1: Hear, hear! Two Hearing Aids Beat One!

An RCT of 275 older adults with bilateral mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss explored which option is more beneficial: unilateral hearing aid or bilateral hearing aids. Those using a hearing aid in each ear reported increased benefit when compared to just one side, which was also helpful, just not to the same extent. To do away with muffled sounds, the more hearing aids the merrier!

2: A Tale of Two Opioid Agonists

A cohort study of nearly 6K Ontarians who had an opioid overdose in the previous year found that those who started methadone had a significantly lower risk of death than those who started buprenorphine-naloxone. Treatment duration was short with both, although longer with methadone, and there was no meaningful difference in opioid overdose after 1 year. The authors caution that unmeasured differences between the groups could have influenced the results, but the mortality finding makes this one worth watching.

3: Ontario Pharmacists Want a Shot at Prescribing 💉

Ontario pharmacists can administer a growing list of vaccines, but they still can't prescribe them. A new paper looks at whether that should change, noting that pharmacists in 8 of Canada's 13 provinces and territories already have some vaccine-prescribing authority. The authors argue that Ontario's current setup can create extra hoops for patients, particularly when a prescription is needed for private insurance coverage. With pharmacies now administering more publicly funded vaccines in the province, could prescribing be the next scope expansion?

Drug Shortages ⚠️

IZBA (travoprost) 

Newly Identified Drug Safety Risk 🚨

Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate)

A patient wants to quit smoking. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they’ve tried before, the cravings won, and they’re not ready to go through it again. That’s where the pharmacist can make a difference.

Pharmacists are among the most accessible healthcare professionals in Canada, and smoking cessation support can happen right at the pharmacy counter. Depending on the province, pharmacist-led services can include assessing tobacco use and readiness to quit, recommending or prescribing treatment, counselling and follow-up.

That access matters. A Canadian study of community pharmacists noted that pharmacists are particularly well positioned to provide smoking cessation support because of their accessibility, medication expertise and opportunities for repeated contact with patients.

In other words, pharmacists can do much more than help patients choose a quit aid. They can help shape the quit attempt itself.

Current guidance emphasizes shared decision-making and tailoring evidence-based cessation support to the individual patient.

Canada’s 2025 clinical guideline on tobacco smoking cessation strongly recommends that all adults who smoke be encouraged to quit and offered evidence-based interventions. But there’s an important second part: shared decision-making, taking into account the evidence alongside each patient’s values and preferences.

And there’s considerable evidence behind offering support. The guideline reviewed 52 randomized controlled trials of combined pharmacological and behavioural interventions and found they increased smoking cessation compared with usual care or minimal intervention.

Importantly, this guidance applies to adults who smoke whether or not they are currently motivated to quit. So if the person standing at your counter isn’t ready to quit today, that doesn’t have to end the conversation.

The Canadian Pharmacists Association recommends assessing readiness to quit and tailoring behavioural and pharmacological support accordingly. A patient who has tried before, is worried about withdrawal or isn’t ready for complete cessation today may need a different conversation than someone ready to set a quit date.

Instead of only asking “Are you ready to quit?”, consider asking: “What are you ready for?”

Complete cessation remains the goal. But nicotine dependence is complex. Quitting tobacco can take many attempts, and cravings can continue for weeks or even months after someone stops, according to CAMH.

That’s where pharmacists have an advantage: you may see that patient again. Another refill. Another question. Another opportunity to check in, reassess readiness and adjust the plan.

Over the coming months, we’ll dig into the science of nicotine dependence, harm reduction and the growing range of cessation tools available to pharmacists and their patients.

Because when a patient isn’t ready to quit, the conversation doesn’t have to stop there.

1: 💊 A pill nearly doubled survival in advanced pancreatic cancer. The FDA has approved daraxonrasib, a once-daily treatment targeting a mutated protein that fuels tumour growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. Patients taking the pill nearly doubled their median survival time compared with chemotherapy, with fewer severe side effects. The catch? It comes with a price tag of about US$39,800 a month. There’s no Canadian approval yet, but trials are already underway here.

2: 🧬 One gene edit. One year later. LDL is still down by about half. Last year, a one-time CRISPR treatment made headlines for dramatically lowering cholesterol. Now, follow-up results suggest the effect is holding. The treatment works by switching off a liver gene called ANGPTL3, which helps regulate cholesterol and triglycerides. Rather than correcting the underlying cause of high cholesterol, researchers are targeting another biological pathway to bring levels down. Big caveat: this was an early-stage trial of just 15 people, so we're still a long way from replacing the daily statin with a one-time snip.

3: 💊 Health Canada says: don’t start new patients on Tavneos. The agency is reviewing concerns about the integrity of data from the pivotal ADVOCATE trial used to support the approval of avacopan and is advising clinicians not to initiate treatment in new patients while that review is underway. For patients already taking it, clinicians are being asked to reassess continued treatment and discuss the benefits and risks. Tavneos is used alongside standard therapy for adults with severe active granulomatosis with polyangiitis or microscopic polyangiitis. Health Canada says more updates are coming.

🧠 Learn: how to recommend topical analgesics for targeted pain relief, from choosing the right option to understanding the evidence and counselling patients on safe, effective use.

💰 Save: $181 on Bose QuietComfort noise-cancelling headphones, now $299 as part of Best Buy’s Labour Day sale. 

🍳 Make: these high-protein dinners that take 30 minutes or less and, even better, only leave you with one pan to wash.

🎧 Listen: to this podcast on lecanemab, the anti-amyloid Alzheimer drug that arrived in Canada in January, and why its modest benefit and $35,000–$40,000 annual price tag are raising questions about just how useful it will be in practice. 

👻 Watch: how scientists recently found “ghost DNA” from 2 mysterious human ancestors hiding in our genomes, including one lineage dating back nearly 2 million years.

First clue: Ankle bone that communicates with tibia and fibula

Need a rematch? We’ve got you covered. Check out our Crossword Archive to find every puzzle we’ve ever made, all in one place.

Think you crushed it? Challenge your pharmacist friends to beat your time.

Want to reach thousands of Canadian pharmacists every week? Email [email protected] to learn more.