Send in the flu (it’s already here)

Georgia is one of the states being hit hardest by the holiday flu surge, which could mean it’s gonna get worse after all that mistletoe snogging.

And by “surge,” health officials mean cases have doubled in the past week — or, as one Roswell doc put it, “exploded.” All these adjectives mean it might be time to think about those pesky masks again^*….

^* Kidding, of course. Freedom!

Decoding the flu

In case you’re interested in how flu strains get their names — both the H and N parts (e.g., H5N1) and their full names (e.g., A/Sydney/05/97 (H3N2)), Forbes has you covered in excruciating detail.

Speaking of illness surges…

Whooping cough, aka pertussis, has been rising like a [insert inappropriate metaphor here] and now cases are at the highest level in a decade. And it’s Not. Slowing. Down. This year cases are 6 times higher than last year. Yeesh.

It’s quite contagious, and symptoms range from the mild (not even knowing you have it) to bad enough that you break ribs from coughing. And it can last for months.

Scientists are working to create a vaccine so people can be protec— wait, what’s that? It’s entirely preventable with a vaccine that’s been around since 1949? But vaccination rates have fallen to the point where herd immunity is compromised?

How big are GLP-1s?

Really big. Based on a report from Truveta, which gleans data from medical records, during 2024 GLP-1 agonists made up 5% of all prescriptions in the US. Yep, “As of September, one of every 20 prescriptions written for adults was for one of these drugs.”

Migraine med is better than expected

Atogepant was already approved to prevent migraines, but it also seems to stop them in their tracks, according to a study out of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

In the study, people taking the drug atogepant were less likely to have a migraine on the first day of taking the drug compared to those taking a placebo. They also had fewer migraines per week during each of the first four weeks of the study and fewer migraines during the study overall than those taking a placebo.

It’s a big deal because it means that, rather than try one drug after another and hope it works, patients pretty much know immediately. And if it does, they’ve got something that works both long term (atogepant is a monthly injection) and immediately.

Aussies sue J&J

We all know the FDA is planning to remove phenylephrine from the shelves because it doesn’t work. Now a bunch of Australians have filed a class-action suit against Johnson & Johnson, claiming the company knew phenylephrine was ineffective but still marketed products — Benadryl and Sudafed, notably — as a decongestant.

“Johnson & Johnson has manufactured and marketed a medication that decades of evidence have shown doesn’t work as claimed, relying on outdated, fallible studies to sell the Australian public products that don’t do what they claim on the packet.”

A little light bedtime reading

Wondering exactly how CMS and drug makers negotiated the prices of the first 10 drugs subject to negotiation? Wonder no more. CMS has made available the details of the process for each of them, and the explanation of how it determined the final price Medicare was willing to pay.

They’re all on this page, but if you’d like a sample, here’s the PDF for Eliquis. Good night!