The next online doctor

GoodRx is getting into the health-info business — ready to compete with “Dr. Google,” WebMD, and TikTok videos as a source of medical info. “The Answers You Need” promises GoodRx Health, “From doctors, pharmacists, and journalists you can trust.”

Choose your condition from an alphabetical list (“Acetaminophen Overdose” to “Yellow Fever”) and get some medical advice … and, of course, prices on drugs to treat it. There are also healthcare articles like “What’s the Best Allergy Medication?” and “Here’s Why Asthma Inhalers Are So Expensive.”

Ever so helpful

Drug buyers vs drug makers

CVS and Rite Aid are suing Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead, and Teva, claiming the drug makers … well, we won’t say conspired, so how about worked together to delay generics from entering the market.

The plaintiffs claim the drugmakers worked together to fend off small generic competitors and position Teva at front of the line to launch copycats for certain HIV drugs. All the while, Gilead reaped profits from generic delays, the suit claims.

Booster recommendation clarification

The CDC issued a clarification of an elucidation of an explication of a statement about booster shots. There are people who should get it, and people who can get it, see?

The statement ends with what can only be considered a threat:

CDC will be releasing further detailed updates to their Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of COVID-19 Vaccines with more information in the coming days.

When opioids are outlawed…

The DEA is warning that there are a lot of counterfeit painkillers circulating, and they’re killing a lot of people. These aren’t cases of an illegal drug bought on the streetcorner being laced with fentanyl — these are “fake pills […] easily available on social media platforms and e-commerce websites and are designed to look like legitimate prescription drugs.”

Bones about it

If an older person breaks a bone, even from an obvious bone-breaking situation (like falling off the roof while putting up Christmas lights in September), they might be at risk for more broken bones.

Sure, you might think that only breaks from “minimal trauma” are worrisome. But you’d be wrong, at least according to a paper in JAMA Intern Medicine.

Among the women whose first fracture followed a traumatic accident, like falling off a ladder, the risk of a second fracture was 25 percent greater than would have been expected based on women who had no initial fracture.

And yes, that applies to men, too. So no matter how the first break happened, it’s worth a checkup of bone health, just to be sure.

Covid inhibitors for diabetics (and everyone?)

Diabetics who take GLP-1R agonists do much better if they catch Covid-19 — “a decreased risk of hospitalization, respiratory complications, and death,” according to Penn State medical researchers.

That’s good for two reasons: First, obviously, these folks are less likely to die. Second, it opens yet another avenue of research for Covid treatments, especially for patients already at risk. (And, in case you’re wondering, they also tried DPP-4 inhibitors and pioglitazone, but neither had results as good.)

A potential pill for breakthroughs

It’s not a vaccine — it’s an anti-viral pill, and Pfizer is beginning late-stage tests to see if it can prevent Covid-19 in people who were exposed. The drug has the memorable name of PF-07321332, and it’s passed its phase 1 trial (i.e., it’s safe). Now the company just has to prove it’s effective.

If it works, PF-07321332, which is a simple pill, could potentially replace monoclonal antibodies as the treatment of choice for breakthrough infections — stopping them before they can become more serious.

Yes.

“CDC director weighs in on whether kids should go trick-or-treating on Halloween amid the pandemic“.

Apparently it’s about more than bad breath

“Should you brush your tongue?” I thought it would be a short piece about how you can prevent bad breath, but no — it’s a detailed article that includes some of the horrors you might face by not brushing it.

Discoloration of the tongue is the first sign we might notice to inform us something is off. You may have heard of ‘black hairy tongue’, a condition where the papillae (those raised bumps on our tongue) become elongated and discolored.

Pro tip: Do not Google “black hairy tongue.”

The Long Read: Peer Review edition

“How private funding is blurring the peer-review lines in medical research” — asks whether the desire for lucrative patents is keeping research from being properly vetted. Did someone say “Theranos”?

Scientists who invent something truly novel are encouraged to patent first and share just enough detail in their published work to satisfy the peer-review process. Bare-bones papers can lead to frustration in the community and, critics say, limit opportunity for validation, creating false hope for people suffering from disease.