Pharmacy chains plan to offer Covid vaccines

According to the CDC’s “interim playbook” for planning vaccine distribution, Costco, CVS, Kroger, Publix, Walgreens, and Walmart plan to have their pharmacies participate in Covid-19 vaccine distribution, as soon as one is available.

Once healthcare workers had been vaccinated and vaccines distributed to hospitals and clinics…

Pharmacies would become involved during a second phase of vaccine rollout. The pharmacies would order the Covid-19 vaccines from the federal government, which would then supply them, according to the CDC’s plan.

The CDC says the vaccine itself will be free to individuals, but they may be required to pay a fee to actually have it injected.

Statins are weird

Statins reduce cholesterol production in cells, but a side effect can be muscle pain. The current theory is that statins can limit energy production in mitochondria, which can lead to that pain from weakened muscles.

But those shifty Danes have found something odd: Statins, it seems, actually increase energy production in blood cells.

“We can see that long-term treatment with statins at the recommended dose increases the blood cells’ ability to produce energy. These are surprising results. We had expected statins to behave the same way that they do in muscle cells, but in fact they do the exact opposite.”

So does this mean that statins cause muscle pain for an entirely different reason? You know the mantra: More studies are needed.

For allergies, like mother, like son (or daughter)

Mothers, it seems, can pass on allergies to their kids. Well, mouse mothers for sure. A study out of Singapore…

…shows that the key antibody responsible for triggering allergic reactions, immunoglobulin E (IgE), can cross the placenta and enter the foetus. When inside the foetus, the antibody binds to foetal mast cells, a type of immune cell that releases chemicals that trigger allergic reactions, from runny noses to asthma.

It gets cooler: The researchers then had mice moms develop an allergy to ragweed. Lo and behold, their kids also had an allergic reaction to ragweed. Of note, “The sensitivity is allergen-specific; the offspring did not react to dust mites, another common allergen.”

Somewhere, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is snickering.

Gut bacteria can do anything

The latest: They can protect against radiation. Really.

A study out of the University of North Carolina found that mice with Lachnospiraceae and Enterococcaceae in their guts not only survived what should have been lethal radiation exposure, but saw their blood cell production recover “as well as repair of the gastrointestinal tract.”

Side note: They also found that humans who had the least GI trouble after radiation treatment for leukemia also had the highest amount of these two bacteria — so it seems to protect us as well.

Know your probiotics!

Take it easy — CPEasy! We’ve got a new home-study education session available as a CPEasy course: “Probiotic Considerations.”

Simple title, big implications. Presented by Shirin Madzhidova, PharmD, “Probiotic Considerations” will explain the critical differences between available probiotic strains so you can educated your patients better. With the role of gut bacteria becoming clearer every day (see above!), this is a topic you want to be up to date on!

As always, GPhA members receive a discounted rate — just $20 for an hour of CE credit. Non-members are welcome ($42) but you will be given the side-eye.

Newborns need their vitamin D

Want to avoid fat kids? Make sure they’ve got enough vitamin D, and quickly.

A University of Michigan study found that kids who had low D levels in their first year were more likely to have metabolic syndrome (e.g., “high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels”).

Causation or correlation? The Michiganders aren’t sure, but “at least from a predictive point of view, the fact that a single measure of vitamin D in early life predicts cardiovascular risk over such a long period is compelling.”

To the farm with you!

After you’ve given your newborn that vitamin D (see above), you’ll want to head to the farm for a while. German researchers found that children who were exposed to plenty of that fresh farm air* had gut microbiomes that protected them from asthma — particularly bacteria such as Roseburia and Coprococcus that produce short chain fatty acids.

The trick, though: Do it early. Gut bacteria tends to stabilize in the first year, so that’s when you’ve got to get Junior to the pig pen.

* Maybe not so fresh — it includes “stays in animal sheds”.

Today’s Covid-19 info

The virus spreads indoors a lot more than some folks believed. Here are your bullet points, courtesy of a Vanderbilt University study:

• Once one person in a household is infected, 51 percent of the other people living there will get it.
• “Those infections occurred fast, whether the first sick household member was a child or an adult” — we’re talking usually within five days of the first person showing symptoms.

What can be done? Air circulation. Open those windows and damn the heating bill!

Learning from flu failures

Why was the 2017-18 flu so bad? In part, the vaccine. The heavy hitter that year was H3N2, but the vaccine — which included an H3N2 component — didn’t do a great job of protecting from it.

Why not? Because, dear reader, every H3N2 isn’t alike. In 2017, there were two variants: 3C.2a2 and 3C.3a. That year’s vaccine was made from the 3C.2a clade. For some reason, people who got the flu vaccine that was made from eggs (“egg-adapted”) developed fewer antibodies for the 3C.2a2 version.

Said the researchers: “[W]e still have much to improve upon in terms of how we manufacture [vaccines] and predict their efficacy.”

Crunchy on the outside

Finally, today’s crazy health and science story comes courtesy of Australia, where apparently they’ve been reading a little too much post-apocalyptic fiction: “[T]he larvae of a waste-eating fly could become a new alternative protein source for humans“.

The lead researcher recognizes that more work is required, including figuring “the best ways to process the fly to preserve its nutritional value.”