Georgia exchange enrollment sets record

Almost 550,000 Georgians are signed up for insurance through the Healthcare.gov marketplace — a record for the state, and one that makes us the one with the third-highest enrollment (behind Florida and Texas).

The higher numbers are due in part to the enrollment period being extended, extra discounts through 2022, and more ‘navigators’ helping people enroll.

Georgia’s plan for a privately run marketplace is still in limbo while the state provides more data to the feds.

Booster shots: What you need to know

The FDA has authorized a booster shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for people over 65 and some at-risk groups. (The link goes to the list.)

But know this: No decision has been made about Moderna or Johnson & Johnson boosters. It will be a few weeks before the FDA even gets the data to review.

UGA profs choose safety over politics

More than 50 members of UGA’s life sciences faculty say they will require students wear masks in their classrooms to protect others from Covid-19.

“In order to protect our students, staff and faculty colleagues, we will wear masks and will require all of our students and staff to wear masks in our classes and laboratories until local community transmission rates improve.”

The University System of Georgia said it is “committed to keeping all our campus communities healthy and safe” … except for requiring masks or vaccinations, the two measures best able to prevent the spread of Covid. The faculty say they face potential punishment.

CMS to states: Medicaid must cover Aduhelm

Controversy or not, the director of pharmacy for CMS’s Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, John Coster, said that state Medicaid programs must cover Biogen’s $56,000/year Alzheimer’s treatment as an outpatient drug.

That said, states can still decide when Aduhelm should be used — they “can develop medical necessity criteria around that drug, or any other drug, but it is a covered outpatient drug.”

And what about Medicare? That’s still undecided.

Yet another acetaminophen warning

This one comes from a group of more than 100 researchers who crunched 25 years’ worth of data. They found that acetaminophen (or APAP) could be linked to “developmental problems in children, including neurological and reproductive issues that start in the womb.”

With that in mind, they wrote an “APAP Consensus Statement” about the current acetaminophen recommendations:

The group is calling on clinicians and regulatory agencies to change their guidelines for the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy while more research is conducted to study the full range of effects the drug could have on fetal development and children.

“Identical” isn’t “the same”

Biologics and biosimilars — they’re interchangeable, except when they’re not. And switching back and forth (like when insurance coverage changes) can introduce even more issues.

All that said, Kaiser Health News has pretty much everything you want to know about biologics, biosimilars, and the questions that remain: “Biosimilar Drugs Are Cheaper Than Biologics. Are They Similar Enough to Switch?”

Rock ’em Sock ’em studies

Are omega-3 fatty acid supplements good or bad for you? One study “found that 4 grams daily of pharmaceutical-grade EPA reduced the risk of cardiovascular events” (for some people).

But another study “found that 4 grams daily of a pharmaceutical-grade mixture of roughly 2:1 EPA:DHA had no positive effect compared to a corn oil placebo.”

Can’t we all just get along? Yes, yes we can — if we do a good ol’ meta-analysis:

While these two landmark trials disagreed about the cardiovascular benefits of omega-3s, they did agree about one of its possible harms: that supplementation can increase the risk of atrial fibrillation.

So there you have it. For today, anyway.

Go nuts

A new study out of the University of Toronto finds that eating nuts won’t make you gain weight (unless, I suppose, you eat 30 pounds of them).

Overall, we found there is no association between nuts and weight gain, and in fact some analyses showed higher nut intake associated with reductions in body weight and waist circumference.”

If that last part is true, maybe you can eat 30 pounds of almonds and still lose weight….

Today’s facepalm, eh?

Rather than get a quick poke in the arm, a bunch of Canadians attended a “Covid party” in Alberta … and have ended up in the ICU. Not only are they fighting for their lives, they’re taking up bed space that could be used for people not in contention for a Darwin Award.

Pro tip

If you think you’re about to get into a fight, look rich — you may not get hit as hard. A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that “poor people are perceived as being less susceptible to pain.”