Burnout shout-out

Feeling burnt out? You’re not alone. High-five (with a Purell chaser) to GPhA Region 5 President Shirin Zadeh, who talked to TV station 11 Alive about pharmacist burnout during the pandemic.

Pharmacists were seeing high burnout levels from their profession long before the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic has continued, the situation has only worsened. “Pharmacists have been dealing with this for a long time and COVID just took it to another level.” [she said]

Zika: unexpected tumor killer

Remember Zika? The virus that got all the press a few years ago and had pregnant women worried about travelling? Ah, those days of innocence. Anyway, turns out the Zika virus might be turned to a tumor killer.

Brazilian researchers found that injecting the virus into mice with brain tumors activated the mice’s immune systems to attack the tumor “without causing neurological damage or injuring other organs.”

[C]ytokines suppressed tumor growth after treatment, and defense cells migrated to the brain region affected by the tumor, alerting the immune system to its existence.

An end to MS?

This could be pretty big news: A “huge study of U.S. military personnel” found that there’s a darned good chance that multiple sclerosis is triggered by the Epstein-Barr virus. That means a vaccine is a possibility, and the phrase “game changer” could actually apply.

“Now that the initial trigger for multiple sclerosis has been identified, perhaps multiple sclerosis could be eradicated.”

Side note: We wrote back in June that there’s evidence that long Covid might be caused by the same virus. So an Epstein-Barr vaccine could have much wider implications.

And that’s why knowing that Moderna has started human trials of just such a vaccine is even better news.

Faster, pussycat, er … run, run!

Got an arthritic cat? Good news: The FDA has approved the first treatment for it — a monthly monoclonal antibody injection of frunevetmab called Solensia.

The most common side effects seen in cats treated with Solensia included vomiting, diarrhea, injection-site pain, scabbing on the head and neck, dermatitis and itchy skin.

In other words, you might not even notice them.

Inflammation now, depression later

Here’s an interesting connection that only Big Data lets researchers suss out: Kids who have an infection in early life — specifically with inflammation involved — are more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders later in life. It’s all about metabolism, say the German researchers who wrote about it (and that’s why BMI might also be connected with psychiatric issues).

“[T]hese findings suggest that higher levels of infection, inflammation, and metabolic alterations commonly seen in people with depression and psychosis could be a cause for, rather than simply a consequence of, these disorders.”

“Mild.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

When you hear that Omicron typically causes “milder” Covid-19, or that being vaccinated means chances are you’ll have a “mild” bout … well, that’s mild in the clinical sense (Axios points out).

In other words, it doesn’t put you in the hospital. But it doesn’t mean it’s just a sniffle.

“To a health care professional, ‘mild’ means you’re not getting hospitalized. Omicron symptoms can range from absolutely no symptoms to a really mild cold to something where you are in bed with shakes and chills, and have a horrible cough and are fatigued and headachy for weeks. Those are all ‘mild’.”

You are now free to move about the bedroom

No matter what you might have learned from TV, a new paper out of St George’s University of London found that, even if you’re older, it’s (probably) safe to light the candles and play that Barry White.