Drug News and Discussions

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Yuli Ban
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Eagerly awaited results of the largest-ever study of psilocybin were announced Tuesday, with Compass Pathways revealing the psychedelic drug was highly efficacious as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Still, the company’s stock price dropped 16.4% by the close of trading, perhaps because of safety concerns among investors.

The Phase 2b study is the largest randomized, controlled, double-blind trial of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms. The company said it found that patients who were given the highest dose, 25 milligrams, had a significant decrease in depressive symptoms compared to those given 1 milligram, which is such a low dose it functions as a placebo.

Overall, 29.1% of patients in the highest-dose group were in remission three weeks after treatment, compared to 7.6% of those in the control group, and more than a quarter of the patients in the 25-milligram arm were still in remission three months after treatment.

Those who received the highest dose also experienced an average reduction on a measure of clinical depression (the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale) that was 6.6 points greater than those who took 1 milligram. Other patients were given a 10-milligram dose, but there was not a statistically significant impact for those patients compared with the 1-milligram arm.
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weatheriscool
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Global antibiotic consumption rates have increased by 46 percent since 2000
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11- ... rcent.html
by University of Oxford
Antibiotic consumption rates grew by 46 percent after 2000, according to findings which also suggest lack of treatment access in some areas.

Global antibiotic consumption rates increased by 46 percent in the last two decades, according to the first study to provide longitudinal estimates for human antibiotic consumption covering 204 countries from 2000 to 2018, published in Lancet Planetary Health on Thursday by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project.

The excess and inappropriate use of antibiotics is an important driver of drug resistant infections, yet data on antibiotic consumption are scarce. GRAM, which includes researchers from the University of Oxford, the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), and the Institute for Health Metric and Evaluation (IHME), used a novel approach that deployed statistical modeling techniques, and incorporated multiple data sources and types, such as large-scale household surveys in low-and middle-income countries, pharmaceutical sales data, and antibiotic consumption data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

The study provides a comparative analysis of total antibiotic consumption rates in humans globally, expressed in the WHO metric of defined daily doses (DDD) per 1000 population per day. This equates to the proportion of people receiving antibiotics on a single day (on each single day in that year) in a given country.
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Yuli Ban
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The political parties known as the "traffic light" coalition are pushing for a change in legislation meaning the sale of cannabis will be legal for consumption purposes, it is suggested. According to German news outlet Der Spiegel, also citing a report by Funke, a representative of the working group tasked with evaluating the policy change said: "We are introducing the controlled distribution of cannabis to adults for recreational purposes in licensed shops."
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Yuli Ban
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The leaders of Germany’s incoming governing parties announced on Wednesday that they have a formal agreement to legalize marijuana and promote broader drug policy harm reduction measures when they take power.

News of a tentative agreement on cannabis first broke last week, but the coalition pact has now been made official.

“We are introducing the controlled supply of cannabis to adults for consumption in licensed stores,” the parties said in a new 118-page agreement, according to a translation. “This controls the quality [of marijuana], prevents the transfer of contaminated substances and guarantees the protection of minors.”
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caltrek
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Genetically Modified Rice Seen as an Ideal Oral Vaccine Against Cholera
by Takahiro Takenouchi
November 25, 2021

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14479828

Introduction:
(The Asahi Shimbun) Imagine grinding grains of rice into a fine powder and placing the mixture in a glass of water to take a gulp, and hey presto, instant immunization against infectious diseases.

Well, that’s the basic premise behind cutting-edge Japanese research to develop an oral vaccine to guard against such emergencies, which seems prescient in light of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the world.

Researchers primarily from the Institute of Medical Science of the University of Tokyo (IMSUT) developed a strain of rice with a protein that works as a vaccine to prevent the onset of cholera symptoms, including diarrhea.

Cholera is spread mostly as a result of ingesting water contaminated with the cholera bacillus, although undercooked seafood is also another source.

The disease, which particularly plagues developing nations, affects up to 4 million people each year with up to 140,000 deaths.
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wjfox
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Recreational Cannabis legalization increases employment in counties with dispensaries

December 02, 2021

Researchers from The University of New Mexico and California Polytechnic University find increased employment, especially in manufacturing, following the opening of legal recreational cannabis dispensaries. They found no evidence of declines in worker productivity, suggesting that any negative effects from cannabis legalization are outweighed by the job growth these new markets create.

https://news.unm.edu/news/recreational- ... spensaries


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caltrek
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With all of the concerns about inflation, the article cited below suggests a good place to look to rein in prices.

Documents Reveal the Secrecy of America's Drug Pricing Matrix
by Bob Herman
December 6, 2021

https://www.axios.com/aon-express-scrip ... 9db08.html

Introduction:
(Axios) American businesses spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on prescription drugs, and the bills keep getting bigger. But some of the companies promising to help rein in those costs prevent employers from looking under the hood.

Why it matters: Documents provided to Axios reveal a new layer of secrecy within the maze of American drug pricing — one in which firms that manage drug coverage for hundreds of employers, representing millions of workers, obscure the details of their work and make it difficult to figure out whether they're actually providing a good deal.

The big picture: Americans spent $370 billion on retail prescription drugs in 2019, and employers shouldered about $166 billion of that, according to federal data.
  • Employer drug spending rose by more than 6% in 2019 and by more than 5% in 2018. Those rising costs have prodded companies to look for savings anywhere they can.
Conclusion:
The bottom line: Employers foot a large chunk of the bill for millions of workers' prescriptions. But secretive contracts, which are nothing new in health care, are blocking employers from understanding whether they are paying reasonable drug prices.
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caltrek
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Horseshoe Crabs are in Danger Because Everyone Wants Their Blood
by Chris Lovenko
December 17, 2021

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/17/228 ... ontroversy

Introduction:
(The Verge) Relying on horseshoe crabs for pharmaceuticals has knock-on effects to other species. As part of the bleeding process, Charles River Laboratories, one of the primary producers of LAL, sequesters crabs in holding pens away from the beach from May to June — the season when they lay eggs. During that window, a female horseshoe crab can lay as many as 80,000 eggs. Environmentalists contend that removing horseshoe crabs from the beach decreases the availability of horseshoe crab eggs as a food source for shorebirds such as the migratory red knot. The population of red knots, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, has dropped 80 percent in recent decades. Conservationists maintain that this decline is linked to a diminished supply of horseshoe crab eggs.

As a result of this linkage, the environmental nonprofits Defenders of Wildlife and the Coastal Conservation League recently notified the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Charles River Laboratories of their intent to sue both entities for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit seeks to protect the red knot’s food source and habitat by asking the state to end Charles River Labs’ practice of penning horseshoe crabs.
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weatheriscool
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Colorado governor pardons 1,351 people for minor marijuana crimes
Source: The Hill
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced on Thursday he has pardoned 1,351 people for minor marijuana possession crimes.

Polis signed an executive order granting individuals pardons for their drug charges, also lifting three commutations and fifteen other individual pardons for prisoners, according to a statement.

Earlier this year, Polis signed into law a bill that allows state residents over the age of 21 to legally possess up to two ounces of marijuana.

That law built on Amendment 64 legalizing marijuana, which was passed in 2012, and another bill authorizing the governor to grant pardons to defendants convicted of possessing up to two ounces of marijuana, according to the statement.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AASi7Xc
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Thailand Becomes First Country in Asia to Decriminalize Marijuana

January 26, 2022

(BANGKOK) — Thailand on Tuesday became the first country in Asia to approve the de facto decriminalization of marijuana, though authorities have left a grey area around its recreational use.

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced that the Narcotics Control Board had approved the dropping cannabis from the ministry’s list of controlled drugs.

The delisting by the ministry’s Food and Drug Administration will now need to be formally signed by the health minister and enters into effect 120 days after its publication in the government gazette. It follows the removal of cannabis — a plant species to which both marijuana and hemp belong — last month from the list of illegal drugs under Thailand’s Narcotics Law.

https://time.com/6142360/thailand-decri ... marijuana/
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