Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
COVID Is Not a Concern for Americans Heading Into Christmas, Other Holidays, Says Survey: ‘Just Another Virus’
Being concerned about spreading COVID-19 is reportedly sooo last season. As the U.S. heads into the fourth holiday season since the pandemic‘s onset, most Americans aren’t worried about COVID-19 spread or prevention during the holidays this year, a new study has revealed.
Many people have not received the latest vaccine, according to KFF’s latest COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey — which could be a reflection of the decreased concern. About half of adults surveyed said they do not plan to get the newest COVID vaccine that was released this fall. This includes three in 10 of those adults who were previously vaccinated.
A quarter of the respondents said they intend to get the latest vaccine — but only two in 10 adults have already received it.
The study by KFF (formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation) also discovered that getting vaccinated isn’t as much of a priority, as 37% of respondents said they’ve been too busy or are waiting until later to get the vaccine.
Drug Ads Must Be More Upfront About Side Effects, FDA Says
The Food and Drug Administration has finalized a long-running effort to require prescription drug ads on TV and radio to clearly lay out potential side effects and when a person should avoid a medicine.
Why it matters: While the number of drug ads has surged and they account for billions of dollars in direct-to-consumer marketing, experts say they primarily rely on emotional appeals and focus on a drug’s benefits over potential risks.
Driving the news: The FDA on Monday outlined five standards, including a requirement that the information be presented in “consumer-friendly language and terminology that is readily understandable.”
Yes, but: The requirements only apply to prescription drugs. Advertising for over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements and other products is policed by the Federal Trade Commission.
Catch up quick: Prescription drug marketing came under increased scrutiny during the opioid epidemic when the addictive nature of prescription painkillers like OxyContin was downplayed. Before that, in the 1990s, risky weight-loss treatments like fen-phen were heavily marketed.
Texas AG Sues Pfizer Over Quality-Control Lapses in Kids’ ADHD Drug
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Pfizer (PFE.N) and its supplier Tris Pharma of providing children’s ADHD medicine that it knew might be ineffective to the state’s Medicaid insurance program for low-income people, in a lawsuit unsealed on Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in Harrison County, Texas District Court, alleges that Pfizer and Tris manipulated quality-control testing for the drug Quillivant XR in order to obtain passing results from tests it was required to perform under federal law between 2012 and 2018. Properly done tests frequently showed that the drug failed to dissolve as it was supposed to, a sign that it would not be released in the body as expected, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also alleged that Pfizer, despite knowing of the quality-control issues, persuaded Texas’ Medicaid program to add Quillivant to its list of preferred drugs. Paxton alleged that many Texas families complained that Quillivant failed to work.
Pfizer and Tris, which manufactured the drug for Pfizer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit stems from a whistleblower complaint by Tarik Ahmed, who worked as Tris’ head of technology from 2013 to 2017.
The U.S. Worked Tirelessly to Fight AIDS and COVID. Why Not Fentanyl?
For those who follow drug use trends, 1979 was known as the high water mark of dangerous and illegal drug use, with 14.1% of our population regularly abusing drugs. To almost no headlines, we actually beat our 1979 apex of regular drug use in the data that came out this time last year. With the release of this year’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we have beat our record again. We now have over 16% of Americans regularly using these poisons — and they are dying in record numbers. While we surpassed our 1979 use record by nearly 20%, we are seeing a greater than 3,000% increase of drug poisoning deaths.
And yet, despite these horrific milestones, you never hear about the fentanyl crisis, outside of an occasional story here and there on border policy debates. It’s not because America doesn’t know how to highlight a public health crisis.
Now, for perspective, consider that we lost 110,000 Americans to drug poisonings last year, an increase from 106,000 the year before. That’s more than double the AIDS crisis at its height. We are losing more Americans to drug deaths than we ever did to AIDS, and it’s not even close.
Or consider the COVID-19 pandemic: We shut down schools, we shut down after-school programs, we enforced masking of children, we shamed. For COVID, we messaged everywhere to everyone, though the impact was mostly felt by our children. Yet, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we lost about four times more children to drug poisonings than COVID, for which we upended children’s and parents’ lives wholesale.
A Golden Age of Vaccines Is Here. What It Means for You.
Roll up your sleeves. Effective new vaccines have hit the market for everything from pneumonia to shingles to RSV to, of course, COVID-19. And that’s just the beginning. There were 258 vaccines in development as of 2020, according to a report from trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA.
Pharmaceutical companies are currently developing everything from personalized cancer vaccines that could cost tens of thousands per patient to vaccines that prevent developing-world diseases like malaria or tuberculosis. Improved flu, pneumonia, and meningitis vaccines will also be available in your neighborhood pharmacy.
Scientists are testing vaccines to prevent a virus believed to cause multiple sclerosis in some people. Someday, vaccines could routinely treat acne, protect against peanut allergies, and even prevent heart disease or help treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Growing Number of Americans Believe Ivermectin Can Treat COVID
A growing number of Americans think that ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment, according to a recent survey from a university.
About 26% of respondents believe that the drug — long used to treat parasites — can treat the virus, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. That’s up from 10% who thought the same in September 2021.
In social media posts and in statements, the FDA has often said that ivermectin shouldn’t be used to treat the virus. Several of those comments triggered a lawsuit from doctors, who argued that the FDA shouldn’t be making recommendations and that its role is to approve drugs. Some individuals have also filed lawsuits against hospitals to force medical officials to allow its use for treating COVID-19.
Dr. Pierre Kory, who said he frequently prescribes ivermectin for COVID-19, told The Epoch Times that the FDA’s position on ivermectin “is one of the most glaring examples of the corruption of modern evidence-based medicine.”
Biohaven Hopes to Muscle in on Ozempic With a Different Type of Weight Loss Drug
Ozempic, Wegovy have become the pharmaceutical drugs of the moment thanks to their powerful weight loss effects. Nearly half of Americans have said they would take one of these so-called GLP-1 agonists, which are part of a market projected to be worth as much as $100 billion by 2030.
However, these in-demand drugs still have drawbacks, from unpleasant side effects to high price tags. They can also cause loss of lean tissue as well as fat, said Peter Ackerman, head of clinical development at Biohaven.
The Connecticut-based drugmaker sold its portfolio of migraine medicines to Pfizer for $11.6 billion and spun out its remaining research into a standalone company. Along with clinical-stage candidates for epilepsy and OCD, Biohaven is investigating a weight loss drug that works differently than GLP-1s.
Biohaven thinks it may have an option that could strike a better balance between weight loss and muscle preservation. A myostatin inhibitor called taldefgrobep alfa, the experimental drug was licensed from Bristol Myers Squibb in 2022. In preclinical animal testing, the candidate led to weight loss and increased lean tissue.
Delay of Eye Drop Recall Highlights FDA’s Impotence on the Issue
It took nearly three weeks for a maker of eye drops to recall its products after the Food and Drug Administration requested a recall. There have been no reports of injuries, but some key lawmakers are arguing the time it took the FDA to coax a voluntary recall shows the agency should be given the power to force them.
Eye drops must be sterile because drugs applied to the eyes bypass some of the body’s natural defenses.
FDA inspectors found unsanitary conditions at a facility in India that makes over-the-counter eye drop products that multiple U.S. retailers and distributors sell under their own brand names. Those brand names include CVS Health, Rite Aid, and Target’s Up & Up.
Moderna Loses a COVID Vaccine Patent in Europe Amid Heated Clash With BioNTech, Pfizer
With litigation spanning many countries, the COVID-19 vaccine giants remain engaged in a heated patent war. In the latest twist, Pfizer’s Comirnaty partner BioNTech chalked up a win as the European Patent Office (EPO) snatched back one of Moderna’s patents, ruling it invalid.
The patent in question protects “respiratory virus vaccines,” according to its listing in the European Patent Register. Opposers to the patent include BioNTech and Pfizer, as well as Sanofi, the listing notes.
The decision “is an important one as we believe that this and others of Moderna’s patents do not meet the requirements for grant and should never have been granted,” BioNTech added.
Last year, Moderna initiated litigation against BioNTech and Pfizer in the U.S. and Germany, following up with cases in the Netherlands and the U.K. Most recently, the company filed suits in Dublin, Ireland and the Brussels Commercial Court Belgium.
