Baxter is back

Baxter’s IV-fluid-producing plant in North Carolina is back online after having been damaged by Hurricane Helene. It’ll take a little bit to get up to speed, and in the meantime the FDA has allowed temporary imports of IV solution from overseas.

Aspirin and anemia

You may have heard that a potential side effect of daily low-dose aspirin is anemia, probably because of GI tract bleeding. Well it might be a little more complicated than that.

A new, real-world study out of the University of Copenhagen found that yes, anemia is certainly a possible side effect. It looked at the health records of 60,000 of those shifty Danes and found that the incidence of anemia (either mild or severe) was more than doubled in the group taking low-dose aspirin.

The twist:

[O]nly 21.5% of adults who experienced anemia also experienced bleeding […] most anemia events were independent of major bleeding.

So there’s another mechanism at work here, underscoring “the significance of continuous, long-term monitoring for individuals prescribed low-dose aspirin.”

(Side note: The good news is that even with aspirin, the rate of anemia was low — just 3.9% were diagnosed with it.)

A supplement for leg cramps

Got a patient who gets nighttime leg cramps? There could be a simple solution: vitamin K₂. It’s usually in the shadow of its alphabetical predecessors, but for people who get charley horses — that might be more than half of adults — Chinese researchers found that vitamin K₂ supplementation cut the frequency of those cramps by more than half. They also found it reduced the duration and severity of cramps — and it happened within a week.

The other K2

Short Takes

Consumption junction

A student at Walton High School in Marietta brought tuberculosis to class. “The student with the bacterial disease had contact with about 200 students and faculty, prompting public health officials in Cobb and Douglas counties to conduct tuberculin skin tests Tuesday.” Health authorities won’t say how the student contracted it.

This headline doesn’t have a “snot” joke

Everything you wanted to know about mucus — the Times has you covered.

Three more cases

Now there’s a total of 39 known cases of humans infected with bird flu, after 3 more people in Washington State were just added to the list. These latest folks worked at a poultry plant.

Stopping tumors’ immune suppression

Cancer cells have a way of preventing immune cells from attacking them, and interrupting that mechanism is the subject of a lot of research. Now Israeli scientists say they’ve made a breakthrough.

The clue was in UV radiation. When skin is exposed to UV light, the immune system comes to life to limit damage — but the body also activates a ‘brake’ on that response to keep it from being overwhelming. That brake, the Israelis found, is a protein called Ly6a.

The breakthrough: They found that Ly6a is not only expressed by tumors (at least melanoma and colon cancer), but in fact overexpressed. That means it might be the key to removing the tumors’ ability to suppress immune cells.

Next step: Seeing if they can use this finding to create a drug that can be tested.

The Long Read: ingredients and products

Reuters writes about “How Asian pharma suppliers cash in on Ozempic copies,” but makes a common mistake: It doesn’t differentiate between making the ingredient and making a final product.

• Not interesting: There are companies in Asia making semaglutide.
• Interesting: There are companies making illegal finished products (“Fitaro”) and shipping them around the world.

In short: Semaglutide manufacturing is perfectly legal and done around the world, although I wouldn’t trust facilities that didn’t get the FDA’s blessing. But selling copies of the final, injectable product — unless you’re a licensed compounding pharmacy — isn’t legal (at least in the US).