When Paxlovid doesn’t work

Pfizer’s Paxlovid antibody pill is the go-to treatment for mild, early-stage Covid-19. It’s great at preventing mild from becoming severe … but only if you’re older, it seems.

An Israeli study of more than 100,000 people found that …

… Paxlovid reduced hospitalizations among people 65 and older by roughly 75% when given shortly after infection. […] But people between the ages of 40 and 65 saw no measurable benefit, according to the analysis of medical records.

Why not? Most likely because it’s only the older, more vulnerable people who need it. Most people have been vaccinated or exposed at this point, which provides at least some level of protection against the strains that are circulating, so Paxlovid is only necessary for those with the highest risk.

Golf — with guns (and coming soon)

Take out life’s frustrations on innocent clay disks, eat some awesome barbecue, hang out with friends, drink some beer if you’re so inclined, and shoot things. (Not in that order.)

Ready. Aim. Phire! is always a ton of fun, a chance to get outside, hang with colleagues, and shoot things without legal repercussions. All to support the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation.

Sporting clays, you ask? It’s like a cross between — oh, forget it. You get a big gun. You shoot flying clay disks. There’s scorekeeping, competition, golf carts, and fully paid insurance premiums. We’ll even throw in a raffle. It’s all on the Big Red Oak Plantation: 2,500 acres of primeval hunting land a lovely drive 60 miles south of Atlanta (map).

Come alone and we’ll get you on a team, or bring three friends and you’re all set. Got some money burning a hole in your pocket? A variety of sponsorships are also available.

Deets:

Friday, September 16 1:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Click here for more info and to sign up. Now!

What comes after monkeypox?

India has reported an outbreak of “tomato flu” — a disease named for the red blisters it causes on the people it infects (mostly children under five).

Scientists don’t yet know what causes tomato flu, or even if it’s a virus. “Tomato flu could be an after-effect of chikungunya or dengue fever in children rather than a viral infection [… or] a new variant of the viral hand, foot, and mouth disease.”

There’s no treatment and it spreads easily, but it’s not life-threatening.

Statins in the news

Benefits for women

Statins can be beneficial in an unexpected way. There’s evidence that they might help protect women from autoimmune disease.

UConn nutritional scientists found that women — but not men — taking statins were less likely to have elevated levels of antinuclear antibodies. Why is that important? Because ANAs are “diagnostic and predictive markers of current or future autoimmune disease.”

So while statins’ benefits for cardiovascular health are known, the idea that they might protect women from autoimmune diseases is new … and will need more study, of course.

An ounce of prevention

The US Preventive Services Task Force now officially recommends statins “for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease” in people between 40 and 75 who are at risk of cardiovascular disease — i.e., they have dyslipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, or are smokers.

Drug makers: “Jump!” Americans: “How high?”

Drug makers are charging record-high prices to Americans for the medications they’ve launched in 2022 — the median annual price here for new drugs this year is $257,000, with “Eight of 13 drugs launched in 2022 priced over $200,000 per year.” (Other countries pay less.)

In 2021, the median price for new drugs was $180,000; “between 2008 and 2021, U.S. drug launch prices grew 20% annually.”

The drug makers say it’s up to insurance companies what people pay out of pocket. Insurance companies, of course, just raise their premiums (or in the case of public programs, just take it from taxpayers).

Psychedelics vs alcoholism

We already know that, in some cases, psilocybin can treat depression. What else can it do? According to NYU medical researchers, it also seems to fight addiction.

Two doses of psilocybin […] reduces heavy drinking by 83 percent on average among heavy drinkers when combined with psychotherapy.

That last part is important, and it’s been true in every similar study — it’s not the drug, it’s the drug and the therapy. Some more interesting facts from what they say is the first randomized trial to examine these effects:

• People who got a placebo (an antihistamine) reduced their drinking by 51%.
• Of the people who received the psilocybin, 48% had stopped drinking altogether eight months after their first dose. (Only 24% of the placebo group did.)

Long Covid labor shortage

According to data compiled by the Census Bureau, “Around 16 million working-age Americans (those aged 18 to 65) have long Covid today. Of those, 2 to 4 million are out of work due to long Covid.”

Perspective: With about 10.6 million unfilled jobs in the U.S., long Covid could potentially account for 15% of the labor shortage.

A new type of chemo

Some kinds of leukemia are triggered when an enzyme called DNMT3A malfunctions, causing bone marrow cells to run amok. Current treatments, like decitabine, are designed to disable DNMT3A. Unfortunately, they also disable a different enzyme (called DNMT1) that’s critical for keeping cells dividing correctly. Result: the off-target toxicity chemo is known for.

But now chemists, led by UC Santa Barbara, have found a different tack. They discovered that the problem enzyme, DNMT3A, always forms complexes. So rather than try to disable DNMT3A altogether, they found a way — using existing chemicals called protein-protein inhibitors — to stop it from forming those complexes — i.e., they disabled it without affecting other enzymes.

These drugs are more than merely a potential breakthrough in leukemia treatment. They are a completely new class of drugs: protein-protein inhibitors that target a part of the enzyme away from its active site.

It just so happens that your vaccine here is only mostly expired. There’s a big difference between mostly expired and all expired.

While those shifty Danes ramp up production to meet demand for the world’s only monkeypox vaccine, they’re now saying that older doses — shipped in the past few years — might still be viable even if they’re technically expired.

‘[T]he decision to use such doses ultimately lies with U.S. regulators.’