Happy Wednesday - We deliver hard hitting news like Domino's delivers pizza.
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Once you’ve done that, let's dig into this week's headlines.
Health Canada Unleashes the Beast 🌶️
What Patients Might Say This Week 🙊
Dr. Strange X
How You Can Break Into AirBnB (Investing) 🪴
Quick Bites 🍉
💼 Job Opportunities
Health Canada Unleashes the Beast 👹
This summer saw energy drinks like Monster pulled from shelves, putting Health Canada in the hot seat as businesses brace for a 25% price increase in natural health products (NHPs).
What happened: There are currently 200,000 NHPs on the market - vitamins, minerals, herbals, homeopathic and traditional medicines, and probiotics. New regulation over NHPs calls for updated labeling, inclusion of allergens in listings, and immediate recall. Producers of NHPs are also subject to reimbursing Health Canada for monitoring and approval, costing them an estimated 5 billion. Thoughts & prayers for that one friend who’s part of a vitamin pyramid scheme on IG 🙏
Why it's interesting: To the chagrin of Chads & Brads, the popular energy drink, Monster, has been recalled for exceeding 180mg of caffeine per serving. But wait a minute, energy drinks aren’t even classified as NHPs…what’s next, Coke Zero? Doctors everywhere malfunction.
Some products have evaded the recall on a technicality. Unlike energy drinks, classified as supplemented food products, energy shots are categorized as NHPs and can have up to 200mg of caffeine per serving. The recall reflects a closer adherence to accurate labeling, while highlighting a lack of standardization.
Postcall’s take:
🗒️ unlike relationships, NHPs need labels: a 2021 auditor general's report, which took a random sample of NHPs, found that 88% used false or misleading advertising, raising concerns over consumer protection and the promotion of unproven treatments.
🚫 contaminants and undeclared ingredients: in 2022, sexual health enhancement supplements in BC were found to have sildenafil, an erectile dysfunction drug that must be prescribed by a physician and should be avoided in those with heart failure.
🤔 accessibility vs. regulation: Striking a balance between providing Canadians with access to a wide range of NHPs and regulating these products for safety and efficacy will be a hot topic this fall in Parliament. Some argue that overly stringent regulations may limit consumer choice, while others emphasize the need for robust oversight.
Bottom line: Unleash your Beast and make sure to ask patients if they take any NHPs as part of your medication review - as high as 7 in 10 patients are on ‘em. Keep in mind that hospitals in Canada will now be required to report adverse effects associated with NHPs.
Details at Government of Canada Recalls
What Patients Might Say This Week 🙊
“Should I stop touching grass?”
An 8cm roundworm was removed from an Australian woman’s brain after she presented with depression and forgetfulness. Scientists believe she was infected with the parasite from touching grass.
“Is my surgery postponed?”
Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital is closing one of its 10 ORs from Sept. 5 to Oct. 27, resulting in the delay of 160 cases due to nursing shortages
“Will Semaglutide help with my heart?”
A new RCT from the NEJM found that patients with HFpEF and BMI of ≥ 30, treated with semaglutide 2.4 mg, had larger reductions in symptoms and physical limitations, greater improvements in exercise function, and greater weight loss than placebo.
Oh, and Novo Nordisk (the Danish maker of Ozempic and Wegovy) becomes Europe’s most valuable company at $428 billion, exceeding LVMH.
Dr. Strange X or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Generative AI 🧑💻
Elon Musk puts the X into eXtremely veXing disregarding eXpectations that X Corp. won’t eXcavate and eXploit users’ info.
What happened? X Corp. — the social media artist formerly known as Twitter — quietly announced it’ll collect users’ biometric and other personal data to train its AI models.
To control his treasure trove of Tweets, Musk is suing companies that scrape X’s data and charging others exorbitant prices.
X’s “walled garden” (something Musk criticized in other companies) is a controversial, strategic move, given other sites that’ll prevent or monetize their data so it can’t be extracted.
Musk wants X to become an "everything app.” God complex, much?
What’s their angle? Musk wants to throw his AI hat back into the virtual ring. Last March, he launched X.AI Corp. to rival OpenAI and Google and to “understand the universe.” He’s low-key like that. Maybe he’s still sore about ChatGPT, being the co-founder who left before its success. Or X losing ad revenue after accusations of him ignoring hate speech. Or when his giant flashing X sign was removed from the former Twitter building due to safety concerns and, let’s be honest here, being very tacky.
How do we protect our data?
We could stop using the internet and giving away our data for free. 🤭
Watch what we post, especially pictures. That’s how X collected the biometric data it’s getting sued over.
Keep your eyes on privacy policies, people. Or hope somebody else does.
When AI features are optional (like for Zoom, after the outcry they’d use private data to train their AI), opt out.
We don’t know about you folks, but we’re super stoked about X Corp.’s generative AI that’ll ponder important questions such as “How far is the drive from Miami to Florida?”* and “If my body is 60% water, why don’t I evaporate?” (seriously, these are real tweets)
Breaking Into AirBnB 🪴
Becoming a seven-figure doctor is so much more than just matching to ophthalmology 👀 . The top earning doctors make their money work for them, and one way they invest is via real estate. 🏡
And there’s one word that can still turn heads faster than any other: cashflow. A cash-flow positive property means that it’s able to cover all its cash requirements (mortgage, maintenance, etc.). But just how much revenue could a one-bedroom expect to generate in Vancouver? 💵
Summer: $8,000 - 12,000/mo
Winter: $6,000 - 8,000/mo
Sure beats renting!
But setting up and operating an AirBnB business isn’t a walk in the park, or everyone would be doing it. You need to understand which stratas permit AirBnBs, the best locations, how to apply for a business license, and more in order to operate legally and profitably.
But that’s where Vivian can help - If you’re curious to learn more about building your real estate empire, Viv can give you the low-down on making your down payment work for you. Mention Postcall, and she’ll send you her secret-not-so-secret list of AirBnB-friendly buildings around Vancouver!
🍔 Quick Bites
Smell the rain at Burning man. Trevor Hughes/USA Today Network
1: 🌆 Tech billionaires are spending $800M to create a new city next to San Fransisco. But they must convince voters first, and not everyone is feeling tech-friendly.
2: 🧧 UBC researchers find an arbitrage opportunity: invest $7,500 and get $8,277 back. Here’s how one doctor is already doing it.
3: 📈 Premiers call on the Bank of Canada to stop raising interest rates. “In your role as governor, I urge you to consider the full human impact of rate increases and not further increase rates at this time.” This morning (Sept 6), BOC indeed held key interest rates steady.
4: 📖 It’s UNESCO’s International Literacy Day this Friday - it’s never too late to get pause Netflix and get started (if only for one day). Here’s what we’re reading.
5: The 70,000 people stranded at Burning Man after heavy rains swamped the only road out, were finally given the green light on Sunday to leave (not with controversy, though). 🚒
6: The first full year of school with ChatGPT is about to start, and schools are split on whether to use it as a new tool, or to ban it completely. 🚫
7: 🍦 And here’s the ice cream cone monopoly you never knew about.
Job Opportunities 💼
Role: Surgeon-in-Chief and Chief, Perioperative Services
Location: Sick Kids Hospital (Toronto, ON)
Compensation: $500,000 - $750,000
Role: Sleep Medicine Specialist Physician
Location: Cerebra Medical Ltd. (Winnipeg, MB)
Compensation: $350,000 - $400,000
Role: Diagnostic Radiologist
Location: Prince George, BC
Compensation: $800,000+
Role: Anesthesiologist
Location: Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital (Fredricton, NB)
Compensation: $392,000+ $100,000 provincial incentive
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