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The Bizarre Americanness of Prescription Drug Commercials
Long before I knew what Ozempic did — or had read the deluge of stories about the drug’s off-label weight loss promise — I knew the Ozempic song. Set to the tune of the ’70s Pilot hit “Magic,” the song from the ad has permanently imprinted the name of the medication in my brain.
That’s the point — it’s probably one of the reasons Ozempic, which was originally developed and is still sold nominally as a diabetes drug, has taken center stage in the current cultural debate over weight-loss medications rather than Wegovy, which is the same drug, made by the same company, but approved for weight loss.
If you are not from the United States (or New Zealand, the only other country that allows drugmakers to market their prescription products directly to consumers), the volume of drug ads on television in America can feel jarring.
When Oprah Winfrey’s bombshell interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle aired in March 2021, the British tuned in, and many were gobsmacked at the number of drug commercials they saw. “American medical adverts are some real dystopian shit how you gonna tell me I might die,” one person tweeted. “American healthcare truly is a business,” remarked another.
U.S. to Test Shots Against Bird Flu Outbreak, as Biden Administration Weighs Poultry Vaccinations
Federal scientists are gearing up to test the first vaccines in poultry against bird flu in years, as Biden administration officials say they have now begun weighing an unprecedented shift in the U.S. strategy to counter the growing outbreak.
A record 58 million birds — mostly commercially-raised poultry — have died in the outbreak so far, according to figures tallied by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service — either killed by the virus or put down in efforts to quash its transmission. Every state has detected the virus spreading among wild birds and 47 have spotted them in poultry.
While the Biden administration has so far not greenlighted the use of vaccines for highly pathogenic avian influenza, several shots had been licensed for potential use in previous outbreaks. Poultry is already regularly vaccinated for other diseases, like infectious bronchitis.
While animal vaccines can take years to be licensed, USDA spokesperson Mike Stepien said some parts of the process can be accelerated for emergencies. It is not yet clear whether vaccines are available that will work against clade 2.3.4.4b, the strain behind the current outbreak in the U.S. The federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response also already maintains a program with vaccine makers to “make and test small quantities” of shots for humans that can be ramped up to large-scale production if needed.
Fungal Infections Are Becoming More Common. Why Isn’t There a Vaccine?
Fungal infections are becoming more common in the United States, but unlike illnesses caused by bacteria or viruses, there’s no vaccine to protect against a fungal threat. Fungi cause a wide range of illnesses in people, from irritating athlete’s foot to life-threatening bloodstream infections.
“These are the most important infectious diseases that you have not heard of,” said Karen Norris, an immunologist and vaccine expert at the University of Georgia. “A vaccine has the potential to move forward and protect a large swath of individuals.”
Norris said that the ultimate goal would be to develop a single vaccine that protects against all fungal infections. But a “pan-fungal” vaccine is incredibly challenging to make.
In preclinical trials, the experimental vaccine developed by Norris and her team was shown to generate antifungal antibodies in animals, including rhesus macaques. With funding support, the researchers could start and finish the human vaccine trials within the next five years, she said.
Doctors Expect More Infections From Tainted Eyedrops That Have Been Recalled
It was late last summer when Dr. Guillermo Amescua started noticing “something weird” about the eye infections he was seeing in his clinic.
Amescua, a cornea specialist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, had been well-versed in using antibiotics to treat bacterial eye infections. The warm Miami weather, he said, often coaxes people into relaxing at the pool or beach before removing their contact lenses, giving bacteria — Pseudomonas, mostly — a perfect breeding ground.
But his arsenal of antibiotics has stopped working. Over the past six months, Amescua said he has encountered at least seven cases of Pseudomonas bacteria resistant to antibiotics, resulting in devastating outcomes.
The new strain is a type Pseudomonas aeruginosa that has never been seen before in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Texas Sues Biden Administration for Asking Pharmacies to Fill Reproductive Health Prescriptions
Texas sued the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to prevent it from asking pharmacies to fill reproductive health prescriptions.
The Biden administration said in July 2022 that refusing to fill prescriptions for drugs that could be used to terminate a pregnancy could violate federal law, regardless of various state bans on the procedure.
This guidance from the Biden administration, which involved roughly 60,000 U.S. retail pharmacies, came days after Biden signed an executive order easing access to services to terminate pregnancies after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortions legal nationwide.
“The Biden Administration knows that it has no legal authority to institute this radical abortion agenda, so now it’s trying to intimidate every pharmacy in America by threatening to withhold federal funds,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement on Tuesday.
The High Cost of Diabetes Drugs Has Led to a Flourishing Black Market
Without anywhere else to turn, online communities dedicated to people living with diabetes often become platforms where those in need of insulin and other diabetes supplies can connect with those who have extra. Sometimes, used equipment — such as insulin pumps and glucose monitors — is for sale at deeply discounted prices.
It’s illegal for people who aren’t prescribing doctors to give someone else prescription medical supplies or drugs in the U.S., but huge hurdles to accessibility have led to a thriving underground trade for diabetes supplies.
In 2021, 1 in 5 adults who use insulin reported rationing their supplies — skipping, delaying or using less than was needed — to save money. Even with insurance, people with diabetes may have steep copays for insulin.
The Inflation Reduction Act took steps to lower those costs, capping the monthly out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month, but the provision applies only to people on Medicare, leaving millions behind.
AstraZeneca Goes for Growth With New Drugs as COVID Sales Wane
AstraZeneca (AZN.L) on Thursday said it was poised to grow in 2023 and beyond, banking on its burgeoning line-up of cancer, metabolic and rare disease drugs to pick up the pace from dwindling COVID product sales.
Its shares rose as much as 5% to be the second-best performer in London’s blue-chip FTSE 100 (.FTSE) index, on track for their best day in a year.
CEO Pascal Soriot said the firm was on a path to deliver at least 15 new medicines this decade and said it expects to kick off at least 30 new late-stage clinical trials in 2023.
Why Europe’s Drug Shortages May Get Worse
When Ignasi Biosca-Reig heard there were shortages of amoxicillin in Spain, he quickly added shifts at his drug company’s factories to boost production of the popular antibiotic. But a few extra shifts was as far as he could go.
Much as he would have liked to significantly increase supplies, Biosca-Reig said he couldn’t justify investing millions of euros in new production lines unless he was paid more for the generic drug to cover sharply rising costs.
But, like many European countries, Spain set the price manufacturers are paying for pediatric amoxicillin when the generic version of the drug was first launched in the country two decades ago, and it has barely budged since. “It’s a non-business,” said Biosca-Reig, chief executive of Spanish drugmaker Reig Jofre (RJFE.MC). “We wanted to react, but we had a problem,” he said. “The costs go up, the price remains the same.”
According to 13 European manufacturers and six generic drug industry associations and trade groups who spoke with Reuters, many firms are struggling to make enough money to justify making antibiotics at all — let alone increase production.
