For years, scientists at the University of Florida have been on a quest to get the FDA to restrict the sale of cold medicines that they say are ineffective. Studies have shown that the ingredient phenylephrine is no better than a placebo.
But seven years after the researchers filed a petition with the agency, the FDA is still dragging its heels, and the drugs are still on the shelves.
My wife and I just rescued six perfectly good tests from the trash! Yes, many COVID-19 tests are effective longer than pharma companies originally wrote, and you can easily find the new date by looking up your test and its Lot Code at the FDA.
[U.S. Food and Drug Administration]
After stopping the program last September, the US government is now offering another set of four free home rapid antigen tests to each household. Here’s how you can order yours.
Just in case you missed Elon Musk’s “show and tell” about brain-computer interfaces last night, we have the key details for you, viewable in less than 15 minutes.
If the video isn’t for you, Verge science editor Mary Beth Griggs can break it all down here.
During the presentation, Musk said that the company had submitted most of the paperwork needed for a human clinical trial to the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates medical devices in the United States. Previously, Musk had said that he’d hoped for human trials to begin in 2020, and then 2022. Now, that’s slipped to at least 2023.
The number of organ donors jumps 21 percent per day during motorcycle rallies, compared to before and after the rallies. That’s six additional transplant recipients for every two rallies!
The FDA seems to be having a hard time enforcing its own rules. STAT reporter Nicholas Florko went to drug stores and gas stations in a six-mile radius around FDA headquarters, and managed to buy an armful of illegal products — from skin lightening cream to sexual supplements.
New job perk just dropped: a “career coach” who also serves as the personal therapist for a large swath of the company. From Vice:
In his telling, Lerner worked for FTX not exactly as a therapist and certainly not as a doctor, but as a coach, even as he maintained independent doctor-patient relationships with about 20 employees and prescribed medication to at least some of them.
In this capacity, Lerner said, he was focused on the well-being of the company’s employees, not only concerning himself with their careers, but their personal (and even dating) lives, at times searching out potential “dating options” for company employees in the Bahamas in order to keep them at the company without relying on in-office romance.
As temperatures drop, covid, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are all getting more people sick. There are vaccines available for two of those diseases, but despite decades of research, there hasn’t been a way to protect against RSV, a respiratory illness that can cause serious illness, especially in young infants.
However, as Nicole Wetsman explains, that might be different next year.
It’s the latest state to limit children’s access to gender-affirming healthcare. Read more about the bad science behind these bans here.
[The New York Times]
Most people don’t know what early pregnancy actually looks like. That complicates abortion discussions.
Ransomware attacks still plague our healthcare system. Steve Cagle’s cybersecurity company is trying to prevent them.
The company came to notoriety on TikTok where it advertised its mental health services—especially those focused on ADHD. Since then it’s come under regulatory scrutiny for its Adderall and Xanax prescription.
