Sacklers settle lawsuit … again

After having the last settlement over its role in the opioid crisis thrown out by the Supreme Court, the Sackler family has reached a new one with the collection of governments (local, state, and federal) — and this one doesn’t give the Family blanket immunity from other lawsuits.

The basics of the new settlement:

• The Sacklers will pay $6.5 billion.
• Purdue (the company) will pay another $900 million.
• Other lawsuits (e.g., from local governments and individuals) can continue — this is the big difference from the original settlement.

Note: “The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out.”

DoJ targets Walgreens

The Justice Department is suing Walgreens in a double-whammy: It’s accusing the company and its subsidiaries of not only “dispens[ing] millions of unlawful prescriptions in violation of the Controlled Substances Act,” since August 2012, and then getting reimbursed for those prescriptions from federal health programs, which would be a violation of the False Claims Act. (This is all based on four whistleblower lawsuits, which the DoJ took over.)

“Our complaint alleges that Walgreens pharmacists filled millions of controlled substance prescriptions with clear red flags that indicated the prescriptions were highly likely to be unlawful, and that Walgreens systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions, including controlled substance prescriptions, without taking the time needed to confirm their validity.

But wait, there’s something else

You might expect Walgreens to respond with a typical denial and ‘see you in court,’ but the company took an interesting tack. It argued that there’s no law requiring pharmacists to pay attention to “red flags” when it comes to filling prescriptions:

“We are asking the court to clarify the responsibilities of pharmacies and pharmacists and to protect against the government’s attempt to enforce arbitrary ‘rules’ that do not appear in any law or regulation and never went through any official rulemaking process.

Party (and learn) with AEP

The good folks from the Academy of Employee Pharmacists are throwing a big ol’ shindig — a networking event in Marietta for every pharmacist and technician in the state. (And they even throw in some CE so maybe you can claim it as a tax deduction^*.)

The deets:

Saturday, February 22, 2025 6:00 – 9:00 PM Dave & Buster’s in Marietta (map)

Want more info? Sure thing — click here for everything you need to know.

^* We’re not tax experts, so you probably want to ask someone who is, but it seems like you could.

How Ambien can hurt sleep

Scientists still aren’t entirely sure why we need sleep, although “to clean out junk from the brain” seems to be at least one reason. Research out of the University of Rochester seems to bear that out, showing how the glymphatic system does its cleaning when powered by neurotransmitters and brain fluids.

The pharma twist: They also found that Ambien, aka zolpidem, can suppress that cleanup process. That would mean that long-term use could lead to a buildup of toxic proteins in the brain and potentially lead to (or at least factor into) diseases like Alzheimer’s.

But you know the mantra: More research is needed.

Herpes – dementia connection?

Tau proteins are … let’s call it “part of the Alzheimer’s pathology.” Scientists know it’s somehow involved in the disease but not exactly why or how.

Now University of Pittsburgh researchers have an interesting theory hypothesis — one that involves the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1). They think that the virus might trigger an immune response in the brain, and part of that response is the release of tau proteins to protect the brain. When the viral infection is cleared^*, those tau proteins might hang around, eventually helping to ‘clog’ the brain.

Could it help to “fine-tune the brain’s immune response,” they wonder? Or maybe there’s a way to attack those viral proteins before they elicit an immune response. Either way, as above (and always), they “plan to explore those questions in future research.”

^* Well, subdued

Captain Obvious watches “Squid Game 2” instead

“Frequent social media use tied to higher levels of irritability”.

Mifepristone alternative

Trigger warning: This is a story about abortion.

One dose of the prescription-only drug acetate (aka Ella) prevents fertilization after sex, like a better version of Plan B. Now a preliminary study by US and Mexican researchers has found that doubling the dose from 30 mg to 60 mg and adding misoprostol makes it terminate a pregnancy, just like mifepristone + misoprostol. In fact, it seems to be slightly more effective.

Ulipristal has been FDA-approved for about 15 years for preventing pregnancy, and this finding will undoubtedly have the usual suspects trying to ban it. That has OB/GYNs concerned. As one put it, “There is a risk that the findings of this study could be misapplied and used by politicians to try to restrict ulipristal for emergency contraception.”

Elsewhere: Smaller Government edition

A Mississippi state senator has filed a bill called “the Contraception Begins at Erection Act.”

As written by Sen. Bradford Blackmon, the bill would make it “unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.”

Good-bye, farewell, and … amen?

Well, it’s time to say good-bye to all you wonderful readers. After today, GPhA’s astounding Holly Hanchey will take over GPhA Buzz, which will continue on its weekly schedule.

It’s been great fun writing these the past … yikes, almost 8 years. And who knows what the future holds?

Thank you all for reading, thank you all who are GPhA members, and thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to write in. I wish you all fair winds and following seas, open roads^*, and straight flights. My watch is over.

^* People in Atlanta can only dream