Arachnophobes can relax

Every kid knows that when it comes to dangers lurking in the world, black widow spider bites top the list^*. Good news: German researchers think they’ve found an antidote.

Today, the only antivenom (or antivenin, if you’re that sort) comes from horses; it can trigger all sorts of allergic reactions. If the Germans’ human-specific antibody pans out — so far it’s only been tested in the lab — it could finally end the scourge that has taken so many lives on late-night TV movies.

Bad news: So far they’ve only created an antibody for two of the three varieties of black widows in the US. But they’re working on it.

^* Followed by quicksand and being trapped in a refrigerator

Statin overuse?

Do too many people take statins? Maybe. A new analysis from the University of Pittsburgh, based on the American Heart Association’s new risk calculator, suggests as many as 40% fewer people need statins that then current model suggests.

Essentially the Pittsburghians compared the 2013 calculator’s results with the 2023 version when applied to the records of 3,785 adults.

Overall, 4% of people had a 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease, compared to the 8% previously predicted by the [equations]. The number of adults recommended for statins could drop from 45.4 million to 28.3 million.

Medicare rule clobbers pharmacies

Biden administration: New rule! Medicare and Medicaid patients are gonna pay less for their meds. We’ll make price adjustments first, at the pharmacy counter, rather than later.

PBMs: Ah, so essentially our clawbacks will happen immediately.

Administration: Um, yeah. But it will save patients and the government money.

Independent pharmacists: Wait a second! That cuts my reimbursement from the PBM — sometimes it’s less than what I pay for the drug!

CMS: “We cannot interfere in the negotiations that occur between the plans and pharmacy benefits managers. We cannot tell a plan how much to pay a pharmacy or a PBM.”

Independent pharmacists: [expletive deleted]

The X for Y files: melatonin

Sleep, shleep — taking melatonin supplements might reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration. That’s what researchers at Case Western Reserve University found when they parsed the medical records of almost 190,000 people aged 60 and older.

In fact, they found that melatonin use both reduced the risk of developing macular degeneration (in patients didn’t have it) and reduced the chance of it worsening (in patients who did).

CVS faces store-brand recalls

Even the big guys can have serious manufacturing problems. Several factories that make CVS-branded products have had conditions bad enough to force product recalls, according to a Bloomberg investigation.

One factory making CVS-branded pain and fever medications for children used contaminated water. Another made drugs for kids that were too potent. And a third made nasal sprays for babies on the same machines it used to produce pesticides.

Bloomberg focused on CVS, but the company isn’t alone. One of the issues for large chains that contract with manufacturers is that the FDA considers them “private-label distributors,” who are themselves responsible for the quality of the drugs, rather than the FDA.

Elsewhere: Baltimore edition

The city of Baltimore opted not to participate in the Big Opioid Settlement, and it seems to have been the right choice. The city just won a $45 million settlement from Allergan for its role in the opioid epidemic — $38 million more than it would have received if it had joined the big settlement.

The Allergan victory is just the beginning.

The city is still suing Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, Walgreens, CVS, Teva, former Insys CEO John Kapoor, members of the Sackler family and others.

People are still researching this

Researchers at the University of Chicago have just reported a shocker: You can’t get good health information on TikTok.

The research group’s next study will question whether it’s safe to tug on Superman’s cape or spit into the wind.

The Long Read: Could Covid cause weird cancers?

During the height of the pandemic, oncologists began noticing “an uptick in aggressive, late-stage cancers” — anecdotes later borne out by data.

Could it simply be caused by disruptions to care? If so, how would that explain the emergence of unusual cancers? Or could it be that Covid can cause a chain reaction — “an inflammatory cascade and other responses that, in theory, could exacerbate the growth of cancer cells”?