OTC birth control is on the table

French drugmaker HRA Pharma is the first company to request FDA approval to sell its birth control pill over the counter.

“For a product that has been available for the last 50 years, that has been used safely by millions of women, we thought it was time to make it more available.”

Any approval (which wouldn’t happen until next year at the earliest), would only apply to HRA’s Opill, which it acquired from Pfizer in 2014. Of course, it would likely open the doors for other long-time contraceptives to finally go OTC.

Congrats to Bobby Moody!

GPhA Past President Bobby Moody of Macon has been named the newest member of the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation’s board of directors.

Bobby and his wife Sherri are owners of Powell’s Bloomfield Pharmacy and Coliseum Park Professional Pharmacy in Macon, and part owners of Arlington Rexall Drugs in Arlington.

Most notably, Moody played sousaphone in UGA’s Redcoat Marching Band from 1986 to 1990; he earned his PharmD from UGA in 1993.

Today’s universal vaccine…

…comes from Georgia State, and it’s for the flu. Of course it uses nanoparticles, and it “induced broadly reactive immune responses and conferred robust and sustained cross-immune protection against influenza B virus strains of both lineages.”

Now they want to combine this vaccine with their previously developed influenza A nanoparticles to create a one-size-kills-all shot against whatever flu comes along in a given year.

Fighting the butterflies

And enough with the “cheery music and beautiful sunrises,” too. Why? Because (say some members of Congress), drug companies use those cheery images in their direct-to-consumer ads to “try to mask their products’ side effects.”

A 2010 FDA proposal actually tackled this very issue, suggesting the agency “develop standards to make pharma drug risks and side effects appear ‘in a clear, conspicuous, and neutral manner’.” It’s sat for 12 years, though, only recently reappearing on the FDA’s official agenda.

Another fentanyl danger

When fentanyl is used improperly (e.g., mixed with illegal drugs), it can be deadly for humans. But it could also have some unfortunate effects on mice. Apparently, Mass General researchers found, fentanyl “can induce changes similar to autism-like behaviors in young male and female mice.”

(In case you’re wondering, fentanyl appears to reduce the expression of the Grin2b gene in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex.)

But don’t you worry!

There is no current evidence that fentanyl is associated with a similar effect in humans and the outcome of the animal study is not an indication to avoid fentanyl in clinical anesthesia.

Praise for the weekend warrior

Who needs to exercise during the week? Apparently not you. Or me. Or any of us. Sure, getting 20 or more minutes of physical activity a day is great, but apparently it’s just as good if you pack it all into the weekend.

Brazilian researchers found…

There wasn’t a big difference in all-cause or cause-specific mortality between those who exercise regularly and weekend warriors, as long as they were getting the same amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity in a week.

How good is a second booster?

Metza-metz. It helps a bit (say Canadian researchers), but because Omicron BA.5 is such a nasty bugger, even that fourth shot doesn’t do too much to protect you from getting it. (It still helps to avoid hospitalization, though.)

The deets: A second booster increases protection against infection by 19%, and against symptomatic infection by 31% — but only if given at least 84 days after the first booster.

Are you Roundup ready?

Fun fact: There’s an 80 percent chance you have Roundup in your urine.

A CDC study “found that out of 2,310 urine samples, taken from a group of Americans intended to be representative of the US population, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate.”

But don’t you worry, says Monsanto, it’s not a health risk … no matter what those unbiased scientific experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer think.

Monkeypox updates

Fool me twice, shame on me

Why are we still hearing about a preventable, treatable disease? Because “The U.S. May Be Losing the Fight Against Monkeypox, Scientists Say.” Just as with Covid, we’re taking our time to respond, “raising troubling questions about the nation’s preparedness for pandemic threats.”

Elsewhere: Spotted in Kansas

If you were going to make a joke about monkeypox in Kansas, would you go with something about “flying monkey(pox)” or is “We are in Kansas anymore” better? I couldn’t decide. Anyway, it’s in Kansas now, too.

The Long Read: Drugs and More for Migraines edition

We may not have cured migraines, but there are plenty of treatments — chemical and otherwise. A neurologist “explains options beyond just pain medication.”