UGA targets fungus

Fungal infections are becoming a much bigger deal these days as they become resistant to drugs — they’re literally killing people because of it.

UGA researchers, though, have developed a vaccine against the three most deadly fungal infections — Aspergillus, Candida, and Pneumocystis — which together are responsible for more than 80% of fatal fungal infections. Candida in particular has been getting a lot of press as it keeps being found in hospitals.

So far it’s been tested on animals (it showed “broad, cross-protective antifungal immunity”), so human trials are on the horizon.

Apnea and brittle bones

If one of your patients mentions snoring a lot, direct ’em to the supplements aisle for some calcium. It seems that — per research out of the University of Buffalo — “Obstructive sleep apnea may be linked to low bone mineral density in adults.”

(Why and how? That “has yet to be fully explored.”)

Beta-blocking the violence

Being on beta blockers reduces someone’s tendency for violent behavior. Yep, that’s what British and Swedish researchers found when examining the medical and criminal records of 1.4 million Swedes over eight years.

Periods on β-blocker treatment were associated with a 13% lower risk of being charged with a violent crime by the police […] Additionally, an 8% lower risk of hospitalization due to a psychiatric disorder was reported as well as an 8% increased association of being treated for suicidal behavior.

There were some caveats, though, notably “past psychiatric problems, as well as the severity and type of the cardiac condition the β-blockers were being used to treat.”

Monkey(pox) done

The mpox Public Health Emergency has expired. That is all.

GoodRx wasn’t being good

The FTC has charged GoodRx with providing users’ personal health information — medications and health conditions — to the likes of Facebook, Google, and Twilio so those companies could better target their advertising.

In 2019, the company gathered a list of users who bought specific medications like blood pressure or heart disease drugs, and shared email addresses, phone numbers, and mobile advertising IDs with Facebook so their profiles could be tagged for health-related advertisements.

The cost of doing business: The company will pay a $1.5 million penalty … although it would not admit it did anything wrong.

In other news, companies including Facebook, Google, and Twilio see nothing wrong with buying individuals’ personal health information so they can better target their advertising.

The oddest medical test you’re likely to hear about today

Ants, it seems, can detect cancer in urine.

Really, what more is there to say? French researchers trained ants — total

… exposed 35 Formica fusca ants to the scent of urine from the cancerous mice and trained them to associate it with a sugary reward. Later, when presented with urine from both sick and healthy mice, the ants spent 20 percent more time around the urine from the sick mice, without the sugar present.

Total training time? About 10 minutes. Their paper was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A law that does what it’s supposed to

Allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of a handful of drugs is supposed to save the program — and thus taxpayers — a lot of money.

And now a new study out of Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital finds that those provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act will actually … save Americans billions of dollars.

The IRA will allow price negotiations on 10 drugs in 2026, 15 more in 2027, and 15 more in 2028. (After that it adds 20 drugs a year.) If it took effect in 2018 instead of 2026, the researchers found, “it would have saved the U.S. $26.5 billion, about 5% of all drug spending.”

End of a juggernaut

The Humira monopoly is over, as AbbVie’s most popular drug now has biosimilar competition in the form of Amgen’s Amjevita.

To make sure the market remains confusing, Amgen has two list prices:

• $1,558 for a two-week supply — 5% less than Humira’s list price, for payers using discounts, kickbacks, coupons, rebates, and the like
• $3,288 for a two-week supply — 55% less than Humira, for insurers that don’t take advantage of those discounts and rebates

Amjevita is just the first; there are seven other Humira biosimilars expected to debut this year: Idacio, Cyltezo, Abrilada, Yusimry, Hadlima, Hulio, and Hyrimoz. Yes, that will be on the final exam.

A different kind of mile-high club

If you’re going to track how Covid (or other diseases) travel, why not take a page from the wastewater-surveillance playbook?

That’s what the CDC is thinking as it looks at testing airplane wastewater for Covid-19. It’s an anonymous early-warning system for finding infections before they become widespread — and knowing where they came from.

Unlike sewer-wide surveillance, which shows us how diseases are spreading among large communities, airplane surveillance is precisely targeted to catch new variants entering the country from abroad.

And yes, if you’re thinking that China’s “No Covid here, no sir!” stance might be a reason for the interest, you’re spot on.