Coming: at-home flu shots

Of course, as soon as we closed the Buzz newsroom for the weekend, this story came through:

The FDA has approved the first self-administered flu vaccine. MedImmune’s FluMist has been approved for more than 20 years, but it had to be given by a professional. Now its approval has been expanded to allow for either doing it yourself or having some other adult do it for you at home.

It won’t be available at your pharmacy, though — at least for now, patients will need to go through MedImmune, which will do a quick screening and ship it to their home. Or office. Or wherever they want it, starting sometime next year.

Come for Tech U, stay for immunization training!

Technicians! GPhA’s got a great educational weekend for you — TechU on Saturday (Oct. 19) and Immunization Training for Pharmacy Technicians on Sunday (Oct. 20). Two great courses that taste great together!

TechU

Four hours of CE credits, a continental breakfast, lunch, a professional headshot, and a fun networking event. (The full list of CE sessions, hotel suggestions, and registration is at GPhA.org/techu.)

It’s Sat., October 19 from 8:00 am – 5:30 pm at the PIHC Pharmacy Corporate Office in Atlanta (map). $40 for GPhA members, $65 for non-members^*.

Immunization training

It covers the latest info on flu and Covid-19 vaccines, including how to give those jabs the right way (of course). We’ll also cover the legal details of tech vaccinations and a bit of background on vaccines and immunology — then toss in practical stuff like ordering vaccines with inventory management standards, billing and reimbursement, and all the documentation you need to use. And it’ll help you sit for PTCB’s Advanced Skill Exam.

It’s Sun., October 20 from 9:30 am – 1:30 pm at GPhA HQ in Sandy Springs (map). $199 for GPhA members, $249 for non-members^*.

^* Non-member rate includes a full GPhA Membership through December 31, 2025, for all attendees residing in the state of Georgia.

Short Takes

Try lullabies instead

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine suggests “Rethinking the use of melatonin as a sleep aid for kids.” That’s mostly because dosing is difficult to manage; supplements aren’t regulated, and 2022 saw a jump in overdose calls.

Antidepressant beats brain tumors

The bad news: Only in the lab and in mice.

The good news: Vortioxetine appears to be “one of the most effective agents” against glioblastoma, according to Swiss researchers, who are now preparing clinical trials (which are made easier because the drug is already approved).

Bone cancer breakthrough

If you add a little gallium to certain bioactive glasses — a filling material used for bone and tooth repair — you get a material that eliminates bone cancer. That’s what British researchers found, and when they say ‘eliminates,’ they mean it.

Tests in labs have found that bioactive glasses doped with the metal have a 99 percent success rate of eliminating cancerous cells and can even regenerate diseased bones.

Basically the glass particles get into the bone, where the cancer cells soak it up … with the gallium, which kills them. And then the glass gets to work rebuilding the bones. Said the orthopedic oncologist who led the team, “We believe that our findings could lead to a treatment that is more effective and localised, reducing side effects, and can even regenerate diseased bones.”

Shrooms beat Lexapro

A new study finds that, over the long haul, patients who take psilocybin for major depression do better than those who take escitalopram.

That’s what British researchers reported, and they imply it might hold true for other SSRIs. They found that both drugs reduce depression, but “psilocybin outperformed escitalopram in several measures of well-being, meaning in life, work, and social functioning” including not messing with patients’ libidos.

(The idea of psilocybin as a long-term treatment for depression isn’t news. Back in 2022, Johns Hopkins researchers reported that psilocybin treatment for major depression was effective for at least a year.)

Should we worry about this? It feels like we should worry about this

So there’s a guy in Missouri who got the H5N1 bird flu without having contact with infected animals. That’s mildly concerning. But now three people who have been in contact with him — a household member and two healthcare workers — have also contracted the flu. And these are only the symptomatic cases. (Thankfully the symptoms were mild.)

TikTokers gonna TikTok

Their latest health advice: Eat dirt! It’s got, you know, microorganisms! (They call themselves — I kid you not — “crunchers^*.”)

As Forbes’s Bruce Lee puts it:

[I]sn’t having a lot of microorganisms also kind of the reason why you typically try not to eat dirt? It’s the whole reason why if someone were to drop a burrito on the ground, roll it in the soil and then offer it to you, you wouldn’t immediately say, “Thanks” and not worry about getting a bad case of the runs or worse.

^* We have a different name.