The deluge of the use of the term "natural" for product promotion continues unabated. But perhaps it's getting stale because KinderFarms, Jessica Biel's company, is selling stuff like Tylenol and Benadryl with the promise of avoiding "artificial petrochemicals." That ignores the fact that these drugs are all made from just that. Nope, no kindness or farms. Just another misleading ad campaign.
Drugs & Pharmaceuticals
Guess what we don't need: How about an inexpensive, addictive drug called fenethylline (aka captagon) that's pouring out of Syria and addicting hordes of people in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries? If that's not bad enough, it's also used to make jihadist fighters more "effective." There's considerable concern that captagon could be headed to Europe and the U.S. And it's super easy to synthesize. Wonderful.
In 2017 I did an extensive search of Cochrane Reviews that addressed the efficacy (lack, really) of Tylenol (acetaminophen) in controlling pain. With few exceptions, it did little or nothing. In the six ensuing years, there have been more published on the efficacy of the drug. And the message is the same.
A recent article in USA Today proclaimed that we are *this* far away from no longer having working antibiotics, a cataclysmic development that would pose "an existential threat for modern medicine." Is this really true? Let's ask Dr. David Shlaes, one of the foremost experts in the world of antimicrobial science.
Shionogi just purchased Qpex. When I inquired about this, the Qpex folks told me that Shionogi is a company truly committed to the antibiotics space. What I found was truly inspiring! This is a real feel-good story! How often does that happen for antibiotics?
A group of Harvard scientists claims that it has discovered cocktails of certain drugs that will help people live longer. Slow down fellas, you're not even close.
A clinical trial of various schedules for administering the two vaccines found that when they were administered together, "the quantitative and functional antibody responses were marginally lower compared to [COVID-19] booster vaccination alone. Lower protection against COVID-19 with concurrent administration of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination cannot be excluded." Thus, the data are somewhat equivocal, but I'll opt to get the two shots at different times.
There are dozens of fentanyl analogs – mostly illegal – that are being found in street drug samples. But one – para-fluorofentanyl, a drug is now being found left, right, and center.
Two decades after the advent of date rape drugs we now have something conceptually similar but worse. Gangs in New York are using fentanyl to incapacitate bar patrons and then robbing them. This is worse than it sounds. Deaths from incapacitation by date rape drugs were rare; those from fentanyl are not.
Taurine, a dietary supplement, is in the news because of a paper in the journal Science that showed multiple beneficial effects in mice (anti-aging, mental health, weight loss, etc.). Normally, I'm quite skeptical about such claims, but there is some pretty impressive evidence in mouse models, so I'm not so sure. Here's a short lesson on taurine.
Pfizer has just completed phase 3 trials of a new antibiotic that's active against highly resistant Gram-negative infections. It's a real superbug fighter. But what took so long?
A recent prospective study of post-surgical patients confirms what many other studies have already shown: prescribing opioids to control pain carries a very low risk of addiction or misuse.