Diet pill or demon?

Back in January we told you about “Ozempic face,” where Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonist users were finding their faces turning gaunt and old.

Now there’s a new side effect: the Ozempic burp. It’s not just burping more often — it’s burping sulfur, like someone who orders black candles by the carton. Experts understand the burping part; gastrointestinal issues aren’t surprising with these drugs. But sulfur?

One theory: “[S]emaglutide boosts the number of bacteria in patients’ digestive tracts that produce hydrogen sulfide, a gas that can be expelled from either end of the digestive tract, and that smells […] like rotten eggs.” Or maybe it’s diet change. Or, in the case of TikTok celebs, maybe it’s simple demonic possession. More research is needed.

One month till convention!

The Georgia Pharmacy Convention is just a month away, so if you haven’t registered yet, get on it! — registration closes May 24!

And remember, if you want to attend the annual PharmPAC reception, you need to have made made at least a 250 dollar contribution to PharmPAC before May 24.)

Register Now!

ADHD kids are still missing out

Kids with ADHD aren’t getting the help they need. Only about 26% of them got any kind of outpatient treatment (found a new study led by Columbia University), and only 12.9% are getting medication. It’s worse for girls — only 7% are getting meds to treat it.

Could it be income? Could some parents be concerned about cost? Nope.

The results showed children with parents who had higher salaries and a higher educational degree were less likely to receive outpatient mental health care compared to those whose parents had lower salaries and a lower educational degree. (Emphasis ours.)

So what’s up widdat? It’s likely that parents (and even teachers) “are unaware of what symptoms to look out for or even how to recognize that their child may have a condition like ADHD.” He’s just rambunctious. She just daydreams.

What’s worse it that this isn’t news, and it might be getting worse. Almost 17 years ago a similar story came out of a study by Washington University. Back then it found “Only about 58 percent of boys and about 45 percent of girls who had a diagnosis of full-scale ADHD got any medication at all.”

Cannabis clears chemo brain fog

One of the side effects of chemotherapy is brain fog — kind of like what patients with long Covid get. And you know what might help with it? Cannabis.

Researchers at the University of Colorado — where, let’s be honest, they aren’t strangers to the herb — worked with patients who took marijuana in the form of their choice. (Federal law won’t allow the researchers to provide the pot, but because it’s legal in Colorado they just let patients purchase it themselves. I know, wonky.)

Sure, the pot gave them a high and eased their pain….

But longer term, a different pattern emerged: After two weeks of sustained use, patients reported improvements in pain, sleep quality, and cognitive function. Some objective measures of cognitive function, including reaction times, also improved.

Because of the way the study was conducted it’s not the highest quality data, but it certainly has an observational pattern worth studying … outside the US, most likely.

Merck was just collateral damage

A Russian cyberattack that hit Merck doesn’t count as a “hostile/warlike action” for insurance purposes a court has ruled — and the company’s insurer must pay up. The logic: Merck is a private company, and the attack was against Ukraine; Merck wasn’t at war.

The insurance companies contended that any state-backed action that “reflects ill will or a desire to harm” falls within the “hostile/warlike action” exclusion. But the judges said they “stretched the meaning of ‘hostile’ to its outer limit.”

Elsewhere: Aussies ban vaping

Yes, you read that headline right: Recreational vaping will soon be banned on an entire continent.

Under the plan, which [Health Minister Mark] Butler said would address the “biggest loophole in Australian healthcare history”, the importation of non-pharmaceutical vaping products will be prohibited, meaning they will only be able to be purchased with a prescription from pharmacies.

And — ka-ching! — the continent is also raising its tobacco tax, which will generate an estimated AUS$3 billion in additional revenue to help fight the plague of drop-bears*.

^* But not emus. They learned their lesson.

Fentanyl oopsie

Pro tip: If you’re going to have a labeling error and have to recall a product, you really don’t want it to be fentanyl.

A labeling problem has forced Teva to recall 13 lots of fentanyl buccal tablets. Safety updates on the product insert were omitted, leaving the possibility of misuse that “could lead to life-threatening adverse events,” the FDA said.

Click here for the recall details, including NDC and lot numbers.

Short Takes

The clouds are not our friends

Those friendly puffs of white harbor a dark secret: They carry bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes.

“Our study shows that clouds are an important pathway for antibiotic-resistance genes spreading over short and long ranges. Ideally, we would like to locate emission sources resulting from human activities to limit the dispersal of these genes.”

Elsewhere: It’s 7,000 miles away

The WHO says it’s only ‘moderately’ worried that a bio lab in Sudan — one “holding cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials” — has been captured by one of the sides in the country’s civil war.