Not getting the message

We’re taking some steps backward when it comes to antibiotic use. Based on the latest data^*, more than a quarter of all antibiotic prescriptions are inappropriate: “[T]he percentage of all antibiotic prescriptions given to treat conditions they’re useless against was even higher in December 2021 than it was before the pandemic began.” (It didn’t help that a bunch of those scripts were supposed to treat Covid-19.)

Some groups of people were more likely to receive inappropriate antibiotics. At the end of 2021, 30% of antibiotics for older adults with Medicare Advantage coverage were inappropriate, compared with 26% of antibiotics for adults with private health insurance and 17% of antibiotics for children with private insurance.

^* “from more than 37.5 million children and adults”

Why to put Neosporin in your nose

Here’s a twist: Putting Neosporin (well, neomycin) in your nose might get your body to fight off respiratory viruses.

Not that the ointment itself does the job — rather, Yale researchers found, it “triggered a swift immune response from genes in the human nose that serve as a first line of defense against invading viruses.”

[T]he researchers found that mice treated intranasally with neomycin showed a robust [interferon-stimulated genes] line of defense against both SARS-CoV- 2 and a highly virulent strain of influenza A virus.

Oh, and they tested it on humans, too, and found the same response. The question is how long the response lasts. Would you need to rub it in your nose every day, or just once? Stay tuned.

Ozempic quickies

Do GLP-1 drugs change your personality?

Maybe if you believe social media (or the quality journalism in the NY Post or Daily Mail).

But seriously, folks

They also help with knee osteoarthritis. It’s not surprising, really, but the question is whether that will ever be an approved use.

Rules are apparently made to be ignored

During the pandemic, obviously states with more rules for nursing homes had fewer cases and deaths (thanks to slowing the virus’s spread).

Wrong!

A team led by folks at Columbia University compared the number of Covid-19 policies in a state to the number of cases and deaths in nursing homes and home healthcare agencies. Turns out that having more anti-Covid policies in place “wasn’t consistently tied to lower community- or [nursing home]-level disease burden.”

“For example, on May 24, 2020, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska had no Covid-19 deaths or policies, in contrast with North Carolina’s moderate burden and several policies.”

[…]

“By January 12, 2021, New York had a severe Covid-19 burden and the greatest number of policies, while Pennsylvania, Montana, and Florida had a similar Covid-19 burden but fewer policies.”

So why was it such a crapshoot? Implementation and compliance. Just having policies on paper — and not actually enforcing them (or facilities being unable to implement them) — means that the data won’t line up.

HGH trouble

How do you make a shortage of growth hormone for kids even worse? By throwing insurance companies and prior authorization into the mix.

[P]atients and doctors are chasing whatever size injection pen and whatever brand is available. That triggers insurance companies to ask for a new prescription and new prior authorization every time patients need to switch gears and ask for a different pen size because their normal one is out of stock.

The Long Read: Bird Flu edition

So is H5N1 bird flu something we really should worry about, or just another case of ‘much ado about nothing’? It’s looking like a bit of both:

Avian flu viruses tend to be picky about their hosts, typically sticking to one kind of wild bird. But this one has rapidly infiltrated an astonishingly wide array of birds and animals, from squirrels and skunks to bottlenose dolphins, polar bears and, most recently, dairy cows.

In fact, viral particles are showing up in grocery milk. But there’s no need to be concerned, citizen. The good thing is we’ve got plenty of warning in case it does become more virulent, plus there’s already a vaccine.