DEA delays telemed rule on controlleds

After pushback from, like, the entire world, the Drug Enforcement Administration has said it will continue to follow its pandemic emergency telehealth policies. Translation: People who are getting controlled meds via telehealth prescription can continue to do so without an in-person visit … at least for now.

“We recognize the importance of telemedicine in providing Americans with access to needed medications, and we have decided to extend the current flexibilities while we work to find a way forward to give Americans that access with appropriate safeguards.”

Mix it up for hypertension

As Americans, we love the idea of one pill to cure our ills, but when it comes to hypertension, taking smaller doses of several medications seems to be better than taking one larger dose of a single med. (A low dose means less than half of a standard dose, by the way.)

Researchers from India and Australia found that…

People treated with low-dose drug combinations saw their systolic blood pressure decrease on average by 16 to 28 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) over 4 to 12 weeks, the analysis showed.

In contrast, systolic blood pressure decreased 12 to 18 mm Hg on average in the group taking one drug or receiving usual care.

That effect continued for at least up to a year, reduced side effects, and saw more people dropping their BP below 140/90.

Join in on the DPH meeting

The next Board of Public Health virtual meeting is comin’ up: Tuesday, May 9, from 1:00 – 3:00 pm via Zoom.

What’s on the agenda:

• 2023 legislative session update
• 2024 Appropriations Act summary
• Bond sale resolution approval

Have your allergy advice ready

Why yes, allergies are getting worse as climate change makes allergy season last longer.

Spring allergy season in the U.S. typically starts in late March and lasts through early June. But in recent years, the spring allergy season has expanded on the front and back end in some places: starting early in late February and lasting into late June.

Longer seasons also mean higher pollen counts — up 21% from 1990 to 2018 nationwide. It’s also making fall and summer pollens mix, as the fall season begins earlier.

HPV vax: One dose’ll do ya

The standard dose of the HPV vaccine is two doses, but a study out of the Kenya Medical Research Institute and Mass General found that a single dose “was highly efficacious in preventing HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, in girls and women ages 15 to 20.”

The effect was tested for 36 months and was just about 100% effective.

Women, stress, and Alzheimer’s

Be kind to your girl mice. It seems that stress — i.e., the level of stress hormones in the blood — increases their brains’ levels of amyloid beta, but doesn’t affect the males. And amyloid beta is the protein linked to Alzheimer’s.

That’s a finding out of Washington University School of Medicine, where they found that female (mouse) brains absorb the stress hormone corticotropin, but male brains don’t. And corticotropin “trigger[s] a cascade of events that results in increasing levels of amyloid beta in the brain.”

There are of course other factors that make women more susceptible to Alzheimer’s, but it seems clear, at least to the WU folks, that stress is an important one.

The Long(ish) Read: Pharmacies are upping their games

Specialized drugs used to require specialized pharmacies, but nowadays specialized is becoming more the standard — and pharmacies, big and little, are evolving for the new world. Or, as Forbes put it:

[P]harmacies are preparing for the coming wave of emerging complex drugs derived from biotechnology that treat everything from autoimmune diseases and cancer.

Sure, there are still plenty of bottles to fill, but thanks in part to Covid-19 and how pharmacies stepped up to help, “Today pharmacies handle medications that require injection, infusion by staff that often needs specialized training and licensure.”

Fighting against Parkinson’s

Australian researchers have found that boxing is apparently helpful for relieving symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The trick — before you take a swing at a patient — is that it’s without an opponent. (Test subjects “did battle against a Fightmaster boxing unit.”)

After the 15-week program, nine of the 10 participants improved their score on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, a tool used to measure the progression and severity of PD. The group also reported a reduction in fatigue and improvements in sleep.

An Edith Cowan researcher during the study

Short Takes

PBM bill will have to wait

Bad news about the Senate’s PBM bill: Action was postponed by politics. No, that’s not the bad news — the bad news is that the politics were entirely reasonable, no one is really angry, and there’s nothing to argue or finger-point about. The markup part of the bill process has just been shifted until after a hearing with in­sulin makers and PBM ex­ecs.

First RSV vax approved

The FDA has approved Arexvy, GSK’s vaccine to prevent respiratory syncytial virus in people 60 and old — the first RSV vaccination, well, ever. (More are on their way.)