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Lucas Franki is an associate editor for MDedge News, and has been with the company since 2014. He has a BA in English from Penn State University and is an Eagle Scout.
Alvogen issues recall for mislabeled fentanyl patches
Alvogen has issued a voluntary recall of two lots of its Fentanyl Transdermal System 12-mcg/h transdermal patches because of a product mislabeling, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The recall was issued because a small number of cartons labeled as containing 12-mcg/h patches contained 50-mcg/h patches. The 50-mcg/h patches were labeled as such within the package.
Application of a 50-mcg/h patch instead of a 12-mcg/h patch could result in serious, life-threatening, or fatal respiratory depression. Groups at potential risk for such adverse events include first-time users of the patch, children, and the elderly. No reports of serious adverse events have yet been reported.
“Pharmacies are requested not to dispense any product subject to this recall,” the FDA said in a press release. Patients who “have product subject to this recall should immediately remove any patch currently in use and contact their health care provider. Patients with unused product should return it to point of purchase for replacement.”
Find more information on the recall at the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
Alvogen has issued a voluntary recall of two lots of its Fentanyl Transdermal System 12-mcg/h transdermal patches because of a product mislabeling, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The recall was issued because a small number of cartons labeled as containing 12-mcg/h patches contained 50-mcg/h patches. The 50-mcg/h patches were labeled as such within the package.
Application of a 50-mcg/h patch instead of a 12-mcg/h patch could result in serious, life-threatening, or fatal respiratory depression. Groups at potential risk for such adverse events include first-time users of the patch, children, and the elderly. No reports of serious adverse events have yet been reported.
“Pharmacies are requested not to dispense any product subject to this recall,” the FDA said in a press release. Patients who “have product subject to this recall should immediately remove any patch currently in use and contact their health care provider. Patients with unused product should return it to point of purchase for replacement.”
Find more information on the recall at the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
Alvogen has issued a voluntary recall of two lots of its Fentanyl Transdermal System 12-mcg/h transdermal patches because of a product mislabeling, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The recall was issued because a small number of cartons labeled as containing 12-mcg/h patches contained 50-mcg/h patches. The 50-mcg/h patches were labeled as such within the package.
Application of a 50-mcg/h patch instead of a 12-mcg/h patch could result in serious, life-threatening, or fatal respiratory depression. Groups at potential risk for such adverse events include first-time users of the patch, children, and the elderly. No reports of serious adverse events have yet been reported.
“Pharmacies are requested not to dispense any product subject to this recall,” the FDA said in a press release. Patients who “have product subject to this recall should immediately remove any patch currently in use and contact their health care provider. Patients with unused product should return it to point of purchase for replacement.”
Find more information on the recall at the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
FDA approves generic naloxone spray for opioid overdose treatment
The Food and Drug Administration on April 19 approved the first generic naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray (Narcan) as treatment for stopping or reversing an opioid overdose.
“In the wake of the opioid crisis, a number of efforts are underway to make this emergency overdose reversal treatment more readily available and more accessible,” said Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy center director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “In addition to this approval of the first generic naloxone nasal spray, moving forward, we will prioritize our review of generic drug applications for naloxone.”
The agency said the naloxone nasal spray does not need assembly and can be used by anyone, regardless of medical training. If the spray is administered quickly after the overdose begins, the effect of the opioid will be countered, often within minutes. However, patients should still seek immediate medical attention.
The FDA cautioned that, when used on a patient with an opioid dependence, naloxone can cause severe opioid withdrawal, characterized by symptoms such as body aches, diarrhea, tachycardia, fever, runny nose, sneezing, goose bumps, sweating, yawning, nausea or vomiting, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, shivering or trembling, abdominal cramps, weakness, and increased blood pressure.
Find the full press release on the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
The Food and Drug Administration on April 19 approved the first generic naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray (Narcan) as treatment for stopping or reversing an opioid overdose.
“In the wake of the opioid crisis, a number of efforts are underway to make this emergency overdose reversal treatment more readily available and more accessible,” said Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy center director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “In addition to this approval of the first generic naloxone nasal spray, moving forward, we will prioritize our review of generic drug applications for naloxone.”
The agency said the naloxone nasal spray does not need assembly and can be used by anyone, regardless of medical training. If the spray is administered quickly after the overdose begins, the effect of the opioid will be countered, often within minutes. However, patients should still seek immediate medical attention.
The FDA cautioned that, when used on a patient with an opioid dependence, naloxone can cause severe opioid withdrawal, characterized by symptoms such as body aches, diarrhea, tachycardia, fever, runny nose, sneezing, goose bumps, sweating, yawning, nausea or vomiting, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, shivering or trembling, abdominal cramps, weakness, and increased blood pressure.
Find the full press release on the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
The Food and Drug Administration on April 19 approved the first generic naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray (Narcan) as treatment for stopping or reversing an opioid overdose.
“In the wake of the opioid crisis, a number of efforts are underway to make this emergency overdose reversal treatment more readily available and more accessible,” said Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy center director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “In addition to this approval of the first generic naloxone nasal spray, moving forward, we will prioritize our review of generic drug applications for naloxone.”
The agency said the naloxone nasal spray does not need assembly and can be used by anyone, regardless of medical training. If the spray is administered quickly after the overdose begins, the effect of the opioid will be countered, often within minutes. However, patients should still seek immediate medical attention.
The FDA cautioned that, when used on a patient with an opioid dependence, naloxone can cause severe opioid withdrawal, characterized by symptoms such as body aches, diarrhea, tachycardia, fever, runny nose, sneezing, goose bumps, sweating, yawning, nausea or vomiting, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, shivering or trembling, abdominal cramps, weakness, and increased blood pressure.
Find the full press release on the FDA website.
lfranki@mdedge.com
Teen junk-food rebels, 3-D printed hearts, and strategic java stockpiles
Sticking it to the (junk-food) man
Fight the power – the power, in this case, being Ronald McDonald and his brethren.
In a new effort to convince teens to reject junk food and make healthier choices, researchers found that one surefire way to achieve this was to play on the natural teen desire to reject authority and rebel. Parents of teens across the country don’t know whether to rejoice or groan.
The study, published this week, found that an effective way to combat junk food marketing was to frame companies as corporate overlords and figures of authority who take advantage of vulnerable populations (so, the truth). The teens, who value social justice and autonomy from adults, responded well to this reframing. Instead of snacking on Doritos at lunch, the study subjects chose to really stick it to the man and make healthy food choices instead.
Researchers reported that boys in particular responded positively to the idea of rejecting authority. Which will surprise no one who has ever known a teenage boy.
I heart 3-D printing
Fifty-two years ago, a South African surgeon named Dr. Christiaan Barnard took a heart from one (deceased) human and successfully transplanted it into another (live) human. Now, Israeli researchers could relegate Dr. Barnard’s recycled-cardiac-parts approach to the medical history museum’s hall of obsolete approaches, next to the leeches and the wax barber-surgeon.
In a claimed first, Tel Aviv University scientists have “printed” a fully vascularized, engineered human heart. The organ is crafted from a cellular slurry of a patient’s own fat cells turned into pluripotent stem cells. With collagen and glycoproteins as structural printing “ink,” the researchers mixed in the stem cells and printed their 3-D heart. The cells differentiated into cardiac and endothelial cells, complete with a medical first: vascularized and perfusable heart tissue.
Unlike Barnard’s allogeneic approach, building from a patient’s own cellular material can eliminate the risk of organ rejection, the heart’s creators say.
Next on the heart-printers’ punch list: getting the cells to contract in unison to form a pumping unit. Then testing it in animals. Oh, and creating something a bit larger than their initial rabbit-sized heart.
And then? Who knows? Perhaps even Dorothy’s friend the Tin Man can finally get an autologous, printed replacement for that allogeneic, heart-shaped clock.
Larger portions of food for thought
In the world of nutrition science, there’s a concept known as self-regulation, which suggests that people have an innate ability to consume only as many calories as they need. Studies have shown that, in adults anyway, self-regulation can be circumvented by something known as the portion-size effect, which is the tendency to eat more when larger portions are served.
But is the same thing true for small children? Let’s find out.
Researchers provided a group of 3- to 5-year-old children with all their meals and snacks for two 5-day periods. During one of the periods, the portions were 50% larger than the other period. The children were allowed to eat as much of each meal/snack as they wanted, and any leftovers were weighed to determine actual calorie intake.
The data showed that the children ate 16% more food and consumed 18% more calories when they were given the larger portions.
So, we already knew that if you give adults more food, they’ll eat more. And now we know that if you give children more food, they’ll eat more. Could this be the end of self-regulation?
Maybe it would work if you gave the little tykes something besides food. Maybe you could give them … money. Round up a few hundred children, put them together in a big room, and throw money at them.
Oh, right, that experiment is already underway. It’s called Congress.
It’s the end of the world as we ... zzzzz
Of all the countries to take refuge in during an apocalypse, Switzerland has to be at the top of the list. Its mountainous terrain is a natural barrier to any zombie horde that’s heard that Swiss brains are as delicious as their chocolate. Not only that, the Swiss government stockpiles essential resources to sustain its people during times of war or emergency.
All in all, it’s a pretty good deal.
Well, it’s a good deal so long as you don’t require a morning cup of coffee to stay fresh as you fight off armies of the undead, as the Swiss government has decreed that coffee is nonessential for life and will stop stockpiling it.
According to the Federal Office for National Economic Supply, “Coffee is not vital. ... that is, coffee contains almost no calories and therefore does not make any contribution to food security from a nutritional point of view.” Harsh words for a beverage that the Swiss consume at a rate of 9 kg per year, three times more than the British and twice that of Americans.
If the recommendation passes, the 3-month emergency supply, an amount topping 15,000 tons, would be returned to the corresponding manufacturers, who would pass the corresponding savings back to the consumer.
So, there’s some good news as the zombies breach your defenses because your guards fell asleep: At least the coffee was cheaper before the world ended.
Sticking it to the (junk-food) man
Fight the power – the power, in this case, being Ronald McDonald and his brethren.
In a new effort to convince teens to reject junk food and make healthier choices, researchers found that one surefire way to achieve this was to play on the natural teen desire to reject authority and rebel. Parents of teens across the country don’t know whether to rejoice or groan.
The study, published this week, found that an effective way to combat junk food marketing was to frame companies as corporate overlords and figures of authority who take advantage of vulnerable populations (so, the truth). The teens, who value social justice and autonomy from adults, responded well to this reframing. Instead of snacking on Doritos at lunch, the study subjects chose to really stick it to the man and make healthy food choices instead.
Researchers reported that boys in particular responded positively to the idea of rejecting authority. Which will surprise no one who has ever known a teenage boy.
I heart 3-D printing
Fifty-two years ago, a South African surgeon named Dr. Christiaan Barnard took a heart from one (deceased) human and successfully transplanted it into another (live) human. Now, Israeli researchers could relegate Dr. Barnard’s recycled-cardiac-parts approach to the medical history museum’s hall of obsolete approaches, next to the leeches and the wax barber-surgeon.
In a claimed first, Tel Aviv University scientists have “printed” a fully vascularized, engineered human heart. The organ is crafted from a cellular slurry of a patient’s own fat cells turned into pluripotent stem cells. With collagen and glycoproteins as structural printing “ink,” the researchers mixed in the stem cells and printed their 3-D heart. The cells differentiated into cardiac and endothelial cells, complete with a medical first: vascularized and perfusable heart tissue.
Unlike Barnard’s allogeneic approach, building from a patient’s own cellular material can eliminate the risk of organ rejection, the heart’s creators say.
Next on the heart-printers’ punch list: getting the cells to contract in unison to form a pumping unit. Then testing it in animals. Oh, and creating something a bit larger than their initial rabbit-sized heart.
And then? Who knows? Perhaps even Dorothy’s friend the Tin Man can finally get an autologous, printed replacement for that allogeneic, heart-shaped clock.
Larger portions of food for thought
In the world of nutrition science, there’s a concept known as self-regulation, which suggests that people have an innate ability to consume only as many calories as they need. Studies have shown that, in adults anyway, self-regulation can be circumvented by something known as the portion-size effect, which is the tendency to eat more when larger portions are served.
But is the same thing true for small children? Let’s find out.
Researchers provided a group of 3- to 5-year-old children with all their meals and snacks for two 5-day periods. During one of the periods, the portions were 50% larger than the other period. The children were allowed to eat as much of each meal/snack as they wanted, and any leftovers were weighed to determine actual calorie intake.
The data showed that the children ate 16% more food and consumed 18% more calories when they were given the larger portions.
So, we already knew that if you give adults more food, they’ll eat more. And now we know that if you give children more food, they’ll eat more. Could this be the end of self-regulation?
Maybe it would work if you gave the little tykes something besides food. Maybe you could give them … money. Round up a few hundred children, put them together in a big room, and throw money at them.
Oh, right, that experiment is already underway. It’s called Congress.
It’s the end of the world as we ... zzzzz
Of all the countries to take refuge in during an apocalypse, Switzerland has to be at the top of the list. Its mountainous terrain is a natural barrier to any zombie horde that’s heard that Swiss brains are as delicious as their chocolate. Not only that, the Swiss government stockpiles essential resources to sustain its people during times of war or emergency.
All in all, it’s a pretty good deal.
Well, it’s a good deal so long as you don’t require a morning cup of coffee to stay fresh as you fight off armies of the undead, as the Swiss government has decreed that coffee is nonessential for life and will stop stockpiling it.
According to the Federal Office for National Economic Supply, “Coffee is not vital. ... that is, coffee contains almost no calories and therefore does not make any contribution to food security from a nutritional point of view.” Harsh words for a beverage that the Swiss consume at a rate of 9 kg per year, three times more than the British and twice that of Americans.
If the recommendation passes, the 3-month emergency supply, an amount topping 15,000 tons, would be returned to the corresponding manufacturers, who would pass the corresponding savings back to the consumer.
So, there’s some good news as the zombies breach your defenses because your guards fell asleep: At least the coffee was cheaper before the world ended.
Sticking it to the (junk-food) man
Fight the power – the power, in this case, being Ronald McDonald and his brethren.
In a new effort to convince teens to reject junk food and make healthier choices, researchers found that one surefire way to achieve this was to play on the natural teen desire to reject authority and rebel. Parents of teens across the country don’t know whether to rejoice or groan.
The study, published this week, found that an effective way to combat junk food marketing was to frame companies as corporate overlords and figures of authority who take advantage of vulnerable populations (so, the truth). The teens, who value social justice and autonomy from adults, responded well to this reframing. Instead of snacking on Doritos at lunch, the study subjects chose to really stick it to the man and make healthy food choices instead.
Researchers reported that boys in particular responded positively to the idea of rejecting authority. Which will surprise no one who has ever known a teenage boy.
I heart 3-D printing
Fifty-two years ago, a South African surgeon named Dr. Christiaan Barnard took a heart from one (deceased) human and successfully transplanted it into another (live) human. Now, Israeli researchers could relegate Dr. Barnard’s recycled-cardiac-parts approach to the medical history museum’s hall of obsolete approaches, next to the leeches and the wax barber-surgeon.
In a claimed first, Tel Aviv University scientists have “printed” a fully vascularized, engineered human heart. The organ is crafted from a cellular slurry of a patient’s own fat cells turned into pluripotent stem cells. With collagen and glycoproteins as structural printing “ink,” the researchers mixed in the stem cells and printed their 3-D heart. The cells differentiated into cardiac and endothelial cells, complete with a medical first: vascularized and perfusable heart tissue.
Unlike Barnard’s allogeneic approach, building from a patient’s own cellular material can eliminate the risk of organ rejection, the heart’s creators say.
Next on the heart-printers’ punch list: getting the cells to contract in unison to form a pumping unit. Then testing it in animals. Oh, and creating something a bit larger than their initial rabbit-sized heart.
And then? Who knows? Perhaps even Dorothy’s friend the Tin Man can finally get an autologous, printed replacement for that allogeneic, heart-shaped clock.
Larger portions of food for thought
In the world of nutrition science, there’s a concept known as self-regulation, which suggests that people have an innate ability to consume only as many calories as they need. Studies have shown that, in adults anyway, self-regulation can be circumvented by something known as the portion-size effect, which is the tendency to eat more when larger portions are served.
But is the same thing true for small children? Let’s find out.
Researchers provided a group of 3- to 5-year-old children with all their meals and snacks for two 5-day periods. During one of the periods, the portions were 50% larger than the other period. The children were allowed to eat as much of each meal/snack as they wanted, and any leftovers were weighed to determine actual calorie intake.
The data showed that the children ate 16% more food and consumed 18% more calories when they were given the larger portions.
So, we already knew that if you give adults more food, they’ll eat more. And now we know that if you give children more food, they’ll eat more. Could this be the end of self-regulation?
Maybe it would work if you gave the little tykes something besides food. Maybe you could give them … money. Round up a few hundred children, put them together in a big room, and throw money at them.
Oh, right, that experiment is already underway. It’s called Congress.
It’s the end of the world as we ... zzzzz
Of all the countries to take refuge in during an apocalypse, Switzerland has to be at the top of the list. Its mountainous terrain is a natural barrier to any zombie horde that’s heard that Swiss brains are as delicious as their chocolate. Not only that, the Swiss government stockpiles essential resources to sustain its people during times of war or emergency.
All in all, it’s a pretty good deal.
Well, it’s a good deal so long as you don’t require a morning cup of coffee to stay fresh as you fight off armies of the undead, as the Swiss government has decreed that coffee is nonessential for life and will stop stockpiling it.
According to the Federal Office for National Economic Supply, “Coffee is not vital. ... that is, coffee contains almost no calories and therefore does not make any contribution to food security from a nutritional point of view.” Harsh words for a beverage that the Swiss consume at a rate of 9 kg per year, three times more than the British and twice that of Americans.
If the recommendation passes, the 3-month emergency supply, an amount topping 15,000 tons, would be returned to the corresponding manufacturers, who would pass the corresponding savings back to the consumer.
So, there’s some good news as the zombies breach your defenses because your guards fell asleep: At least the coffee was cheaper before the world ended.
ICYMI: Anti-CD4 antibody maintains viral suppression in HIV patients post ART
according to results from a small, nonrandomized, open-label, phase 2 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019 Apr 17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1802264).
We reported on this story at the 2017 Conference on Retroviruses & Opportunistic Infections before it was published in the journal. Find our coverage at the link below.
according to results from a small, nonrandomized, open-label, phase 2 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019 Apr 17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1802264).
We reported on this story at the 2017 Conference on Retroviruses & Opportunistic Infections before it was published in the journal. Find our coverage at the link below.
according to results from a small, nonrandomized, open-label, phase 2 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019 Apr 17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1802264).
We reported on this story at the 2017 Conference on Retroviruses & Opportunistic Infections before it was published in the journal. Find our coverage at the link below.
FROM THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
TNF-alpha, adiponectin potential biomarkers for PsA, psoriasis differentiation
High plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)–alpha and adiponectin can be used to differentiate patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, according to Wen-Qing Li, PhD, of Brown University, Providence, R.I., and his associates.
In a research letter published in the British Journal of Dermatology, the investigators detailed an analysis of 180 patients with psoriasis only and 143 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from the Psoriatic Arthritis and Psoriasis Follow-up Study. Patients in both groups had a mean age of 51 years. Plasma levels of interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, TNF-alpha, leptin, total adiponectin, and high-molecular-weight (HMW) adiponectin were assessed as potential biomarkers by ultrasensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or immunoturbidimetric assay.
Median TNF-alpha plasma levels were higher in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (3.27 vs. 1.32 pg/mL–1), while total and HMW adiponectin levels were lower in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (4.66 vs. 5.36 mcg/mL–1; 2.58 vs. 3.01 mcg/mL–1). After logistic regression, TNF-alpha (adjusted odds ratio, 2.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.41-3.61) and total adiponectin (aOR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.39-0.96) remained significantly associated as biomarkers. HMW adiponectin maintained marginal significance (aOR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.41-1.01).
“Further large-scale investigation in a prospective setting of patients with PsO [psoriasis] would be warranted, if a clinically useful screening test is to be developed for risk prediction of PsA based on circulating biomarkers,” the investigators concluded.
Two study authors reported consulting with or advising numerous pharmaceutical companies.
SOURCE: Li W-Q et al. Br J Dermatol. 2019 Jan 29. doi: 10.1111/bjd.17700.
High plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)–alpha and adiponectin can be used to differentiate patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, according to Wen-Qing Li, PhD, of Brown University, Providence, R.I., and his associates.
In a research letter published in the British Journal of Dermatology, the investigators detailed an analysis of 180 patients with psoriasis only and 143 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from the Psoriatic Arthritis and Psoriasis Follow-up Study. Patients in both groups had a mean age of 51 years. Plasma levels of interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, TNF-alpha, leptin, total adiponectin, and high-molecular-weight (HMW) adiponectin were assessed as potential biomarkers by ultrasensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or immunoturbidimetric assay.
Median TNF-alpha plasma levels were higher in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (3.27 vs. 1.32 pg/mL–1), while total and HMW adiponectin levels were lower in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (4.66 vs. 5.36 mcg/mL–1; 2.58 vs. 3.01 mcg/mL–1). After logistic regression, TNF-alpha (adjusted odds ratio, 2.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.41-3.61) and total adiponectin (aOR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.39-0.96) remained significantly associated as biomarkers. HMW adiponectin maintained marginal significance (aOR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.41-1.01).
“Further large-scale investigation in a prospective setting of patients with PsO [psoriasis] would be warranted, if a clinically useful screening test is to be developed for risk prediction of PsA based on circulating biomarkers,” the investigators concluded.
Two study authors reported consulting with or advising numerous pharmaceutical companies.
SOURCE: Li W-Q et al. Br J Dermatol. 2019 Jan 29. doi: 10.1111/bjd.17700.
High plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)–alpha and adiponectin can be used to differentiate patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, according to Wen-Qing Li, PhD, of Brown University, Providence, R.I., and his associates.
In a research letter published in the British Journal of Dermatology, the investigators detailed an analysis of 180 patients with psoriasis only and 143 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from the Psoriatic Arthritis and Psoriasis Follow-up Study. Patients in both groups had a mean age of 51 years. Plasma levels of interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, TNF-alpha, leptin, total adiponectin, and high-molecular-weight (HMW) adiponectin were assessed as potential biomarkers by ultrasensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay or immunoturbidimetric assay.
Median TNF-alpha plasma levels were higher in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (3.27 vs. 1.32 pg/mL–1), while total and HMW adiponectin levels were lower in patients with PsA, compared with those with psoriasis (4.66 vs. 5.36 mcg/mL–1; 2.58 vs. 3.01 mcg/mL–1). After logistic regression, TNF-alpha (adjusted odds ratio, 2.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.41-3.61) and total adiponectin (aOR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.39-0.96) remained significantly associated as biomarkers. HMW adiponectin maintained marginal significance (aOR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.41-1.01).
“Further large-scale investigation in a prospective setting of patients with PsO [psoriasis] would be warranted, if a clinically useful screening test is to be developed for risk prediction of PsA based on circulating biomarkers,” the investigators concluded.
Two study authors reported consulting with or advising numerous pharmaceutical companies.
SOURCE: Li W-Q et al. Br J Dermatol. 2019 Jan 29. doi: 10.1111/bjd.17700.
FROM THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY
Proportion of women speaking at medical conferences rises over decade
The proportion of women speaking at medical conferences in the United States and Canada increased significantly between 2007 and 2017, while the proportion at surgical specialty conferences lagged noticeably behind, according to new research.
“Although female representation at academic meetings has been identified as an important gender equity issue, the proportion of conference speakers who are women has not yet been systematically measured across different medical subspecialties,” wrote Shannon M. Ruzycki, MD, and her colleagues from the University of Calgary (Alta.). The report is in JAMA Network Open.
Using the Web of Science Conference database, the investigators identified 181 conferences and 701 unique meetings (40 in 2007, 104 in 2013, 115 in 2014, 124 in 2015, 137 in 2016, and 181 in 2017). The list of names from each meeting program was analyzed by the Gender Balance Assessment Tool to identify the likely proportion of female speakers by assigning a probability of each name belonging to a gender, based on social media data.
In 2007, the proportion of female speakers was 24.6% , which increased to 34.1% by 2017, an average increase of 0.97% per year. The range of female speakers at each meeting ranged from 0% to 82.6%, with 82 (12%) of the 701 meetings having more than 50% female speakers. The proportion of female speakers was slightly less than the proportion of female doctors in the United States and Canada in 2007 (26.1%), but was slightly greater than the proportion of female doctors in 2015 (32.4%).
During the study period, the proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences was significantly lower than that for medical specialty conferences (20.1% in 2007 and 28.4% in 2017 vs. 29.9% in 2007 and 38.8% in 2017). While the number of speakers at medical meetings in 2015 matched the proportion of doctors in the United States and Canada in that year, the proportion of speakers at surgical meetings was noticeably higher than the number of female surgeons.
“We hypothesize that the low proportion of female speakers at medical conferences reflects broader gender inequity within the medical profession, particularly in subspecialties where the majority of physicians are men. It has been shown that the presence of female role models in male-dominated career streams can increase engagement of young women,” the investigators wrote. “Exposure to female speakers at medical conferences may be a means of encouraging female medical students and residents to choose specialties that have historically been male dominated. Strategies to promote inclusivity of female speakers at academic conferences may therefore represent an important opportunity to influence gender equity within medicine,” they concluded.
The University of Calgary funded the study. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Ruzycki SM et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Apr 12. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2103.
The proportion of women speaking at medical conferences in the United States and Canada increased significantly between 2007 and 2017, while the proportion at surgical specialty conferences lagged noticeably behind, according to new research.
“Although female representation at academic meetings has been identified as an important gender equity issue, the proportion of conference speakers who are women has not yet been systematically measured across different medical subspecialties,” wrote Shannon M. Ruzycki, MD, and her colleagues from the University of Calgary (Alta.). The report is in JAMA Network Open.
Using the Web of Science Conference database, the investigators identified 181 conferences and 701 unique meetings (40 in 2007, 104 in 2013, 115 in 2014, 124 in 2015, 137 in 2016, and 181 in 2017). The list of names from each meeting program was analyzed by the Gender Balance Assessment Tool to identify the likely proportion of female speakers by assigning a probability of each name belonging to a gender, based on social media data.
In 2007, the proportion of female speakers was 24.6% , which increased to 34.1% by 2017, an average increase of 0.97% per year. The range of female speakers at each meeting ranged from 0% to 82.6%, with 82 (12%) of the 701 meetings having more than 50% female speakers. The proportion of female speakers was slightly less than the proportion of female doctors in the United States and Canada in 2007 (26.1%), but was slightly greater than the proportion of female doctors in 2015 (32.4%).
During the study period, the proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences was significantly lower than that for medical specialty conferences (20.1% in 2007 and 28.4% in 2017 vs. 29.9% in 2007 and 38.8% in 2017). While the number of speakers at medical meetings in 2015 matched the proportion of doctors in the United States and Canada in that year, the proportion of speakers at surgical meetings was noticeably higher than the number of female surgeons.
“We hypothesize that the low proportion of female speakers at medical conferences reflects broader gender inequity within the medical profession, particularly in subspecialties where the majority of physicians are men. It has been shown that the presence of female role models in male-dominated career streams can increase engagement of young women,” the investigators wrote. “Exposure to female speakers at medical conferences may be a means of encouraging female medical students and residents to choose specialties that have historically been male dominated. Strategies to promote inclusivity of female speakers at academic conferences may therefore represent an important opportunity to influence gender equity within medicine,” they concluded.
The University of Calgary funded the study. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Ruzycki SM et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Apr 12. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2103.
The proportion of women speaking at medical conferences in the United States and Canada increased significantly between 2007 and 2017, while the proportion at surgical specialty conferences lagged noticeably behind, according to new research.
“Although female representation at academic meetings has been identified as an important gender equity issue, the proportion of conference speakers who are women has not yet been systematically measured across different medical subspecialties,” wrote Shannon M. Ruzycki, MD, and her colleagues from the University of Calgary (Alta.). The report is in JAMA Network Open.
Using the Web of Science Conference database, the investigators identified 181 conferences and 701 unique meetings (40 in 2007, 104 in 2013, 115 in 2014, 124 in 2015, 137 in 2016, and 181 in 2017). The list of names from each meeting program was analyzed by the Gender Balance Assessment Tool to identify the likely proportion of female speakers by assigning a probability of each name belonging to a gender, based on social media data.
In 2007, the proportion of female speakers was 24.6% , which increased to 34.1% by 2017, an average increase of 0.97% per year. The range of female speakers at each meeting ranged from 0% to 82.6%, with 82 (12%) of the 701 meetings having more than 50% female speakers. The proportion of female speakers was slightly less than the proportion of female doctors in the United States and Canada in 2007 (26.1%), but was slightly greater than the proportion of female doctors in 2015 (32.4%).
During the study period, the proportion of female speakers at surgical specialty conferences was significantly lower than that for medical specialty conferences (20.1% in 2007 and 28.4% in 2017 vs. 29.9% in 2007 and 38.8% in 2017). While the number of speakers at medical meetings in 2015 matched the proportion of doctors in the United States and Canada in that year, the proportion of speakers at surgical meetings was noticeably higher than the number of female surgeons.
“We hypothesize that the low proportion of female speakers at medical conferences reflects broader gender inequity within the medical profession, particularly in subspecialties where the majority of physicians are men. It has been shown that the presence of female role models in male-dominated career streams can increase engagement of young women,” the investigators wrote. “Exposure to female speakers at medical conferences may be a means of encouraging female medical students and residents to choose specialties that have historically been male dominated. Strategies to promote inclusivity of female speakers at academic conferences may therefore represent an important opportunity to influence gender equity within medicine,” they concluded.
The University of Calgary funded the study. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Ruzycki SM et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Apr 12. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2103.
FROM JAMA NETWORK OPEN
Key clinical point: By 2015, the proportion of women presenting at medical conferences matched the proportion of women practicing medicine in the United States and Canada.
Major finding: Between 2007 and 2017, the proportion of women presenting at medical conferences rose from 24.60% to 34.10%, an average increase of 0.97% per year.
Study details: A review of presenters from 181 conferences and 701 unique meetings.
Disclosures: The University of Calgary funded the study. The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
Source: Ruzycki SM et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Apr 12. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2103.
Eye bees, reversed innards, and the DNA van
Bees? Really?
This might be one of the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the weirdest thing this Taiwanese woman has ever seen, considering it’s BEES in her EYE.
One more time, for the people in the back: BEES. IN. HER. EYE.
The unfortunate 29-year-old, identified as He, reported to a hospital with sharp eye pain that she assumed was from dirt in her eyes after a vigorous afternoon of gardening near a grave site. Upon close inspection, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology noticed “something that looked like insect legs” floating in her eye and carefully pulled them out. (Pause to dry heave.)
The eyeball intruders turned out to be “sweat bees,” which nest in fallen trees and are attracted to human perspiration. The bees flew into He’s eye and started drinking from her tear duct, which was overproducing because of the immense pain she was in. Miraculously, He’s eyeball and sight are intact, and she’s expected to make a full recovery. The bees are fine, too.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, sweat bees live all over the world. We’re wearing goggles outside from now on.
Flip it and reverse it
Imagine you’re back in your med school days, happily dissecting another cadaver. You pop the body open and … every organ is in the wrong place??
That’s what some students at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) experienced recently. They discovered their body donor had a condition called situs inversus with levocardia – meaning, her heart was in the right place (hah), but all her abdominal organs were transposed right to left. The deceased woman was Rose Marie Bentley, who had died at the ripe old age of 99 without ever knowing she had this condition.
What makes her remarkable is barely anyone with this condition lives to adulthood. Professor Cam Walker of OHSU estimates the odds are 1 in 50 million, and there are only two other known cases of older patients who lived with situs inversus. After taking a look at their mother’s medical records, Bentley’s children noted that the surgeon who removed her appendix recorded its strange location, but no one raised any alarm.
Ms. Bentley lived a full and happy life, despite her organs being a mirror image of virtually everyone else’s anatomy. Some people are just special.
Turn that smile upside down
Service with a smile. Put on a happy face. Let a smile be your umbrella. Seems like good advice, but don’t let these cliches fool you. They are all examples of surface acting – hiding feelings of annoyance behind a mask of forced pleasantness – and they’re not really good for you. At least not if you work with the public and are required to be nice.
Investigators at Penn State University and the University at Buffalo looked at survey data from nurses, teachers, and people in food service and found that they were more likely to drink after work than those who did not interact with the public on a regular basis. “In these jobs, there’s also often money tied to showing positive emotions and holding back negative feelings. Money gives you a motivation to override your natural tendencies, but doing it all day can be wearing,” lead investigator Alicia Grandey said in a written statement.
Personality also plays a part. The risk of increased drinking is greater for surface actors who are more impulsive. And it is stronger still for impulsive people who “also worked in jobs where employees have one-time service encounters with customers, like a call center or coffee shop, rather than relationships, like health care or education,” the investigators said.
They suggested that businesses could give their employees more autonomy, but we’ve got another idea. There are lots of awards for real actors, so how about one for surface actors? They could call it the Oscar … Mayer. Best performance in serving a drive-thru customer who smoked a little too much marijuana. Creative achievement while helping a credit card applicant who still doesn’t understand after being told the same thing five times. Stunt coordination while helping a patient use a bedpan (the “turn the other cheek” award). Choreography to get out of bed every day to face the blank stares of sullen teenagers (the “Lord, give me strength” award). The “okay, we get the picture, you can stop with the awards” award.
That’s not the ice cream truck
Any story that starts with strange men in white, unmarked vans is never going to end well. Especially when that strange man is offering $20 in exchange for DNA samples.
However, this is the situation that Louisville, Ky., finds itself in. According to WAVE3 News, the aforementioned men have been cruising the poorer neighborhoods of the city for a couple of months, offering money to anyone who belongs to Passport Health. Cheek swabs are collected, no questions are asked, and the person walks out with 20 extra dollars.
This is already shady territory, but to make things worse, Passport Health has denied any affiliation. And when asked by one of their customers, the men reported being with Freedom Health. The number the customer was given? Of course it didn’t work.
The cherry on top of the shady cake? According to a professor from the University of Louisville interviewed by WAVE3, the swabs can be used to test for only certain kinds of cancer, and those tests aren’t even commercially available yet. What, you mean this was all a scam? We’re shocked! SHOCKED!
Bees? Really?
This might be one of the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the weirdest thing this Taiwanese woman has ever seen, considering it’s BEES in her EYE.
One more time, for the people in the back: BEES. IN. HER. EYE.
The unfortunate 29-year-old, identified as He, reported to a hospital with sharp eye pain that she assumed was from dirt in her eyes after a vigorous afternoon of gardening near a grave site. Upon close inspection, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology noticed “something that looked like insect legs” floating in her eye and carefully pulled them out. (Pause to dry heave.)
The eyeball intruders turned out to be “sweat bees,” which nest in fallen trees and are attracted to human perspiration. The bees flew into He’s eye and started drinking from her tear duct, which was overproducing because of the immense pain she was in. Miraculously, He’s eyeball and sight are intact, and she’s expected to make a full recovery. The bees are fine, too.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, sweat bees live all over the world. We’re wearing goggles outside from now on.
Flip it and reverse it
Imagine you’re back in your med school days, happily dissecting another cadaver. You pop the body open and … every organ is in the wrong place??
That’s what some students at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) experienced recently. They discovered their body donor had a condition called situs inversus with levocardia – meaning, her heart was in the right place (hah), but all her abdominal organs were transposed right to left. The deceased woman was Rose Marie Bentley, who had died at the ripe old age of 99 without ever knowing she had this condition.
What makes her remarkable is barely anyone with this condition lives to adulthood. Professor Cam Walker of OHSU estimates the odds are 1 in 50 million, and there are only two other known cases of older patients who lived with situs inversus. After taking a look at their mother’s medical records, Bentley’s children noted that the surgeon who removed her appendix recorded its strange location, but no one raised any alarm.
Ms. Bentley lived a full and happy life, despite her organs being a mirror image of virtually everyone else’s anatomy. Some people are just special.
Turn that smile upside down
Service with a smile. Put on a happy face. Let a smile be your umbrella. Seems like good advice, but don’t let these cliches fool you. They are all examples of surface acting – hiding feelings of annoyance behind a mask of forced pleasantness – and they’re not really good for you. At least not if you work with the public and are required to be nice.
Investigators at Penn State University and the University at Buffalo looked at survey data from nurses, teachers, and people in food service and found that they were more likely to drink after work than those who did not interact with the public on a regular basis. “In these jobs, there’s also often money tied to showing positive emotions and holding back negative feelings. Money gives you a motivation to override your natural tendencies, but doing it all day can be wearing,” lead investigator Alicia Grandey said in a written statement.
Personality also plays a part. The risk of increased drinking is greater for surface actors who are more impulsive. And it is stronger still for impulsive people who “also worked in jobs where employees have one-time service encounters with customers, like a call center or coffee shop, rather than relationships, like health care or education,” the investigators said.
They suggested that businesses could give their employees more autonomy, but we’ve got another idea. There are lots of awards for real actors, so how about one for surface actors? They could call it the Oscar … Mayer. Best performance in serving a drive-thru customer who smoked a little too much marijuana. Creative achievement while helping a credit card applicant who still doesn’t understand after being told the same thing five times. Stunt coordination while helping a patient use a bedpan (the “turn the other cheek” award). Choreography to get out of bed every day to face the blank stares of sullen teenagers (the “Lord, give me strength” award). The “okay, we get the picture, you can stop with the awards” award.
That’s not the ice cream truck
Any story that starts with strange men in white, unmarked vans is never going to end well. Especially when that strange man is offering $20 in exchange for DNA samples.
However, this is the situation that Louisville, Ky., finds itself in. According to WAVE3 News, the aforementioned men have been cruising the poorer neighborhoods of the city for a couple of months, offering money to anyone who belongs to Passport Health. Cheek swabs are collected, no questions are asked, and the person walks out with 20 extra dollars.
This is already shady territory, but to make things worse, Passport Health has denied any affiliation. And when asked by one of their customers, the men reported being with Freedom Health. The number the customer was given? Of course it didn’t work.
The cherry on top of the shady cake? According to a professor from the University of Louisville interviewed by WAVE3, the swabs can be used to test for only certain kinds of cancer, and those tests aren’t even commercially available yet. What, you mean this was all a scam? We’re shocked! SHOCKED!
Bees? Really?
This might be one of the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the weirdest thing this Taiwanese woman has ever seen, considering it’s BEES in her EYE.
One more time, for the people in the back: BEES. IN. HER. EYE.
The unfortunate 29-year-old, identified as He, reported to a hospital with sharp eye pain that she assumed was from dirt in her eyes after a vigorous afternoon of gardening near a grave site. Upon close inspection, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology noticed “something that looked like insect legs” floating in her eye and carefully pulled them out. (Pause to dry heave.)
The eyeball intruders turned out to be “sweat bees,” which nest in fallen trees and are attracted to human perspiration. The bees flew into He’s eye and started drinking from her tear duct, which was overproducing because of the immense pain she was in. Miraculously, He’s eyeball and sight are intact, and she’s expected to make a full recovery. The bees are fine, too.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, sweat bees live all over the world. We’re wearing goggles outside from now on.
Flip it and reverse it
Imagine you’re back in your med school days, happily dissecting another cadaver. You pop the body open and … every organ is in the wrong place??
That’s what some students at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) experienced recently. They discovered their body donor had a condition called situs inversus with levocardia – meaning, her heart was in the right place (hah), but all her abdominal organs were transposed right to left. The deceased woman was Rose Marie Bentley, who had died at the ripe old age of 99 without ever knowing she had this condition.
What makes her remarkable is barely anyone with this condition lives to adulthood. Professor Cam Walker of OHSU estimates the odds are 1 in 50 million, and there are only two other known cases of older patients who lived with situs inversus. After taking a look at their mother’s medical records, Bentley’s children noted that the surgeon who removed her appendix recorded its strange location, but no one raised any alarm.
Ms. Bentley lived a full and happy life, despite her organs being a mirror image of virtually everyone else’s anatomy. Some people are just special.
Turn that smile upside down
Service with a smile. Put on a happy face. Let a smile be your umbrella. Seems like good advice, but don’t let these cliches fool you. They are all examples of surface acting – hiding feelings of annoyance behind a mask of forced pleasantness – and they’re not really good for you. At least not if you work with the public and are required to be nice.
Investigators at Penn State University and the University at Buffalo looked at survey data from nurses, teachers, and people in food service and found that they were more likely to drink after work than those who did not interact with the public on a regular basis. “In these jobs, there’s also often money tied to showing positive emotions and holding back negative feelings. Money gives you a motivation to override your natural tendencies, but doing it all day can be wearing,” lead investigator Alicia Grandey said in a written statement.
Personality also plays a part. The risk of increased drinking is greater for surface actors who are more impulsive. And it is stronger still for impulsive people who “also worked in jobs where employees have one-time service encounters with customers, like a call center or coffee shop, rather than relationships, like health care or education,” the investigators said.
They suggested that businesses could give their employees more autonomy, but we’ve got another idea. There are lots of awards for real actors, so how about one for surface actors? They could call it the Oscar … Mayer. Best performance in serving a drive-thru customer who smoked a little too much marijuana. Creative achievement while helping a credit card applicant who still doesn’t understand after being told the same thing five times. Stunt coordination while helping a patient use a bedpan (the “turn the other cheek” award). Choreography to get out of bed every day to face the blank stares of sullen teenagers (the “Lord, give me strength” award). The “okay, we get the picture, you can stop with the awards” award.
That’s not the ice cream truck
Any story that starts with strange men in white, unmarked vans is never going to end well. Especially when that strange man is offering $20 in exchange for DNA samples.
However, this is the situation that Louisville, Ky., finds itself in. According to WAVE3 News, the aforementioned men have been cruising the poorer neighborhoods of the city for a couple of months, offering money to anyone who belongs to Passport Health. Cheek swabs are collected, no questions are asked, and the person walks out with 20 extra dollars.
This is already shady territory, but to make things worse, Passport Health has denied any affiliation. And when asked by one of their customers, the men reported being with Freedom Health. The number the customer was given? Of course it didn’t work.
The cherry on top of the shady cake? According to a professor from the University of Louisville interviewed by WAVE3, the swabs can be used to test for only certain kinds of cancer, and those tests aren’t even commercially available yet. What, you mean this was all a scam? We’re shocked! SHOCKED!
FDA to expand opioid labeling with instructions on proper tapering
The Food and Drug Administration is making changes to opioid analgesic labeling to give better information to clinicians on how to properly taper patients dependent on opioid use, according to Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
, such as withdrawal symptoms, uncontrolled pain, and suicide. Both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer guidelines on how to properly taper opioids, Dr. Throckmorton said, but more needs to be done to ensure that patients are being provided with the correct advice and care.
The changes to the labels will include expanded information to health care clinicians and are intended to be used when both the clinician and patient have agreed to reduce the opioid dosage. When this is discussed, factors that should be considered include the dose of the drug, the duration of treatment, the type of pain being treated, and the physical and psychological attributes of the patient.
Other actions the FDA is pursuing to combat opioid use disorder include working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on guidelines for the proper opioid analgesic prescribing for acute pain resulting from specific conditions or procedures, and advancing policies that make immediate-release opioid formulations available in fixed-quantity packaging for 1 or 2 days.
“The FDA remains committed to addressing the opioid crisis on all fronts, with a significant focus on decreasing unnecessary exposure to opioids and preventing new addiction; supporting the treatment of those with opioid use disorder; fostering the development of novel pain treatment therapies and opioids more resistant to abuse and misuse; and taking action against those involved in the illegal importation and sale of opioids,” Dr. Throckmorton said.
Find the full statement by Dr. Throckmorton on the FDA website.
The Food and Drug Administration is making changes to opioid analgesic labeling to give better information to clinicians on how to properly taper patients dependent on opioid use, according to Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
, such as withdrawal symptoms, uncontrolled pain, and suicide. Both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer guidelines on how to properly taper opioids, Dr. Throckmorton said, but more needs to be done to ensure that patients are being provided with the correct advice and care.
The changes to the labels will include expanded information to health care clinicians and are intended to be used when both the clinician and patient have agreed to reduce the opioid dosage. When this is discussed, factors that should be considered include the dose of the drug, the duration of treatment, the type of pain being treated, and the physical and psychological attributes of the patient.
Other actions the FDA is pursuing to combat opioid use disorder include working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on guidelines for the proper opioid analgesic prescribing for acute pain resulting from specific conditions or procedures, and advancing policies that make immediate-release opioid formulations available in fixed-quantity packaging for 1 or 2 days.
“The FDA remains committed to addressing the opioid crisis on all fronts, with a significant focus on decreasing unnecessary exposure to opioids and preventing new addiction; supporting the treatment of those with opioid use disorder; fostering the development of novel pain treatment therapies and opioids more resistant to abuse and misuse; and taking action against those involved in the illegal importation and sale of opioids,” Dr. Throckmorton said.
Find the full statement by Dr. Throckmorton on the FDA website.
The Food and Drug Administration is making changes to opioid analgesic labeling to give better information to clinicians on how to properly taper patients dependent on opioid use, according to Douglas Throckmorton, MD, deputy director for regulatory programs in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
, such as withdrawal symptoms, uncontrolled pain, and suicide. Both the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer guidelines on how to properly taper opioids, Dr. Throckmorton said, but more needs to be done to ensure that patients are being provided with the correct advice and care.
The changes to the labels will include expanded information to health care clinicians and are intended to be used when both the clinician and patient have agreed to reduce the opioid dosage. When this is discussed, factors that should be considered include the dose of the drug, the duration of treatment, the type of pain being treated, and the physical and psychological attributes of the patient.
Other actions the FDA is pursuing to combat opioid use disorder include working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on guidelines for the proper opioid analgesic prescribing for acute pain resulting from specific conditions or procedures, and advancing policies that make immediate-release opioid formulations available in fixed-quantity packaging for 1 or 2 days.
“The FDA remains committed to addressing the opioid crisis on all fronts, with a significant focus on decreasing unnecessary exposure to opioids and preventing new addiction; supporting the treatment of those with opioid use disorder; fostering the development of novel pain treatment therapies and opioids more resistant to abuse and misuse; and taking action against those involved in the illegal importation and sale of opioids,” Dr. Throckmorton said.
Find the full statement by Dr. Throckmorton on the FDA website.
EHR parodies, hangover-free booze, and dubstep repellent
Epic tweets
Need a little break from seeing all your patients? Hop on Twitter for a few minutes – specifically, the Epic parody account.
A frustrated but hilarious physician somewhere on the East Coast created the account a month ago to brighten busy days and help other physicians connect through a shared hatred of Epic, the electronic health records system.
The account’s bio states: “My goal is to create confusion for doctors. I will not rest until doctors do nothing but click buttons. Eye contact is evil.” In continuing with this theme, the account dedicates many Tweets to decrying patient-doctor interaction and encouraging computer-doctor interaction instead. And it rails against the “shaming of data-entry clerks.”
If you, too, are frustrated with Epic or your own EHR system, submit them to @EPICEMRparody with the hashtag #EPICfail. Join the club.
Pour me another, bartender
All the beauty of alcohol without the soul-crushing hangover the next day? I’ll take two on the rocks, please.
For the last decade, visionary, scientist, and soon-to-be hero David Nutt, DM, has been working on a formula for synthetic alcohol that gets you nice and tipsy, but spares you the hangover. Dr. Nutt has created a compound he calls “alcosynth” that triggers a buzz but doesn’t activate the brain receptors that cause the symptoms of hangover.
Dr. Nutt is confident that his alcohol will hit liquor stores in just 5 years. As the director of neuropsychopharmacology at the Imperial College London and a wine bar owner, he knows a bit more than the average person about alcohol and brain receptors. He realized that the brain’s GABA receptors can be stimulated by alcohol and developed his product, Alcarelle, to simulate that stimulation without causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, and other hangover symptoms.
Dr. Nutt guards his process pretty tightly, however – the secret to hangover-free booze is as precious as a golden ticket to the Wonka factory. Everyone’s going to want to get their hands on it!
Don’t just do something, lie there
As the Trump administration tries to implement work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid, the Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Study offers another way to get paid for doing nothing.
This joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the German Space Agency will recreate outer space conditions right here on earth – in Cologne, Germany, to be exact – by having participants lie down for 60 days with their heads 6 degrees below their feet, causing fluids in the body to shift toward their heads and reproducing conditions experienced by astronauts in the absence of gravity.
Unsurprisingly, not just anyone will be considered: Participants have to be women aged 24-55 years with body mass indexes of 19-30 kg/m2 who speak German and don’t smoke. Test subjects have to bathe, eat (the project’s website mentions pancakes), and go to the toilet while lying down, and they will spend 30 minutes a day in the human centrifuge – that’s the artificial gravity part of the study – to counteract the effects of weightlessness. They also will receive an expense allowance of about $18,500.
So, you can earn almost 20 grand as you get waited on, stuffed with pancakes, and massaged while catching up on your reading and relaxing for 2 months. Hmm, we may have gotten this backwards with that work requirement remark. Sounds more like a trial membership into the “1%,” so be sure to keep track of your portfolios.
That’s why mosquitoes don’t go to clubs
There’s not a whole lot of positive things that can be said about mosquitoes, spreaders of such wonderful diseases such as malaria and Zika. But we’ll give them this: They have good taste in music.
Those musical standards were the subject of a study published in Acta Tropica, in which female mosquitoes were starved for 12 hours, introduced to a fresh hamster for an all-you-can-eat buffet and a single male mosquito for reproductive purposes, then subjected to either silence or some extremely loud dubstep music, courtesy of the artist Skrillex. The researchers’ goal was simple: Is loud music an “environmentally friendly” repellent alternative?
In a blow to the egos of dubstep fans everywhere, not only did the mosquitoes forced to listen to Skrillex take longer to start sucking blood from the hamster, they sucked out less blood and made fewer attempts to reproduce with the lone male mosquito. According to the researchers, the so-called music’s aggressive vibrations disrupts the mosquito’s ability to fly and synchronize wing beats.
This is really a good news/bad news situation here. Good news, we’ve found an easy way to drive off a very annoying insect. Bad news, we have to suffer through loud dubstep music. Personally, we’ll take the mosquitoes.
Epic tweets
Need a little break from seeing all your patients? Hop on Twitter for a few minutes – specifically, the Epic parody account.
A frustrated but hilarious physician somewhere on the East Coast created the account a month ago to brighten busy days and help other physicians connect through a shared hatred of Epic, the electronic health records system.
The account’s bio states: “My goal is to create confusion for doctors. I will not rest until doctors do nothing but click buttons. Eye contact is evil.” In continuing with this theme, the account dedicates many Tweets to decrying patient-doctor interaction and encouraging computer-doctor interaction instead. And it rails against the “shaming of data-entry clerks.”
If you, too, are frustrated with Epic or your own EHR system, submit them to @EPICEMRparody with the hashtag #EPICfail. Join the club.
Pour me another, bartender
All the beauty of alcohol without the soul-crushing hangover the next day? I’ll take two on the rocks, please.
For the last decade, visionary, scientist, and soon-to-be hero David Nutt, DM, has been working on a formula for synthetic alcohol that gets you nice and tipsy, but spares you the hangover. Dr. Nutt has created a compound he calls “alcosynth” that triggers a buzz but doesn’t activate the brain receptors that cause the symptoms of hangover.
Dr. Nutt is confident that his alcohol will hit liquor stores in just 5 years. As the director of neuropsychopharmacology at the Imperial College London and a wine bar owner, he knows a bit more than the average person about alcohol and brain receptors. He realized that the brain’s GABA receptors can be stimulated by alcohol and developed his product, Alcarelle, to simulate that stimulation without causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, and other hangover symptoms.
Dr. Nutt guards his process pretty tightly, however – the secret to hangover-free booze is as precious as a golden ticket to the Wonka factory. Everyone’s going to want to get their hands on it!
Don’t just do something, lie there
As the Trump administration tries to implement work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid, the Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Study offers another way to get paid for doing nothing.
This joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the German Space Agency will recreate outer space conditions right here on earth – in Cologne, Germany, to be exact – by having participants lie down for 60 days with their heads 6 degrees below their feet, causing fluids in the body to shift toward their heads and reproducing conditions experienced by astronauts in the absence of gravity.
Unsurprisingly, not just anyone will be considered: Participants have to be women aged 24-55 years with body mass indexes of 19-30 kg/m2 who speak German and don’t smoke. Test subjects have to bathe, eat (the project’s website mentions pancakes), and go to the toilet while lying down, and they will spend 30 minutes a day in the human centrifuge – that’s the artificial gravity part of the study – to counteract the effects of weightlessness. They also will receive an expense allowance of about $18,500.
So, you can earn almost 20 grand as you get waited on, stuffed with pancakes, and massaged while catching up on your reading and relaxing for 2 months. Hmm, we may have gotten this backwards with that work requirement remark. Sounds more like a trial membership into the “1%,” so be sure to keep track of your portfolios.
That’s why mosquitoes don’t go to clubs
There’s not a whole lot of positive things that can be said about mosquitoes, spreaders of such wonderful diseases such as malaria and Zika. But we’ll give them this: They have good taste in music.
Those musical standards were the subject of a study published in Acta Tropica, in which female mosquitoes were starved for 12 hours, introduced to a fresh hamster for an all-you-can-eat buffet and a single male mosquito for reproductive purposes, then subjected to either silence or some extremely loud dubstep music, courtesy of the artist Skrillex. The researchers’ goal was simple: Is loud music an “environmentally friendly” repellent alternative?
In a blow to the egos of dubstep fans everywhere, not only did the mosquitoes forced to listen to Skrillex take longer to start sucking blood from the hamster, they sucked out less blood and made fewer attempts to reproduce with the lone male mosquito. According to the researchers, the so-called music’s aggressive vibrations disrupts the mosquito’s ability to fly and synchronize wing beats.
This is really a good news/bad news situation here. Good news, we’ve found an easy way to drive off a very annoying insect. Bad news, we have to suffer through loud dubstep music. Personally, we’ll take the mosquitoes.
Epic tweets
Need a little break from seeing all your patients? Hop on Twitter for a few minutes – specifically, the Epic parody account.
A frustrated but hilarious physician somewhere on the East Coast created the account a month ago to brighten busy days and help other physicians connect through a shared hatred of Epic, the electronic health records system.
The account’s bio states: “My goal is to create confusion for doctors. I will not rest until doctors do nothing but click buttons. Eye contact is evil.” In continuing with this theme, the account dedicates many Tweets to decrying patient-doctor interaction and encouraging computer-doctor interaction instead. And it rails against the “shaming of data-entry clerks.”
If you, too, are frustrated with Epic or your own EHR system, submit them to @EPICEMRparody with the hashtag #EPICfail. Join the club.
Pour me another, bartender
All the beauty of alcohol without the soul-crushing hangover the next day? I’ll take two on the rocks, please.
For the last decade, visionary, scientist, and soon-to-be hero David Nutt, DM, has been working on a formula for synthetic alcohol that gets you nice and tipsy, but spares you the hangover. Dr. Nutt has created a compound he calls “alcosynth” that triggers a buzz but doesn’t activate the brain receptors that cause the symptoms of hangover.
Dr. Nutt is confident that his alcohol will hit liquor stores in just 5 years. As the director of neuropsychopharmacology at the Imperial College London and a wine bar owner, he knows a bit more than the average person about alcohol and brain receptors. He realized that the brain’s GABA receptors can be stimulated by alcohol and developed his product, Alcarelle, to simulate that stimulation without causing headaches, nausea, dizziness, and other hangover symptoms.
Dr. Nutt guards his process pretty tightly, however – the secret to hangover-free booze is as precious as a golden ticket to the Wonka factory. Everyone’s going to want to get their hands on it!
Don’t just do something, lie there
As the Trump administration tries to implement work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid, the Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Study offers another way to get paid for doing nothing.
This joint effort between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the German Space Agency will recreate outer space conditions right here on earth – in Cologne, Germany, to be exact – by having participants lie down for 60 days with their heads 6 degrees below their feet, causing fluids in the body to shift toward their heads and reproducing conditions experienced by astronauts in the absence of gravity.
Unsurprisingly, not just anyone will be considered: Participants have to be women aged 24-55 years with body mass indexes of 19-30 kg/m2 who speak German and don’t smoke. Test subjects have to bathe, eat (the project’s website mentions pancakes), and go to the toilet while lying down, and they will spend 30 minutes a day in the human centrifuge – that’s the artificial gravity part of the study – to counteract the effects of weightlessness. They also will receive an expense allowance of about $18,500.
So, you can earn almost 20 grand as you get waited on, stuffed with pancakes, and massaged while catching up on your reading and relaxing for 2 months. Hmm, we may have gotten this backwards with that work requirement remark. Sounds more like a trial membership into the “1%,” so be sure to keep track of your portfolios.
That’s why mosquitoes don’t go to clubs
There’s not a whole lot of positive things that can be said about mosquitoes, spreaders of such wonderful diseases such as malaria and Zika. But we’ll give them this: They have good taste in music.
Those musical standards were the subject of a study published in Acta Tropica, in which female mosquitoes were starved for 12 hours, introduced to a fresh hamster for an all-you-can-eat buffet and a single male mosquito for reproductive purposes, then subjected to either silence or some extremely loud dubstep music, courtesy of the artist Skrillex. The researchers’ goal was simple: Is loud music an “environmentally friendly” repellent alternative?
In a blow to the egos of dubstep fans everywhere, not only did the mosquitoes forced to listen to Skrillex take longer to start sucking blood from the hamster, they sucked out less blood and made fewer attempts to reproduce with the lone male mosquito. According to the researchers, the so-called music’s aggressive vibrations disrupts the mosquito’s ability to fly and synchronize wing beats.
This is really a good news/bad news situation here. Good news, we’ve found an easy way to drive off a very annoying insect. Bad news, we have to suffer through loud dubstep music. Personally, we’ll take the mosquitoes.
NIH to undertake first in-human trial of universal influenza vaccine
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, is launching the first in-human trial of a universal influenza vaccine candidate.
The experimental vaccine, H1ssF_3928, is derived from the stem of an H1N1 virus and has a surface made from hemagglutinin and ferritin. By including only the stem of the virus, which changes less than the head, the vaccine should require fewer updates. A similar vaccine made from the same materials was shown to be safe and well tolerated in humans.
The clinical trial (NCT03814720) will be conducted at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., and will gradually enroll at least 53 healthy adults aged 18-70 years. The first 5 participants will receive one 20-mcg intramuscular injection of the vaccine; the other 48 participants will receive two 60-mcg vaccinations 16 weeks apart. Patients will return for 9-11 follow-ups over a 12- to 15-month period, and will provide blood samples for analysis of anti-influenza antibodies.
“Seasonal influenza is a perpetual public health challenge, and we continually face the possibility of an influenza pandemic resulting from the emergence and spread of novel influenza viruses. This phase 1 clinical trial is a step forward in our efforts to develop a durable and broadly protective universal influenza vaccine,” Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in the press release.
Find the full press release on the NIH website.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, is launching the first in-human trial of a universal influenza vaccine candidate.
The experimental vaccine, H1ssF_3928, is derived from the stem of an H1N1 virus and has a surface made from hemagglutinin and ferritin. By including only the stem of the virus, which changes less than the head, the vaccine should require fewer updates. A similar vaccine made from the same materials was shown to be safe and well tolerated in humans.
The clinical trial (NCT03814720) will be conducted at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., and will gradually enroll at least 53 healthy adults aged 18-70 years. The first 5 participants will receive one 20-mcg intramuscular injection of the vaccine; the other 48 participants will receive two 60-mcg vaccinations 16 weeks apart. Patients will return for 9-11 follow-ups over a 12- to 15-month period, and will provide blood samples for analysis of anti-influenza antibodies.
“Seasonal influenza is a perpetual public health challenge, and we continually face the possibility of an influenza pandemic resulting from the emergence and spread of novel influenza viruses. This phase 1 clinical trial is a step forward in our efforts to develop a durable and broadly protective universal influenza vaccine,” Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in the press release.
Find the full press release on the NIH website.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, is launching the first in-human trial of a universal influenza vaccine candidate.
The experimental vaccine, H1ssF_3928, is derived from the stem of an H1N1 virus and has a surface made from hemagglutinin and ferritin. By including only the stem of the virus, which changes less than the head, the vaccine should require fewer updates. A similar vaccine made from the same materials was shown to be safe and well tolerated in humans.
The clinical trial (NCT03814720) will be conducted at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., and will gradually enroll at least 53 healthy adults aged 18-70 years. The first 5 participants will receive one 20-mcg intramuscular injection of the vaccine; the other 48 participants will receive two 60-mcg vaccinations 16 weeks apart. Patients will return for 9-11 follow-ups over a 12- to 15-month period, and will provide blood samples for analysis of anti-influenza antibodies.
“Seasonal influenza is a perpetual public health challenge, and we continually face the possibility of an influenza pandemic resulting from the emergence and spread of novel influenza viruses. This phase 1 clinical trial is a step forward in our efforts to develop a durable and broadly protective universal influenza vaccine,” Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in the press release.
Find the full press release on the NIH website.