux, and high blood pressure, among other conditions.

Now if only they could get rid of those overplayed Liberty Mutual commercials….

Shampoo bottles can now be recycled

A Proctor & Gamble scientist found a way to recycle the plastic in deodorant containers and shampoo bottles — polypropylene, or “number 5 in the little recycling triangle.” Previously, the plastic would contain the smell of whatever was originally in it, and ended up a gray mess. Now the result is clean, white pellets, and the process cuts energy use by 84 percent. The first full-scale processing plant just came online.

Can pizza prevent cancer?

According to Silvao Gallus, head of the laboratory of lifestyle epidemiology at the Mario Negri Institute in Milan, yes it can — but only if it’s genuine Italian pizza and not “made according to foreign interpretations.”

“We found that pizza consumption in Italy was protective for many chronic diseases that are known to be influenced by diet: digestive tract cancers and infarction.”

Yes, the studies were real (click here for one in the International Journal of Cancer). And yes, we assume his tongue was firmly in his cheek. Gallus was awarded the 2019 IgNobel Prize for Medicine for his work.