Be careful out there

Scammers are targeting pharmacists, and they’re sophisticated enough to fool even the smart ones. One pharmacist in Ohio lost her life’s savings when scammers posing as the board of pharmacy — even with the BoP’s Caller ID — convinced her she needed to put up a $500,000 bond to avoid arrest from a narcotics investigation.

The caller said that her pharmacist license had been linked to a narcotics investigation in Texas and there was a warrant out for her arrest.

Her license – which pharmacists need to work – was at risk, the caller said. She would need to post a $500,000 bond or work with the FBI to clear her name. […]

Over three months, she was terrified and followed the directions of people she thought were agents of the pharmacy board and other authorities.

The scam went pretty far, including having a dark SUV to follow her occasionally. In the end, the pharmacist lost nearly everything. (And no, there’s no way to get that money back. It’s gone.)

“Gift card” scams are obvious, but when your professional life seems to hang in the balance, it’s easy to miss any signs of shenanigans … if there are any. When in doubt, contact the office directly (in this case the Board of Pharmacy), using a phone number you’re certain is correct — not what the scammer gives you.

And we won’t get into how AI is being used to sound like someone you know pleading for help….

Ozempic … babies?

Women are reporting getting pregnant while on GLP-1 drugs, even though they use birth control (or in some cases thought they were infertile).

But before you raise your eyebrow, keep in mind these women are on TikTok, so you can’t really take what they say at face value. (Were they on real birth control? Were they really infertile, or just hadn’t conceived yet? Was is just a coincidence they got pregnant while on Ozempic?)

That said, there is the possibility — raised by actual scientists — that GLP-1s interfere with birth control by slowing the drugs’ absorption, but it’s more theoretical than proven.

All that said, keep in mind that being pregnant while taking GLP-1s is risky, “and women need to be monitored very closely.”

Economics is never simple

As the out-of-pocket price of insulin has finally dropped thanks to pressure from various governments, you would assume insulin use would increase as more people could afford it. Strangely, though, those insulin price caps haven’t increased insulin uptake.

One reason might be that the people who it affects most — those with commercial insurance — are more likely to be able to afford it, and thus less affected by price caps. (“Previous studies found Medicare enrollees’ prescription fills rose after Medicare implemented a new $35 cap on monthly insulin costs.”) But that’s just speculation. Markets are complicated beasts.

The X for Y files

Taking statins, it seems, can reduce your risk of gum disease. And considering gum disease can raise your risk of cardiovascular problems, it’s a double bonus.

Researchers at the College of Dental Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina found that statins (specifically simvastatin) turned down the responses of macrophages in the gums, meaning there was less inflammation and thus less chance of Bad Things like tooth loss of the need for root canal.

Should statins be prescribed for people at risk for gum disease? Or could they tease out the mechanism and create a more-targeted drug? You know the mantra: More research is needed.

Guys, maybe you shouldn’t be reading this

“Positive Causal Link ID’d Between Computer Use, Erectile Dysfunction”.

What’s interesting is that it’s not as simple as ‘more computer = less rising to the occasion.’ What Chinese researchers found is that men who were genetically predisposed to “leisure computer usage” were more likely to have trouble — how shall we put it? — leveling up.

Interestingly, it’s only computer use that’s a problem, not sedentary behavior overall:

There was no evidence seen of a link between watching television or driving for leisure and an increased risk for ED.

Short takes

Old drugs, new uses

A Philly-based company called Every Cure is into drug repurposing, but in a big way. Rather than seeing if Drug X can be used for Condition Y (or even “What conditions might Drug X treat?”) it’s using AI “to compare all drugs and all diseases.”

While other organizations doing this kind of work may focus on a specific drug or disease, Every Cure looks at all cases, with the goal of making the connections that will impact the greatest number of patients.

Chickenpox mimics

Chickenpox has been reduced so much in the US (at least until anti-vaxxers target it) that “the disease is now so rare in the US that doctors are misdiagnosing it half the time, according to a report from the Minnesota Department of Health.”

What patients turned out to have was usually an enterovirus or simply “some other skin lesions or infection that was mistaken for chickenpox.”

You definitely want to choose your notification sound carefully

“Gotta go? New bladder device lets you know”

The Long Read: Pre-Ozempic edition

It seems that with GLP-1 drugs being all the rage, people have forgotten that there have been other weight-loss drugs available for a long time. They’re “Half as Good as Ozempic for One-30th the Price,” but as one obesity doctor put it, when they came out “We didn’t have TikTok.”

Those older drugs might have issues, of course, but they’re also usually covered by insurance and available as generics. They just don’t have the buzz.