Chantix recall

Irony alert: Pfizer is recalling 12 lots of its Chantix anti-smoking drug because of a possible carcinogen — N-nitroso-varenicline.

Best hedging of the week: “Long-term ingestion of N-nitroso-varenicline may be associated with a theoretical potential increased cancer risk in humans.”

Urgent, urgent, emergency

HHS has determined that a public health emergency still exists.

Or, as only a bureaucrat could put it:

As a result of the continued consequences of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, on this date and after consultation with public health officials as necessary, I, Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, pursuant to the authority vested in me under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, do hereby renew, effective July 20, 2021, the January 31, 2020, determination by former Secretary Alex M. Azar II, that he previously renewed on April 21, 2020, July 23, 2020, October 2, 2020, and January 7, 2021, and that I renewed on April 15, 2021, that a public health emergency exists and has existed since January 27, 2020, nationwide.

Coming soon: “Xavier! the Musical”.

Of course we want you back!

Thanks to you, GPhA has weathered the last 12 months, despite the pandemic.. And we want you back for the next 12. In other words … it’s time to renew your membership!

Do we really have to list everything we accomplished?

Maybe you don’t read every legislative update word for word, but you must realize that there are people out there who would make your job harder, more expensive, or less worthwhile — and GPhA is there to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Your dues supports our advocacy efforts including our full- and part-time lobbyists. Your dues fund education programs, networking events, information resources (like the one you’re reading now), and a lot more*.

And your membership pays for itself in discounts — discounts on continuing ed, convention registration, and certification programs. Not to mention what our advocacy work can save the business you own or work for.

So less reading, more renewing. You — yes, you — are the heart and soul of GPhA. We want to keep you around, and we want to keep doing good for you.

Go, please: GPhA.org/renew. And thank you.

* Like convention, region meetings, members-only resources, Georgia Pharmacy magazine, continuing ed on the latest topics…

Don’t inhale

To add injury to injury, there seems to be a good chance that Covid-19 patients will injure their lungs because they have to work so hard to inhale.

Because “So-called patient self-inflicted lung injury is a controversial concept in the intensive care community,” British researchers did what anyone who grew up with “Star Trek” would: They asked the computer.

The results of the simulations indicated that potentially injurious pressures and strains could be generated at levels of respiratory effort that clinicians are frequently seeing in Covid-19 patients.

To make it worse, mechanical ventilators are also known to damage lungs, so really, the best option is to get vaccinated.

There’s a new sheriff in town

Trump administration: Hospitals, you have to publish your prices so everyone can see and compare them.

Hospitals: We don’t want to. Something something competition secrets blah blah blah.

Trump administration: We’ll fine you $109,500 a year if you don’t.

Hospitals: Law, schmaw. We won’t publish them.

Biden administration: We’re gonna start enforcing that law. Oh, and that $109,500 penalty? We’ll make it $2 million.

Monkeypox chronicle continues

The latest about the nothing-to-worry-about case of monkeypox being treated in Dallas: The CDC is monitoring more than 200 people across 27 states who may have been exposed to Patient Zero.

Passengers on the Atlanta-Dallas flight with indirect contact — in other words, those sitting near the infected person — were deemed to have had too short an exposure to be at risk.

Fixing the messengers (and treating diseases)

Messenger RNA carries instructions to ribosomes: Build this protein. But if that mRNA gets screwed up in a particular way — a “nonsense mutation” — it might incorrectly put a “Stop Here” message in its recipe. You end up with missing or incomplete proteins, which can lead to diseases like cystic fibrosis.

But now University of Alabama biochemists have found a nifty little molecule called SRI-37240 that can tell those ribosomes “Ignore that Stop sign.” Even better, it doesn’t prevent the ribosomes from obeying the correct Stop signs.

All this means that “a path is clearly achievable” to treat a host of genetic diseases caused by nonsense mutations, including cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and even some cancers.

Delta at 83

83 percent, that is. The latest CDC figures show that 83 percent of Covid cases that are sequenced in the U.S. are the fast-spreading Delta variant that’s clobbering unvaccinated communities across the country.

Settlement news

Why yes, that multi-state, multi-city, multi-everything opioid lawsuit is still going on. But there may be a $26 billion settlement … if everyone agrees to it. (So far it looks like 40 states have.)

But don’t you worry! “The fees of lawyers, who pursued and financed the costly litigation for years, will be deducted from the total figure and are expected to be paid more quickly than some funds for addiction treatment.”

Elsewhere

In New York, however, Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson have reached a separate $1.1 billion, 17-year settlement with that state. (Of note: New York has passed a law requiring that the money from the settlement only be used to pay for the effects of the opioid epidemic.)

Don’t read this

A microbiologist explains how “Your bed probably isn’t as clean as you think.”