South Georgia is being clobbered

Hospitals are filling up, Georgia Health News reports, as the Delta variant sweeps through the unvaccinated — it’s basically spring 2020 all over again.

As one hospital CEO put it, “Every hospital in Georgia is critically short of staff, and now we have a state that’s so poorly vaccinated. Somehow we’ve got to convince the general public they are causing this.’’

Said another:

“We’re tired, and we’re at our wits’ end. As soon as a patient is discharged from our critical care unit, or worse, is deceased, there’s another patient to put in that bed. It’s like a revolving door that we can’t stop.”

Wellstar requiring vaccines

Starting October 1, all Wellstar Health Systems employees will need to be fully vaccinated. “That includes all remote workers, physicians, medical residents, fellows, trainees, contractors, medical staff, students, temporary workers, and volunteers.”

Send your pharmacy tech to TechU!

TechU is a one-day education and social event (three hours of CE!) developed by Georgia pharmacy techs for pharmacy techs. No pharmacy technician in the state should miss it! Eat, drink, meet, greet, and have a great time!

This year it’s September 25 in Savannah, on the campus of South University. Grab the early-bird rate by August 31 — just $35 for GPhA members, and $45 for non-members. Click here for the deets and to sign up!

Audits are killing indy pharmacies

PBMs have switched to virtual audits because of the pandemic, putting a huge burden on independent pharmacies.

The average audit in 2020 cost pharmacies $23,978, 35% more than the annual average over the previous five years, the PAAS [pharmacy audit assistance service] data shows. And the number of prescriptions reviewed in September and October was fourfold over what PAAS members had seen in previous years.

Not that it’s a money grab or anything.

“What they did in 2020 was reprehensible. While we were taking care of patients, they’re sitting back in their comfy offices figuring out ‘How can we make money off this? Can we find a loophole? Can we find a missing document? Can we find a reason to take back stuff?’”

And, of course, it’s just a coincidence that the companies operating the PBMs are offering to buy those same independent pharmacies. Times are tough, after all.

Artist’s conception

Time to get the iron out

Americans are eating less red meat these days, and that — combined with a change in farming techniques — means that more people are getting anemia.

The red meat connection is obvious, but a study out of New Jersey found that iron levels in lots of foods have dropped between 1999 and 2018, including turkey, fruit, vegetables, corn, and beans. “During that time,” they found, “iron intake dropped 6.6% in men and 9.5% in women.”

New Facebook ad policy

Planning to advertise on Facebook? Better read its new policy. As FDA Law Blog explains, online pharmacies will need to receive certification from LegitScript, then apply to Facebook for approval to advertise. What if you’re not an online pharmacy, but just want to advertise your brick-and-mortar shop? The policy applies if you’re promoting prescription drugs.

The latest Covid treatment is…

Fenofibrate. The cholesterol drug. A group of European researchers say their study finds it can reduce infection by up to 70 percent by blocking the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s spike protein from attaching to ACE2 receptors.

“Given that fenofibrate is an oral drug which is very cheap and available worldwide, together with its extensive history of clinical use and its good safety profile, our data has global implications.”

Don’t eat cake batter

So warns the CDC, thanks to a bunch of E. coli cases around the country that have hospitalized at least seven people, mostly kids. And that includes both store-bought mixes and grandma’s homemade recipe.

Headline of the week

“Arizona man went a month without knowing he had the plague“