Obamacare signups are up

About 20 percent more Georgians are signing up for medical coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace than last year — likely due to lower, stable premiums and more choice of carriers.

About 481,000 people in the state got their coverage through that marketplace in 2019.

Who deserves it?

Reminder: Now is the time to nominate someone you know (maybe even yourself) for a 2020 GPhA award. Four of them will be presented at the 2020 Georgia Pharmacy Convention — check out the details and nominate someone at GPhA.org/awards!

Georgia gets a superbug

Heck, while we’re on the subject of deadly bacteria, guess what? The deadly Candida auris “superfungus” has been found in Georgia! So far, luckily, it’s just a single confirmed case, but Candida auris is resistant to most antifungal drugs, and it’s got a 33 percent mortality rate.

Aspirin for migraines?

Not just one or two, though. Research out of Florida Atlantic University suggests that ultra-high doses — we’re talking 900 to 1,300 mg (i.e., three or four standard tablets) — “is an effective and safe treatment option for acute migraine headaches.”

Trying to get away

Yesterday we told you how the U.S. is unique among modern nations in having our life expectancy going down. Here’s another cause of that decline: liver disease. Thanks to increasing alcohol abuse, mortality from liver disease has been going up, especially among people aged 55-64 living in rural areas.

Two for one spending

You know how drug makers justify their high prices by claiming they need the money for research and development? A former sales rep explains why that simply isn’t true: “For every dollar the pharmaceutical industry spends on research and development, it spends two on marketing.”

And then he explains how the goal is to push physicians to prescribe, prescribe, prescribe.

Eew

Sometimes, you’re better off not knowing something — like exactly what happens in a restaurant’s kitchen. The same is true, it seems for what’s lurking in a makeup bag. But researchers at Aston University in Birmingham, U.K., were not deterred. They looked at the bacteria in those bags, and they published the results in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

Bacteria that can cause illnesses ranging from skin infections to blood poisoning if used near eyes, mouth or cuts or grazes were found in nine out of ten of the products. This risk is amplified in immunocompromised people who are more likely to contract infections from opportunistic bacteria.

The Long Read: Talc and asbestos

The idea of talcum powder being contaminated with asbestos isn’t new. In fact, the issue has been raised often in the past half a century. The problem: Relying on industry to police itself, instead of having government regulation.

Read “Powder Keg: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc”

Over the past 50 years, the FDA has relied upon – and often deferred to – industry even as outside experts and consumers repeatedly raised serious health concerns about talc powders and cosmetics, a Reuters investigation found.

Again and again since at least the 1970s, the agency has downplayed the risk of asbestos contamination and declined to issue warnings or impose safety standards, according to documents produced in court proceedings and in response to public records requests.