An end to the J&J talc suits

The Johnson & Johnson talc lawsuits are over. Well, until they’re not. But they’re over for now, as the company has reached a deal to pay $8.9 billion over 25 years to resolve the thousands of suits that claim that the company’s talcum powder caused cancer.

The company said it had secured the support of the more than 60,000 parties that have filed lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson on the agreement, which will go toward resolving “all current and future talc claims.”

Fun fact: Other companies are being sued for their talcum products, and “Suppliers of talcum powder, as well as retailers including Target, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens, have all been successfully sued.”

FDA wants opioid-return envelopes

Starting next year, the FDA expects to require opioid manufacturers “to make prepaid mail-back envelopes available to outpatient pharmacies and other dispensers as an additional opioid analgesic disposal option for patients.”

When implemented, outpatient pharmacies and other dispensers will have the option to order prepaid mail-back envelopes from opioid analgesic manufacturers, which they may then provide to patients prescribed opioid analgesics.

The agency is also considering requiring manufacturers to provide patients with at-home disposal products, e.g., a bag of used cat litter with every prescription.

Freestyle Libre warning

If you have any patients using FreeStyle Libre diabetes monitors, let them know they need to keep an eye out to make sure their devices don’t swell, catch fire, or explode. (We assume they would notice if this happens.)

The maker, Abbott, isn’t recalling any of the devices, just warning folks to store their monitors properly (i.e., not where it’s really hot) and to charge them “only with the Abbott-provided power adapter and bright yellow USB cable.”

Note: This affects the readers, not the sensors.

Recalled eye drops get scarier

You may have been following the whole saga of contaminated eye drops — at least three people have died and eight more have lost an eye. Now it’s gotten worse. Apparently the infection can spread from person to person.

So the CDC is reiterating “that clinicians and patients stop using EzriCare’s or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears products, both manufactured by India-based Global Pharma Healthcare.”

Statins won’t hurt if you exercise

There are folks who worry that taking statins doesn’t play well with exercise — they’re concerned about muscle pain and fatigue, specifically.

It turns out that “I’m afraid of muscle pain or fatigue during moderate exercise”^* isn’t an excuse. Dutch researchers tested 100 patients, including a bunch who were already having muscle issues, and found that not only did the statins not start causing pain, those with existing muscle issues didn’t feel any worse.

So, they figure, it’s okay to start exercising even if you’re taking statins. It certainly won’t hurt.

^* Hopefully no one ever actually talks like that.

Early menopause? Don’t wait to start hormone therapy

Here’s a scary fact (based on research out of Mass General Brigham): If a woman has early menopause, the later she starts hormone therapy, the greater her risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Quoth one of the study’s authors:

“We found that the highest levels of tau, a protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease, were only observed in hormone therapy users who reported a long delay between age at menopause onset and their initiation of hormone therapy.”

Said another, a bit more bluntly, “When it comes to hormone therapy, timing is everything.”

The Long Read: Post-Antibiotic Era edition

It’s been decades since the first warnings were sounded about antibiotic resistance, and now the WHO says we’ve reached the point where it’s getting clear we didn’t do enough.

“The post-antibiotic era” is the phrase, because there are too few new treatments in the pipeline to keep pace with the resistant infections that are showing up — “Just 27 new antibiotics for the most threatening infections are in the clinical trial stage of drug development.”

The problem is that there’s just not enough money to be made for drug companies to invest in creating antibiotics — ironically, that’s in part because the message is to use them less.

Short Takes

An Ozempic-free weight loss future

“Ozempic,” says the Atlantic, “Is About to Be Old News” as a new crop of better, stronger, faster weight-loss drugs come to market.

New knees? Check your sodium

If you have patients who’ve had a joint replacement, you might want to suggest they have their sodium levels checked. Having hyponatremia — low sodium — leads to more complications and adverse outcomes, according to a study out of Philly’s Thomas Jefferson University.