Jeff Lurey Announces His Retirement

Jeff Lurey, vice president of the Academy of Independent Pharmacy (AIP), has announced his retirement after 50 years in the pharmacy business and a storied career with GPhA. His transition to consultant for GPhA and AIP begins January 1, 2022.

Read more about Jeff’s career, awards, life, and plans here. And be sure to send him your best wishes at jlurey@gpha.org.

Milk: Go whole

Easting some fat is better than eating other fat, it seems. Specifically, “A higher consumption of dairy fat may be linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.”

An international group of researchers followed study participants for more than 16 years, tracking their diets and cardiovascular health. They also pulled in data from 17 other studies. The bottom line: The more dairy fat people ate, the lower the risk of heart disease and death.

“When we’re selecting dairy foods to buy, it’s less important to select the low-fat option. A very clear example of that is: It’s better to select unflavoured yoghurts rather than a low-fat flavoured yoghurt.”

Immunize? Be sure to have the latest paperwork

GPhA has updated its Immunization Compliance Kit — important documents you’ll need to stay in compliance with Georgia’s immunization law. It comes in PDF and .docx format, but is only available to GPhA members. Check it out at GPhA.org/immunization.

New combo pharm degree from UGA

UGA’s College of Pharmacy’s got a new Double Dawd Degree: a combo BS in pharmaceutical sciences and a Doctor of Pharmacy that can be completed in just seven years.

“This Double Dawgs program blends the drug development and manufacturing focus of the undergraduate degree with the translational and patient care provider skills taught in our professional PharmD program. In the end, patients will be the beneficiaries of this ‘double-dose’ of pharmacy education.”

Interested? The program advisor for the Double Dawg Degree, with that education double-dose, is Dr. Duc Do. (Reach him at duc.do@uga.edu.)

No room for the dead

Georgia morgues are running out of space due to the huge numbers of Covid-19 victims. In one case…

Because of the significant increase in Covid-related deaths across the county and state, the coroner’s office has been forced to find alternative locations to store all of the bodies.

Judge rules against FDA on compounded drug delivery

If you do any compounding, especially if you ship across state lines, this is pretty big news: A judge has ruled against the FDA, saying the agency’s memorandum of understanding with states (regarding the shipment of compounded drugs) wasn’t created legally.

Among other things, that MOU would have caused state boards of pharmacy to spend a lot of money keeping track of compounders who shipped more than five percent of their meds out of state, even to a single patient with a prescription, thanks to an odd definition of “distribution.”

That’s greatly oversimplifying the MOU, but the point is that FDA now has to hold off on enforcing it, and must “prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis.” (We don’t know what that is, but it sounds bureaucratically painful.)

The good folks at the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding have the deets.

This’ll make next Thanksgiving more interesting

“Half Of Vaccinated Americans Might Not Spend The Holidays With Unvaccinated Family And Friends.”

Healthier deli on the horizon

So you want to eat bacon. Or salami. Or that questionable stadium hot dog. But processed meats will kill you*, thanks in part to the nitrite preservatives. So what do you do?

You turn to Japanese knotweed, of course. At least, if you’re a University of Reading researcher. They found that replacing nitrates with natural substitutes — including resveratrol, extracted from Japanese knotweed — not only reduced nitrite levels in the meat, but “seemed to have some protective effects even when the red meat still contained nitrite.”

* Eventually

Not quite “Schoolhouse Rock”

Looking for a PG-rated three and a half-minute cartoon explaining how mRNA vaccines work? Family Guy (working with the Ad Council) has you covered.