Sleeping giant awakens

The FTC has changed its mind and will begin an investigation into PBM practices after all. It took a new tie-breaking board member appointed by President Biden, plus a rewritten proposal, to turn a 2-2 vote into a 5-0 vote.

The PBMs in question will be required to hand over previously unreleased information on their business practices, including fees and clawbacks charged to unaffiliated pharmacies, patient-steering, audits of independent pharmacies, reimbursement, and more.

(For what it’s worth “investigate the PBMs” has bipartisan support — including, notably, from Georgian (and pharmacist) Buddy Carter. Represent!)

Migraine and light skin

Here’s an odd connection: People with light skin are more prone to migraines. It apparently has to do with protection from UV rays — less melanin, less protection, more migraines, as Polish researchers discovered. And we mean significantly more: “The risk of migraine was 3.5 times increased in light-skinned women and 3.7 times increased in light-skinned men.”

That might explain why bright light can trigger migraines, in fact. Thus, suggest the authors, “migraineurs* should pay more attention to using sun-blocking products.”

* Migraineurs? First time I’ve heard that one.

Get your Georgia health update

If you don’t feel like going to one of the dozens of Bastille Day celebrations, why not pop in to the Georgia Board of Public Health’s open meeting?

It’s June 14 from 1:00 to 3:00pm via Zoom, and includes talk about what you might expect: the Mysterious Hepatitis Outbreak, Covid-19, avian influenza, monkeypox, and even the infant formula shortage. Viva la something or other!

Why menthol matters

Why all the fuss about menthol cigarettes? Because, as a new study explains, they really do increase kids’ smoking.

It’s a two-pronged threat (found UC San Diego researchers): The flavor masks the taste of nicotine, and the coolness of the menthol “can allow smoke to be inhaled deeper and held for long, which can result in a greater absorption of nicotine per puff”.

Target: endoplasmic reticulum

Researchers at the University of Texas think they’ve found a new way to kill some cancers — what they call “a fundamental vulnerability in cancer cells.”

It’s a compound they call “ERX-41” that apparently attacks the endoplasmic reticulum of cancer cells. (It inactivates a protein called lysosomal acid lipase A, if you want the detail.)

The point is, attacking the tumors’ endoplasmic reticula keeps them from producing proteins they need to survive, and this is a new way to fight cancer. Even better, ERX-41 seems to work — at least in the lab — against triple-negative breast cancer, glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer, and ovarian cancers.

Of course it’s still early, but finding a completely new vulnerability in hard-to-treat tumors is good news.

The Long Read:

People who think they’re buying health insurance might instead be tricked into “health care sharing ministries” that don’t actually guarantee any kind of coverage.

Local twist: The spokesman for one of these not-insurance companies, Jericho Share, is former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine.

Pro tip: Forget Google. The only marketplace to use is healthcare.gov.