Author Archives: Justine88

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Tampa Bay Times: Could Tampa’s own Joe Redner shake up the medical marijuana industry?

In a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Health, Tampa strip club owner Joe Redner says he has a right to own marijuana plants for medicinal uses. Redner, 77, is a lung cancer patient. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

Joe Redner wants to juice his own marijuana, harvested from his back yard.

The 77-year-old strip club owner with stage 4 lung cancer already has a recommendation from his state-certified physician to do it. But the Florida Department of Health won’t let him.

In an unprecedented lawsuit challenging the state’s interpretation of Amendment 2 and asserting what he says is his own constitutional right, Redner is fighting to grow medical marijuana from his home in Tampa. After months of litigation against the health department, ending in a short trial last month, the judge is expected to rule any day.

But whatever the outcome, Redner’s case could pave the way for other advocates. His is just the first of several lawsuits aimed at giving patients greater access to the alternative medicine that more than 70 percent of Floridians voted for in 2016.

“Hopefully some of this litigation will give more patients the access they want and deserve,” said Ben Pollara, executive director of marijuana advocacy organization Florida for Care and one of the authors of the medical marijuana amendment. “That was the whole point of passing the law.”

The outspoken Redner and other critics across the state say the health department continues to create barriers for more than 95,000 registered patients in Florida that could benefit from marijuana.

“The amendment doesn’t distinguish between the types of medical marijuana,” says Luke Lirot, the Clearwater attorney representing Redner. “It’s been six months and the department of health still hasn’t adopted very basic regulations. It’s difficult right now because doctors don’t know what they’re dealing with yet in terms of regulation.”

Redner’s suit claims the state is not following the public’s will, and says the state Constitution, as amended by voters, defines marijuana as “all parts of the plant.”

More lawsuits are already underway. Orlando attorney and marijuana advocate John Morgan will go to trial in Tallahassee next month to challenge the state’s ban on smoking cannabis.

“A single snowflake causes the avalanche. … People like Joe are the snowflakes,” Morgan said, referring to Redner. “One day cannabis will be legal recreationally, and people will grow it in their back yard. When that will happen, I don’t know. But Joe is on the right track and I hope he’s successful.”

Read more here.

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A new way to attack cancer lives inside the shark. But where?

 

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

SARASOTA — Scientist Carl Luer has spent most of his life studying an animal humans inherently fear: sharks.

The predators of the sea have been the villains of thriller tales since the 1974 novel, JawsThey’ve invaded the streets of Los Angeles in the cult classic Sharknado movies.

But Luer, a senior researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, discovered they have more to offer than farfetched story lines. Sharks, it turns out, could hold the key to a promising new cancer treatment in humans.

A potential cure lies somewhere in the shark’s immune system. And after 39 years of working with sharks and their close relatives, skates and sting rays, Luer believes researchers finally may be close to finding it.

They have tried for decades to link the shark’s incredible ability to heal wounds and its fast-acting immune system to human healing. But for Luer, who is also the lab’s founding director of biomedical research, it has been the work of his life.

From a small off-shore laboratory on picturesque Lido Key, he’s one of a few researchers across the globe who have studied the cancer treatment link, and likely for the longest. At almost 70, he hopes he can push his research to the next level — potentially in clinical trials — before he retires or hands it over to the next generation of scientists.

It won’t be easy.

For the past 15 years, Luer and his research partner, Catherine Walsh, have struggled to find the grant funding needed to keep the research alive, and progress has stalled.

“I thought it would have happened by now,” Luer says. “But no one has gotten any further than we have.”

Read more here. 

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Should Florida law require school kids to get the HPV vaccine?

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

During a spring legislative session dominated by school safety concerns, lawmakers left another pressing health issue on the back burner. And, like the Parkland shootings that commanded their attention, it involves life, death and young people.

A bill called the “Women’s Cancer Prevention Act” would have required children entering Florida public schools to receive the vaccine that protects against cervical and other cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infections.

While it didn’t get much traction in the Capitol this time around, the bill is likely to pop up again next year as other states begin to pass and consider similar legislation. It also enjoys overwhelming support from the medical community.

Still, the continuing controversy over the HPV vaccine threatens to stand in the way.

“The introduction of any new vaccine is controversial. But as a country, we seem to forget the benefit of vaccination. The message that we need to get out is that we can prevent multiple cancers in men and women with this vaccine,” said Dr. Anna Giuliano, founding director of the Center for Infection Research in Cancer at Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Center.

Nearly all sexually active adults carry some of HPV’s 170 active strains. Most are harmless, but a few are known to cause cancer. Reproductive cancers of the cervix, vagina, vulva and anus are most common, but HPV is also the cause of 72 percent of oropharyngeal cancers, which can impact the base of the tongue, tonsils and walls of the pharynx.

Because of this, the sexual stigma attached to the vaccine makes it difficult for physicians to talk to worried parents about it. Sometimes, it’s hard to convince them to give the shot to their 10- or 11-year-old child, said Dr. Ellen Daley, a professor studying women’s health at the University of South Florida.

In addition, according to physicians and researchers, anti-vaccination groups have spread fear and misinformation about the vaccination online, with stories of health problems including deaths.

“No, it’s not causing autism and no, it’s not causing your kid to walk backwards,” Daley said. “It’s a very, very researched vaccine, but I think when people are not ready to trust something, there’s nothing you can say to make them change their mind. It’s a tough group to break into.”

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The future of the flu: Will we ever be able to beat it?

Much of the funding and research on the flu is focused on developing a universal vaccine that would target parts of the virus that can't mutate. But real progress on that front is up to 10 years away, doctors and researchers say. [Associated Press (2015)]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

This year’s particularly nasty flu season has doctors and researchers worried about what’s ahead.

Though the number of outbreaks in Florida has declined in recent days, the first six weeks of 2018 saw soaring numbers of flu patients in emergency rooms, urgent care clinics and doctors’ offices — and at rates that far exceeded the last three years. More people than expected died from influenza and pneumonia, including six children. And this year’s shot was only 36 percent effective against the two main flu strains, compared to 40 to 60 percent in past seasons.

Does this mean it’s going to keep getting worse? Will we ever be able to stop it? What is the future of the flu?

The answers are a decade away at best, some researchers say.

“The one thing about flu that you can count on, is that it will be unpredictable,” said Dr. Nicole Marie Iovine, a physician and professor at the University of Florida who specializes in infectious diseases. Iovine said UF Health in Gainesville saw twice as many positive cases of the flu this year than the last busy season in 2014-15.

“The reason that the flu vaccine doesn’t protect us more right now is because the virus is like a moving target,” she said. “It’s mutating constantly, to the point that the common strains we see at the beginning of the season will be different from the ones we see at the end of the season. If you caught the flu last year, you could catch the same strain again this year, because at the molecular level, it’s not really the same virus at all.”

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Tampa Bay Times: Chronic pain sufferers plead for a nuanced approach to opioids (w/video)

By Justine Griffin

 


Will Michele Jacobovitz get out of bed today?

That depends on how many painkillers she has left in her monthly prescription, which sometimes she’s forced to ration. Some mornings are harder than others.

Jacobovitz, 56, has suffered from chronic pain since a 1987 car accident. The Pasco County resident has had 73 surgeries since, from her neck to her ankles, and she has the scars to prove it. In December, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She says it’s impossible to function without popping a highly addictive painkiller with Acetaminophen and Oxycodone components, in the morning. Without it, she says, there are days she can’t get up at all. Or get to the bathroom in time. It can be humiliating.

Jacobovitz says she’s not addicted to painkillers, just absolutely dependent on them.

“It comes down to quality of life,” she said. “I’m not using these drugs to get high. I’m using them so I can have some kind of life. So I can get out of bed. They don’t take my pain away. But they mask it so I can function.”

She is one of many Floridians who suffer from chronic pain and are worried about a government crackdown that would make it even harder to get the prescription drugs they need every day.

Gov. Rick Scott has proposed legislation that aims to put a dent in the opioid epidemic by prohibiting doctors from prescribing more than three days’ worth of opioids — or seven days if doctors can explain why that’s medically necessary.

Under the measure, Florida would share a database of opioid prescriptions with other states and require doctors to routinely check it. Doctors also would be trained on proper prescribing techniques.

“When people think of opioids, they think of addicts and criminals,” Jacobovitz said. “That’s not us.”

Read more here.