Phenylephrine gets unanimous downvote

The FDA’s 16-member advisory committee voted unanimously that there’s no evidence phenylephrine is effective ‘when taken orally at recommended doses’ and that it’s not even worth doing studies at higher doses.

If the agency follows the panel’s recommendation, it could next begin a process to remove the drug from the market, forcing manufacturers, including P&G, Kenvue Inc. (Sudafed) and Reckitt Benckiser Group (Mucinex), to reformulate many popular cough and cold products.

Oi! You! Register for your Region Meeting!

Time is running out! If you live in one of the following GPhA regions, it’s time to sign up for your fall Region Meeting!

• Region 2 (Moultrie area): Tuesday, September 26
• Region 4 (Peachtree City area): Wednesday, September 27
• Region 5 (Atlanta area): Tuesday, September 26
• Region 10 (Athens area): Wednesday, September 27
• Region 11 (Augusta area): Thursday, September 28

And the rest of you? Your meeting will be virtual, and we’ll be sending out info soon!

For just $10, GPhA members get a chance to hang out with other local pharmacy pros for a great dinner, an update on Georgia pharmacy, and a fun and low-pressure networking opportunity.

Sign up for your region meeting dinner now! Details and sign-up links for all the meetings are at GPhA.org/regionmeetings.

Walgreens settles

Remember Theranos, the company that promised a zillion tests from a drop of blood that turned out to be a fraud? You may recall CEO Elizabeth Holmes going to prison, but you may not remember that Walgreens was working with the company.

Now the pharmacy chain has settled a class-action lawsuit in Arizona and California by patients who took the tests and got faulty results. “Each eligible plaintiff will be reimbursed for double the cost of the original tests […] plus a base payment of $10.”

Attorneys in the case, which “involved 7.8 million pages of documents, 26 fact witness depositions, and six expert depositions,” didn’t comment, as Internet service has yet to be established on their new private Caribbean islands.

AIP meets dispensary owners

AIP VP Jonathan Marquess represented GPhA at the grand opening of the first Botanical Sciences Medical Cannabis dispensary in Metro Atlanta. He’s already met with pharmacist Tony Singletary, general manager of the Pooler dispensary, and on Tuesday’s grand opening in Marietta, he met with Botanical Sciences employees including founder Robin Fowler, MD, and CEO Gary Long.

The best smoking cessation

What’s the best way to quit smoking? (Yeah, yeah, “Never start.” We know.) But if you’re already smoking, a British-led team has figured out what’s your best bet for quitting. The answer is to use two forms of replacement therapy.

Based on their literature review, they found there are good and bad ways to try to quit.

• Quitting without any aid: a 6% success rate
• Quitting using one form of nicotine replacement therapy, e.g., e-cig, patch, or gum: 9%
• Quitting using two forms of nicotine replacement therapy: 12% success
• Quitting using e-cigarettes and varenicline or cytisine: 14% success

The study did not look into the effects of long-term nicotine use, because that can’t be nearly as bad for you as actual smoking.

I won’t tell them if you won’t

It seems that turmeric, the bright yellow spice that pairs nicely with curry, might be an effective treatment for acid reflux — as good as omeprazole, in fact.

After a two-year, scientifically rigorous trial, Thai researchers found that turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin, worked as well as proton-pump inhibitors against pain, burning, bloating, gas, and nausea.

And the curcumin doesn’t come with a risk of infection, fractures, or dementia. So there’s that.

Don’t sell fake eye drops

The FDA has warned CVS, Walgreens, and six other companies about selling “illegally marketed, unapproved ophthalmic drug products” that it says could actually be dangerous because they contain silver.

The agency doesn’t say what these products are (the list is apparently in the letters), but they’re apparently marketed “to treat conditions such as conjunctivitis (‘pink eye’), cataracts, glaucoma and others.”

Not only might there also be sterility concerns, but they can apparently turn eyes blue or blue/gray permanently.

So if you see eye drops from Boiron, DR Vitamin Solutions, Natural Ophthalmics, OcluMed, Similasan, or TRP Company, you should probably pull them from the shelves.

Not your dad’s invisible ink

With track and trace rules still coming (even if they’ve been delayed), it’s important to find ways to authenticate meds — ways that are both effective and cool enough to write about.

On that note, engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed the mother of all invisible inks. (Technically it’s more of a material than an ink, but they call it an ink so we will too.) It can be used to not only mark goods invisibly (duh), but “with a special pattern or signature that only emerges under certain kinds of light.”

For example, shining an ultraviolet light on a Sandia-designed ink might cause one pattern to become visible, while also revealing a second, hidden pattern that can only be seen with an infrared camera. The patterns can even morph, revealing a signature animation instead of a static image.

Try to counterfeit that.