DEA gets an earful

The other day we told you about the DEA’s plan to go back to pre-pandemic rules for telehealth prescriptions of controlled drugs.

“Throwing a regulatory wrench back into the works is likely to get some serious pushback,” we wrote. Lo and behold: That pushback has started in a big way.

It seems that making it easier for people to get help with mental health issues is pretty popular, and — at least from patients’ and providers’ points of view — outweighs DEA’s concerns about overprescribing. (And it’s especially true for people looking for help with opioid abuse.)

Oh, and pharmacists are also concerned: Will they (i.e., you) have to act as the prescription police*? Stay tuned.

* I.e., …proactively police prescriptions to prove a provider processed a patient in person?

Eye-drop warning

The CDC and FDA are warning everyone to stop using EzriCare or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears products — there’s a good chance they’re contaminated with a drug-resistant bacteria that can be particularly dangerous and just about untreatable: So far eight people have lost vision and one person has died. (There hasn’t been a case in Georgia, but there has been one in Florida.)

OTC hearing aids: Now available as home study

The same CE, the same important info, but now available on demand: GPhA’s one-hour webinar on everything you need to know about OTC hearing aids: “OTC Hearing Aids: How Pharmacists Can Support Safe Self-Care.”

When patients ask questions, be ready with the answers thanks to UGA professor and audiologist Alison Morrison (and, of course, GPhA).

It’s a mere $20 for GPhA members (non-members are $42). Click here for all the rest of the details and sign up today!

For $32 billion, we’ll get a discount

Something to keep in mind as we watch Pfizer and Moderna reap the profits from their mRNA vaccines — and when drug companies in general roll out the tired old line about the cost of drug development. From the BMJ:

The US government invested at least $31.9bn to develop, produce, and purchase mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, including sizeable investments in the three decades before the pandemic.

As the accompanying editorial points out, it’s another case of “public risk, private reward”:

[T]heir development also serves as a cautionary tale of a system in which the risks of pursuing innovation were socialized, while the lion’s share of rewards became privatized to corporate shareholders — financial actors who risked little of their capital in the development process.

How’s your diet’s footprint?

If you help your patients with weight loss programs, here’s something to consider. Tulane researchers looked at how well various diets worked, and also their carbon footprints.

Bad news for keto and paleo diet fans: Those had the lowest nutrition scores and the highest carbon footprint.

What’s best? For carbon footprint, that would be the vegan diet (not surprisingly), with vegetarian and pescatarian close behind.

As for nutrition, fish lovers will be happy to know that “The pescatarian diet scored highest on nutritional quality of the diets analyzed,” although vegetarian and vegan diets weren’t far behind.

An the good ol’ omnivore diet? Squarely in the middle of both nutrition and carbon footprint.

Aieeeeeeeeee

If you sell neti pots (and here at Buzz we’re fans, especially during allergy season), you should also sell your customers distilled water to go along with them. Why? Because of this:

A man in southwest Florida died after becoming infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba, which state health officials say was “possibly as a result of sinus rinse practices utilizing tap water.”

ICYMI

Walgreens said it won’t allow its pharmacists to dispense mifepristone — even for treating miscarriages and even where abortion is legal — in 20 states, including Georgia.

Short Takes

Three UGA kudos

Congrats to…

What, you worry?

The Brazilian government would like you to know that the case of Mad Cow Disease found there wasn’t typical. Move along, citizen. Nothing to see here.