BACKGROUND AND SUPPORT FOR THIS NEW SERIES

Having spent 40 years with the United States Pharmacopeial Convention on various Expert Committees and Expert Panels as a volunteer, I began my service in the areas supporting the pharmaceutical industry, specifically in pharmaceutical analysis, and reviewing chromatographic methods of analysis in monographs submitted by the pharmaceutical industry and later on the "Nomenclature and Labeling" and "Packaging, Stability and Distribution" Expert Committees followed later by the Pharmacy Compounding Expert Committees.

It was in the latter 10 to 20 years of my involvement with the Pharmacy Compounding Expert Committees that we had numerous committee discussions on how to make the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) more user-friendly, how to educate pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on the wealth of information contained in the USP, and how it impacts their practice, in both dispensing and compounding. There is a lot of useful information in the USP in addition to Chapters <795>, <797>, and <800> that is important and useful, but it tends to be overlooked as many are not aware of all that the USP contains.

The purpose of this series over the next several weeks is to:

• discuss what is in the USP,
• how it can be accessed, and
• how it can support your pharmacy dispensing and compounding practices.

Next week, the discussion will be on how and why the USP was started.

Loyd V. Allen, Jr., PhD, RPh
Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding
Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy Twenty-second edition

Did You Know (On Making Decisions) ...The following?

"An executive is a person who can, without the facts, make quick decisions which occasionally are right..." Anon

"Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work." (J.G. Pollard).

"Decision of character will often give to an inferior mind command over a superior." ( W. Eirt)

Thoughts for the Week!

"Nothing in the world is more haughty than a man of moderate capacity when once raised to power." (Wessenburg)

"Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings." (Publilius Syrus)

Upcoming IJPC COVID Article Questions

The questions below pertain to the upcoming IJPC article titled "Compounding for the Treatment of COVID-19 and Long COVID, Part 4: The Legacy of Chronic COVID".

1. What is the current (i.e., June 2023) interim federal working definition of "long COVID" that has been established by collaboration among diverse agencies and organizations (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, various U.S. medical societies), individuals in participating patient groups, and U.S. government or nongovernment experts?
2. Approximately what percentage of COVID-19 survivors will experience long-COVID symptoms after their initial recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection?
3. Which long-lasting inflammatory mechanisms may be contributing factors in the development of long-COVID symptoms?
4. According to which rationale may toll-like receptor (TLR4) antagonists be part of an effective treatment plan for patients with long COVID?
5. Which agents or TLR4 antagonists that may mitigate the downstream effects of COVID-TLR4 interaction are currently being investigated in that regard?
6. Which evidence suggests that treatment with naltrexone hydrochloride could benefit people with long COVID?

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From Out of the Past

Substitutes
Are like a girdle
They find some jobs
They just
Can't hurdle.
     Burma-Shave