The GPhA Board of Directors wants to hear from you

A recent article in the New York Times, and the preliminary results of a study by GPhA members Dr. Johnathan Hamrick and Savannah Cunningham, have caused the GPhA board deep concern.

Both the article and the study conclude that workplace conditions are resulting in an increase in adverse events and negative patient outcomes. The board would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that patient outcomes always have been, and will continue to be, the top priority of pharmacists. And that’s why GPhA President Chris Thurmond, and the GPhA Board of Directors, want to hear from you.

There are no simple or quick solutions, but a first step is to hear about your workplace concerns. Click here to read the message from Chris Thurmond about why your input is critical, and how to tell us about your experiences.

A medication for “social pain”

Been rejected? Ostracized? Lost a job? University of California researchers found an unexpected treatment: “Acetaminophen and forgiveness.”

When combined with a tendency to forgive, taking acetaminophen substantially reduced how much social pain people felt over time. More specifically, participants taking acetaminophen who were high in forgiveness exhibited an 18.5% reduction in social pain over the 20-day study period.

Enemy of my enemy

Here’s an unexpected way to treat brain tumors: with Ebola. Apparently glioblastomas have a weakness that happens to jibe with how Ebola avoids a body’s immune system.

“The irony is that one of the world’s deadliest viruses may be useful in treating one of the deadliest of brain cancers,” said Yale’s Anthony van den Pol, professor of neurosurgery.

Statins vs. prostate cancer?

For men with a high risk of prostate cancer, statins* might be a way for them to live longer. Why? Researchers aren’t sure, but there seems to be a connection.

The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, but it found that statins, taken alone or with metformin, did seem associated with an increase in survival.

Next step: Finding proof of cause-and-effect, and narrowing down the best drug combo.

* Atorvastatin, pravastatin or rosuvastatin, but not lovastatin.

Craig-market insulin

Knowing what we know about the price of insulin in the U.S., it’s not surprising that a study found “Unregulated sales of insulin [are] common on Craigslist.”

During a two-week period, researchers turned up 327 ads from private parties selling insulin at a fraction of the retail price, according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Smart medicine

Older than you’d think

60 million years ago, dinosaurs were apparently suffering from Langerhans cell histiocytosis, which afflicts humans today.

Granted it’s a rare condition in 2020, but you have to admit that evidence of a modern disease in a 60-million-year-old hadrosaur is worth a “Hmm, that’s cool.” And, write the study’s authors, “The hadrosaur pathology findings were indistinguishable from those of humans with LCH.”

Media worth checking out

Coronavirus answers, podcast-style

If you’re a podcast listener, you might want to check out a recent episode of the daily science ‘cast “Short Wave” that answers some of the basic questions* about CoviD-19, including “Why is there so much media coverage of a virus that’s not nearly as deadly as some others?”

* It does not, however, answer why some people write “CoviD” in all caps — it’s not an acronym. It stands for Coronavirus Disease 2019.

The pharmacist who tracked down his son’s killer — and a local pill mill

You might want to check out “The Pharmacist” — now on Netflix, it tells the story of Dan Schneider, the Louisiana pharmacist whose son was killed as a result of the opioid epidemic, and who went on to catch his son’s killer and hit back at a major pharmaceutical company.