Important DCH info

If you’re filling a prescription for opioid-use disorder meds (e.g., buprenorphine), there’s a new rule in place:

Prior to billing the department
and dispensing OUD medications, pharmacists must make sure the DEA and XDEA are on the hard copy
of prescriptions. In addition, pharmacists must validate the prescribers XDEA by visiting
https://www.samhsa.gov/bupe/lookup-form or by calling 1-866-287-2728.

Click here for a PDF from DCH with the 411.

Please keep these in mind

  1. You do not need a prescription to sell/give naloxone to anyone.
  2. There is no minimum age to purchase naloxone.

Why the reminder? Because a study found that half of pharmacies refused to dispense naloxone to teenagers, incorrectly believing there is an age requirement.

Once again: There is no minimum age to purchase naloxone.

Huge grant for UGA

UGA scored an $8 million award from the National Institutes of Health to develop a universal flu vaccine — and, depending on how research goes, it could be up to $130 million over seven years.

How big is that? UGA says that seven-year grant will be the largest award the university has ever received, and enough to pay football coach Kirby Smart’s salary for almost three years.

UGA faculty will lead one of NIH’s new prestigious Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) and collaborate with teams from 14 other universities and research institutes to create and test new vaccines that may one day replace seasonal vaccines administered every year during flu season.

For HIV, Georgia ranks among the worst

When it comes to HIV, Georgia is the third-riskiest state in the nation. That’s based on the number of HIV diagnoses (Georgia is the second worst in the country, i.e., #49), the death rate from AIDS (#46), whether HIV-positive people can get treatment (#42), and other factors.

It’s not alone; seven of the 10 lowest-ranking states are in the South, although the two worst are Nevada and Ohio.

A new front on the War on Antibiotic Resistance™

Researchers in Hong Kong have developed what might be an entirely new type of antibiotic. (Well, it actually is an entirely new type of antibiotic — the question is whether it will be able to work in humans.)

Instead of disrupting a bacteria’s DNA synthesis, the technique uses a molecule small enough to interfere with how two proteins interact — kinda like a little brother sitting between those teenagers on the couch. If they can’t interact, the bacteria can’t reproduce.

FDA. DEA. Together for the first time

All right, it’s not that exciting, but they did issue first-of-their-kind joint warning letters to four online networks for “illegally marketing unapproved and misbranded versions of opioid medicines, including tramadol, that are potentially dangerous.”

One inhaler, three drugs

For patients with severe asthma, using a single inhaler with three drugs* might be the answer. If nothing else, it saves them the trouble of having two separate devices. (Above link goes to the news story. Want the paper in the Lancet? Click here.)

* Beclometasone dipropionate (corticosteroid), formoterol fumarate (β 2 agonist), and glycopyrronium (muscarinic antagonist), if you must know

Captain Obvious and the ACA

It turns out that when people have access to healthcare, they end up healthier. Who knew?

Poor people in Michigan with asthma and diabetes were admitted to hospitals less often after they joined Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. More than 25,000 Ohio smokers got help through the state’s Medicaid expansion that led them to quit. And around the country, patients with advanced kidney disease who went on dialysis were more likely to be alive a year later if they lived in a Medicaid-expansion state.

The long read: critical compounding

When the price of an essential medicine rose to an unacceptable level, there was only one thing for pharmacist Marleen Kemper to do – start making it herself.” (Twist: This is in The Netherlands.)