Today’s flu story

Flu cases continue to rise. (Latest Georgia numbers: 38 hospitalizations, one death.) And yes, it’s starting early — the earliest start in 15 years.

The last flu season to rev up this early was in 2003-2004 — a bad one. Some experts think the early start may mean a lot of suffering is in store, but others say it’s too early to tell. […] There are different types of flu viruses, and the one causing illnesses in most parts of the country is a surprise. It’s a version that normally doesn’t abound until March or April.

Learn point-of-care testing with GPhA and NACDS

Patients who use point-of-care “at home” tests need you. Don’t send them home without a helping hand. Learn how you can help them take control of their health with these tests … and how to best advise them when they show you the results.

The 20-hour certificate program (ACPE-accredited, of course) includes comprehensive material regarding key disease states, physical assessment, point-of-care tests, collaborative practice models, and even business models. It’s 16 hours of home study, four hours live. (Note: Techs can earn the certificate, but not the CE.)

Check out the NACDS “Community Pharmacy-based Point-of-Care Testing Certificate Program” at GPhA.org/pointofcare.

The details:

Sunday, March 15, 2020
8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

GPhA Headquarters
6065 Barfield Rd., Sandy Springs

The laughing Dutchmen

While we’re worried about opioids and meth and marijuana, in the Netherlands the drug problem is … laughing gas. The country is working to ban it.

Speed vs safety

For the last 25 years, the FDA has been getting faster and faster with new drug approvals. That’s good … but it’s also raising safety concerns.

Drugs that get an expedited approval are 48% more likely to subsequently get an update to their boxed warning — the FDA’s most severe — or contraindications that restrict their use than those that go the traditional route. […] Other research has tied faster drug approvals to increased boxed warnings, as well as market withdrawals.

“A handsome source of revenue for middlemen”

The New Republic discovers PBMs. Check out “The New Behemoths of Health Care Bureaucracy.”

We usually avoid long quotes, but here’s an exception — our favorite paragraph:

A last-ditch argument against any Medicare for All or single-payer approach to healthcare reform is often, “But what about all the jobs that will be lost in the healthcare industry?” It’s true that the industry, broadly defined, employs huge numbers of Americans and continues to grow. And some of this growth is in providers of services (especially low-paid home health care and nursing home jobs). But the explosion of expensive layers of cost-plus bureaucracy is the real driving force here. Medical billing and the processing of endless insurance and pharmacy paperwork account for a significant share of the healthcare industry workforce, and the overall value added by it is zero. It exists only to perpetuate itself as a handsome source of revenue for middlemen. (Emphasis ours.)

Science news: One step closer to ManBearPig

Chinese scientists have created the first pig-monkey chimera. (It actually has implications for organ transplants, but for now it works better as clickbait.)

Elsewhere: Here and there

A West Virginia “caravan” of diabetics is heading to Canada to buy affordable insulin.

New York reports an almost 16% decline in opioid-overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018 — the first decline in a decade.

CVS has been fined $3.6 million by California for refusing to redeem recyclables — it’s a fine of $100 per day per location.