Get the worm!

Today — March 31 — is the last day to get the early-bird rate for the Georgia Pharmacy Convention! The price goes up $50 tomorrow at midnight, and it’s $126 more at the door.

Save some money while you can! Head over to GPhAConvention.com/register before 11:59 pm tonight to grab that early-bird rate, and we’ll see you at the beach!

Antibiotic ups and downs

The good folks at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy have two noteworthy stories about antibiotics:

First, when antibiotics kill: Not only do antibiotics not reduce the chance of death from a viral respiratory infection (obviously), but Norwegian researchers found the opposite: “[P]atients with viral respiratory infections who received antibiotics at any point during their hospitalization were more than twice as likely to die as those who didn’t receive antibiotics.

Second, when antibiotics save: A combination of ceftolozane and tazobactam works a treat in “complicated, multidrug-resistant infections in outpatient settings.” There had been some data about inpatient use, but now it’s confirmed that the combo works for outpatients with a variety of conditions, including bone and joint infection and UTIs.

Georgia transparency FTW

A big Buzz high-five to the state of Georgia for being one of the minority of states promising to be open about how it’s planning to spend the $636 million coming in from the Big Opioid Settlement.

Georgia will share how 75% of that $636 million will be spent — that’s the part controlled by the state. The other 25% is controlled by local municipalities, which may or may not reveal their plans. That makes Georgia one of the 23 states that will report more than half of its spending plans; only 12 (not including Georgia) will report how they’re spending every cent.

Most of the settlements stipulate that states must spend at least 85% of the money on addiction treatment and prevention. But defining those concepts depends on stakeholders’ views — and state politics. To some, it might mean opening more treatment sites. To others, buying police cruisers.

Telehealth helps opioid abusers quit

While the DEA wants to force people to cut back on telehealth services, especially for opioid-abuse treatment, the data say that’s a bad idea.

A new study out of the CDC found that when telehealth visits were available, more people got medication to treat opioid-use disorder — and that saved lives.

“The expansion of telehealth during the Covid-19 pandemic appears to have had positive effects on patients receiving MOUD^* [medications for opioid use disorder], improved retention among patients who received MOUD, and lowered risks for both nonfatal and fatal overdose.

Perhaps someone should tell the DEA.

^* Does everything have an abbrev. these days?

ICYMI: Insurers can nix preventative coverage (for now)

A conservative Texas judge has ruled that health insurance plans do not have to cover preventative care as required by the Affordable Care Act. That means insurers will be able to sell plans that don’t cover basic care like cancer screenings, pregnancy care, diabetes tests, vision screenings for children, mammograms, and more.

The lawsuit was brought by a Christian group that argued their religion forbids the use of contraceptives and HIV PrEP, and thus they shouldn’t have to pay for health insurance that covers it. But because the ruling affects preventative care across the board, it was opposed by, well, just about every medical organization in the country. (Ironically, the judge upheld the ACA’s contraceptive mandate.)

More than 60 health organizations, led by the American Medical Association, issued a joint statement in July warning about the potential ramifications of a ruling from O’Connor that struck down the preventive services mandate.

The ruling is based on the idea that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force itself, which develops the list of preventative services insurers must cover, has no power because its members weren’t approved by the Senate. It’s certain to be appealed before most new policies take effect in 2024; this is the same judge who once ruled that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional only to have that ruling overturned.

Coffee vs diabetes

And the latest health benefit from coffee is…

[spins wheel]

Reducing your type-2 diabetes risk! Oh, wait. This isn’t new. What’s new is that Dutch and Scottish epidemiologists think they’ve found the mechanism. Keeping in mind the Buzz theory that it’s always either inflammation or gut bacteria, the answer here isn’t surprising — it’s inflammation:

Higher coffee consumption was associated with lower levels of CRP and leptin, pro-inflammatory markers, and higher levels of interleukin-13 and adiponectin concentrations, which have anti-inflammatory effects.

Short Take

The next worry

This year’s tick season has a higher risk of babesiosis (bah-bee-see-OH-sis), as the CDC is warning that there’s a lot more being reported. It comes from good ol’ deer ticks (you know, the super-tiny ones that are all but impossible to spot), and it joins the ranks of anaplasmosis and Lyme disease as reasons to soak your socks in permethrin.