The least they could do

We’ve covered the dangers of melatonin gummies a couple of times, whether it’s parents giving too much to kids, or kids popping them thinking they’re candy.

Now, finally, someone has come up with a crazy idea to hopefully reduce some poisonings: labelling the bottles.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition — the trade group for supplement manufacturers — has announced that it’s adopted new guidelines such as …

1. Using child-deterrent packaging for any products that might be attractive to kids
2. Adding cautionary statements about drowsiness, “not to take with alcohol, and that the products are intended for intermittent or occasional use only”
3. For gummies, adding more guidance about their use for kids, mentioning the fact that they’re a choking hazard, and using child-deterrent packaging if they think it’s necessary

All the guidelines are voluntary, and the CRN suggests they be implemented within a year and a half to 2 years.

The word is chutzpah

One good thing about US drug makers being so profitable is that those profits trickle down — after all, they’re paying a ton in taxes.

Oh, wait.

Corporations are supposed to pay a nominal tax rate of 21%. But in recent years, the biggest pharmaceutical companies had an average effective tax rate of less than 12%, according to an analysis by the Senate Finance Committee.

The game, it seems, is to create a subsidiary outside US jurisdiction, sell that subsidiary your intellectual property rights, then “pretend like the profit is accrued to these offshore subsidiaries, even though the sales are back to the United States.”

And thus, the “financial records for the top five drug companies in the U.S. showed that in 2023, all but Eli Lilly reported losing money in the US.” (Emphasis ours.)

That’s right: When it comes to paying their share, the big pharmaceutical companies claim they’re losing money.

Out for blood

Deadly bacteria — just like vampires, mosquitoes, and (according to Facebook) some politicians — are apparently drawn to the scent of blood.

“We learned some of the bacteria that most commonly cause bloodstream infections actually sense a chemical in human blood and swim toward it.”

Washington State University researchers say it’s one reason some conditions, like inflammatory bowel disease, can be deadly: Bacteria head straight for any internal bleeding.

Having found the mechanism, they now hope to find a way to block it.

The next universal vaccine candidate

This one comes out of the University of California-Riverside and it would be “universal” for a given disease (e.g., flu, Covid) “because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus.” So in the case of the flu, no more guessing the next year’s strain, and in the case of Covid-19, no more playing Whac-A-Mole™ with variants.

The new strategy does away with Ye Olde strategy of getting the immune system to mount a response. Instead, it relies on the production of “interfering RNA” (RNAi) molecules that the body produces to attack a virus. Normally, a virus can block enough RNAi to thrive, but the UCR-developed vaccine counters this, leaving the virus vulnerable to RNAi attacks. “[The virus] can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response.”

[T]he researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this.”

Short Takes

Elsewhere: CVS pharmacies look to unionize

Pharmacists at two Rhode Island CVS locations …

… are seeking to join the Pharmacy Guild, a U.S. trade union exclusively specializing in representing and unionizing pharmacy professionals, to fight for higher staffing levels, which they argue will lead to optimal patient safety and care outcomes.

Ketamine after birth

To fight postpartum depression, a quick dose of esketamine might be the ticket.

Chinese researchers found that, at least for mothers with prenatal depression…

…a single low dose of esketamine after childbirth decreases major depressive episodes at 42 days post partum by about three quarters.

Preparing for the next one

To get a jump on the next pandemic, the US will be partnering with 50 nations around the globe (or across the globe for you flat-Earthers). The idea is that we’ll help them “prevent, detect, and effectively respond to biological threats.” That way if something appears first in, say, East Freedonia, the Freedonians can slow its progress enough for America to be better prepared.

The WHO has been trying to get an international pandemic plan in place, but that hasn’t happened. So here we are.

(This isn’t just a “Hey, we’re gonna do this” announcement. It’s actually a huge program that’s well underway. Check out the State Department details.

With friends like these

The Chinese government, it seems, is giving tax rebates to “companies that manufacture fentanyl analogues, precursors and other synthetic narcotics, so long as they sell them outside of China,” according to a report from the bipartisan House of Representatives’ select committee on China.

For its part, Chinese officials pinkie-promised that they’re cooperating with US drug authorities to try to limit fentanyl production. They also said that the problem is US demand, not Chinese supply. Quoth:

“It is very clear that there is no fentanyl problem in China, and the fentanyl crisis in the United States is not caused by the Chinese side, and blindly blaming China cannot solve the U.S.’s own problem.”