Stress is generally associated with negative mental and physical consequences. But can it actually be a healthy, even sought-after phenomenon at times?

The rise in youth vaping has cemented e-cigarettes as a scourge of the tobacco cessation community. The products have been marketed to minors, and Congress is currently reviewing several bills meant to tackle the issue. A House of Representatives panel agreed to levy a new vaping tax on e-cigarette pods, an effort that would raise prices for vaping products in the hopes of making them less appealing and accessible to teens.

As the largest ONS chapter in the United States with more than 2,000 members, the Houston ONS Chapter is primed to make an impact with the state’s lawmakers. In August 2019, chapter members did just that, combining forces with other local chapters for a pilot event featuring ONS policy education and advocacy training deep in the heart of Texas. Almost 100 ONS members participated to get support and education to speak with decision makers about the needs of the profession as well as the patients oncology nurses serve.

I remember my first day as a student nurse technician at an academic medical center as if it was yesterday. It was a Saturday afternoon shift in May 1996 on 10 Green at Harper Hospital in Detroit, MI, on a hematology unit that cared for patients with either malignant hematology (i.e., leukemia and lymphoma) or benign hematology conditions (e.g., sickle cell disease).

On October 23, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved niraparib (Zejula®) for patients with advanced ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer treated with three or more prior chemotherapy regimens and whose cancer is associated with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD)-positive status. HRD is defined by either a deleterious or suspected deleterious BRCA mutation, or genomic instability in patients with disease progression greater than six months after response to the last platinum-based chemotherapy.

E-cigarettes, initially introduced as a potential step-down smoking cessation strategy, have become a pervasive part of American culture—especially among users younger than 18 years of age. The rise in vaping rates has become so alarming that the U.S. surgeon general issued a statement declaring youth e-cigarette use a national epidemic.

When treated with their own nonengineered T cells plus chemotherapy, six of seven patients with inoperable or metastatic pancreatic cancer showed objective responses or stable disease, according to the results of a study reported at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Immune Cell Therapies for Cancer conference in July 2019.

A manufacturing delay leading to a shipping delay caused the October 2019 vincristine shortage, according to a letter Pfizer sent to its customers on October 18; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first reported the shortage on October 16. It affects both the 1 mg/ml and 2 mg/2 ml single-dose ONCO-TAIN™ glass fliptop vials.

Based on the results of the phase III ARAMIS trial that demonstrated significant improvement in metastasis-free survival, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved darolutamide under priority review on July 30, 2019. Darolutamide is approved for nonmetastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer in men receiving concurrent gonadotropin-releasing hormone therapy or who have had bilateral orchiectomy.

After news of the vincristine shortage affecting the cancer community made headlines in several news outlets, the country’s prescription medication issues took center stage again. It’s a sign of larger problem: supply, demand, and drug pricing are all enveloped in the same issue that’s directly affecting patients and their families.