Scary metformin study (and CNN statistics fail)

This is a bit worrying: Men who are taking metformin before sex are more likely to father a child “with major birth defects, particularly genital birth defects in boys.” That’s what a study of more than 1.1 million of those shifty Danes found, although it didn’t determine the cause.

It’s notable that the genital birth defects occurred only in boys, and these fathers were less likely to have boys than girls compared with the general population.

It’s a risk, but despite what CNN reported it’s not a 40% greater risk. The average odds ratio was 1.4 [CI, 1.08 to 1.82], which makes it statistically significant, though. (I’ll leave it to you to deal with the difference between odds and probability.)

Time to let loose in Atlanta

Take a break and have some fun with your fellow employee pharmacists, courtesy of — who else? — the Academy of Employee Pharmacists!

It’s an afternoon of jocularity, joviality, and (possibly) jollification at the Scofflaw Brewing Company in Atlanta, April 23 from 2:00 to 7:00pm.

The whole time costs a mere $10, and that includes two drink tickets. You won’t find a better time for that price without breaking a few laws. And yes, student pharmacists are invited … as long as they keep their inner ruffians at bay.

All you need to do is register so they know how many to expect — click here to do just that.

Booster 2.0

The FDA says people over 50 can get a second Covid-19 vaccination booster. Do they need it? Depends who you ask. Will it hurt? Nope. Will it help? Yes, it’ll probably boost your antibody count and offer some extra-extra protection. The question is, if you aren’t immunocompromised, will it make much of a difference?

And that’s without going into the issue of T-cell exhaustion…

Speaking of boosters…

The CDC now recommends that people who have received a J&J booster (that is, two shots of the J&J vaccine) now get an mRNA booster — either Moderna’s or Pfizer’s.

Fracture surgery? Hit those amino acids

Got a patient recovering from a major fracture? Get them on some amino acids, specifically supplements of those conditionally essential amino acids*.

A study out of the University of Iowa found that giving a supplement of — arginine, leucine (which is an amino acid, but not a CEAA), and glutamine — after fracture-fixation surgery “reduces complications and prevents skeletal muscle wasting.”

Even better, those patients had “a sharply reduced mortality rate,” which seems like it should have been point #1.

* Arginine, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, ornithine, proline, serine, tyrosine — but you knew that.

The Long Read: Bad Guys edition

“At a Tennessee Crossroads, Two Pharmacies, a Monkey, and Millions of Pills,” from KHN.

“Y’all have got to get your numbers up. Fill fill.”

Simple, synthetic, and deadly

British scientists have created a synthetic antibiotic that they say is “capable of killing ‘superbugs’ including MRSA without detectable resistance.”

The gist: It’s based on the same molecule that bacteria use to kill one another — teixobactin — but simplified, which means they can keep tweaking it. The goal is to have a “library of synthetic teixobactins.”

Oh, and unlike other antibiotics…

The synthetic teixobactins have been found to be robust and stable at room temperature for years thus do not need a cold chain for distribution and storage.

Bonus: Article of course includes the phrase “game-changer.”

Today’s non-pharma “science” story, for your reading pleasure

From the BMJ (yes, that BMJ): “The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute”

56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days.