What are the latest CDC guidelines?

Even the Atlantic (“World’s Most Depressing Magazine”) found a way to poke some fun at the agency’s desperate and clunky attempt to be both accurate and palatable, in Katherine Wu’s “America’s COVID Rules Are a Dumpster Fire.”

You can leave isolation after five days, without a negative test, if you’re not severely sick; you’re not immunocompromised; you’re not in a correctional facility, in a homeless shelter, or on a cruise ship; and you feel that your symptoms are mostly gone, if you had any at all.

APhA’s immunization program — almost here

If you’re going to be giving immunizations (and trust me, you probably will), you want to be the best you can be — and you want your patients (and your boss) to know that.

So… earn yourself an APhA certificate that lets you differentiate yourself, and that helps you fill that empty space on your wall.

“APhA’s Pharmacy-Based Immunization Delivery: A Certificate Program for Pharmacists” is coming up fast — Sunday, January 23, 2022, from 8:00 am – 5:00 pm at GPhA’s World Headquarters in Sandy Springs. It is the big certificate course, and it’s the one you want.

Get to GPhA.org/immunization-2021* for the details and to register. NOW.

** Yes, we know it’s 2022 now. But we’ve gotten accustomed to that URL and feel weird changing it.

Why we toke

Some people use cannabis for fun, or to annoy their parents. Others use it medicinally. But what are they expected it to treat? Those shifty Danes decided to find out.

They got survey results from 2,841 cannabis users, more than half of whom said they used it to replace a prescription drug. Almost two-thirds used CBD oil, and the rest used “hash, pot, or skunk.”

Drilling down, the researchers found…

• These “substitution users” were more likely to be women.
• Pain was the most common reason for using it (67.2% said so).
• As an antidepressant came in second (24.5%), but close behind was as an arthritis medication (20.7%).
• A huge majority — 85.5% — said they had much milder side effects using cannabis than using commercial drugs.
• Almost half (45.9%) said they decreased their use of prescription drugs, and 38.1% said they stopped using the prescription med entirely.

Unexpected side effects

…Of the Covid-19 vaccine

Women may find their periods are late or erratic after their injection, according to a study out of Oregon Health & Science University that’s based on anonymous data of about 4,000 women collected from an app called Natural Cycles.

Some said their periods were late. Others reported heavier bleeding than usual or painful bleeding. Some postmenopausal women who hadn’t had a period in years even said they had menstruated again.

One caveat (the authors acknowledge) is that the data is likely biased toward thin, white, college educated women who are not using hormonal contraception. Oh, and it doesn’t matter whether they got the Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J vaccine.

Things get back to normal within one or two months, so it’s not a big deal — just an interesting one.

…Of dementia drugs

If you have patients taking cholinesterase inhibitors for dementia — especially donepezil — a side effect to be aware of is an overactive bladder. (So found University of Houston pharmaceutical researchers.) Worth mentioning to patients taking ChEIs for the first time.

How meditation works

Almost anyone who meditates will tell you that it makes a big difference, mentally and physically. Exactly why, though, isn’t clear. Well, wasn’t clear. University of Florida medical researchers think they’ve started to figure out the science.

Studying participants at a mediation retreat, they looked at what genes were expressed, how that affected other genes, and what kinds of protein interactions occurred. They found a “meditation-specific core network“ affected by meditation, including “220 genes directly associated with immune response“ and “68 genes related to interferon signaling.”

And most notably, while this improved the subjects’ immune response it didn’t affect any genes related to inflammation.

I felt obligated to include a generic ‘meditation’ image, and this one was a bit different than the usual

Another Covid game-changer

This one’s from the Baylor College of Medicine. It’s yet another vaccine, called “CORBEVAX,“ and it uses old, cheap, “easy-breezy“ technology — that works. It’s only authorized in India so far, but at a mere $1.50 a dose, it’s perfect for countries that can’t afford those fancy-schmancy mRNA shots.

“CORBEVAX is a game changer. It’s going to enable countries around the world, particularly low-income countries, to be able to produce these vaccines and distribute them in a way that’s going to affordable, effective and safe.”

Worry no more

If, like most people, you’ve been asking yourself, “How will Omicron affect the hamsters?”, new research led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will let you breathe a sigh of relief. “Omicron,” they found, “is less pathogenic than prior SARS-CoV-2 variants in Syrian golden hamsters.”