“I'm not great at the advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?”

This is what ‘Friends’ actor Matthew Perry’s character Chandler Bing was known for. He was known for being funny. However, he had his own struggles in his personal life and those struggles were acute depression. He was treating it with ketamine infusion therapy which is legal in the US and the UK.

What is Ketamine infusion therapy?

Ketamine is an anaesthetic used to treat depression, anxiety and pain under supervised and controlled medical settings. However, it does have its side effects, which can lead to distortion of sight, sound and time. It can also produce calming and relaxing effects.

Ketamine increases a person’s heart rate and blood pressure. If overdosed, it can leave users confused and agitated and can cause them to hurt themselves without even realising it. It can also lead to liver damage and bladder problems.

However, when used in moderation and under the supervision of medical doctors, it can treat depression where traditional antidepressants have failed.

Prof Rupert McShane, a University of Oxford psychiatrist who runs an NHS ketamine treatment clinic told BBC that ketamine “probably turns off the area of the brain that is involved in disappointment.”

Can Ketamine Infusion Therapy Kill Someone?

In simple terms, it cannot, be if the dosage is given in a controlled setting and as prescribed. Ketamine infusion therapy uses drugs in small doses than those used for anaesthesia. It acts faster than traditional anti-depressants, but the effects also wear off way quickly. Which is why it is important to monitor patients’ mental state for relapsing back into depression and discouraging them from overdosing on it.

There are ways of giving people ketamine. One of the ways is through “infusing”, which means to use an IV drip. However, injections, nasal sprays and capsules are also methods used to give people ketamine.

Since the dosage of ketamine used in the infusion treatment is small, it being the reason of actor Perry’s death was ruled out. The medical examiner also noted that Perry’s last ketamine infusion therapy session happened more than a week before his death, which means by the time he had died, it must have worn off.

So, What Happened To Perry?

Though Perry’s last session was more than a week before, his post-mortem showed that his blood contained a high concentration of ketamine. He had died of the “acute effects” of ketamine.

If it was not his session, then how did he get ketamine?

Prosecutors alleged that his assistant gave him at least 27 shots of ketamine in four days before his death, reported BBC.

Perry has been open about his personal struggles and this is what the doctors and dealers used against him. Martin Estrada, the US attorney for California’s Central District told the BBC that people took advantage of his condition. They charged him 165 times more than what vials of ketamine cost.

Names that have come up include Dr Salvador Plasencia, drug dealers “Ketamine Queen” aka Jasveen Sangha and Eric Fleming, and Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.

Who Are These Names And What Did They Do?

Ketamine Queen or Sangha supplied drugs that led to Perry’s death. Her home was a “drug-selling emporium,” said Estrada. More than 80 vials of ketamine, and thousands of pills including methamphetamine, cocaine and Xanax were allegedly found in her house known as the “Sangha Stash House.”

Sangha is known to deal with high-end celebs and was a “major source of supply for ketamine to others as well as Perry,” said Estrada.

Dr Plasencia called Perry a “moron” while charging him $2,000 for vials that cost only $12. He sold Perry 20 vials of ketamine between September and October 2023, costing $55,000.

He was the one who taught Iwamasa, who had no medical knowledge to inject the drug. This is after he knew that “Perry’s ketamine addiction was spiralling out of control,” as per what the investigators told the BBC.

Another dealer Fleming was told by Sangha to “delete all our messages.” While Fleming pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute drugs unlawfully, he also allegedly messaged Sangha: “Please call...Got more info and want to bounce ideas off you. I’m 90% sure everyone is protected. I never dealt with [Perry] only his assistant. So the assistant was the enabler.”

The court documents also revealed that he asked Sangha on whether the ketamine stays in your system or “is it immediately flushed out.”

Dr Pepper, Bots, Cans

The people who allegedly exploited Perry used coded language for ketamine and called it “Dr Pepper”, “bots”, or “cans.”

Selling overpriced drugs, taking advantage of Perry’s mental condition and falsifying medical records to make the drugs given to him look legitimate by Dr Plasencia is what took Perry’s life.

Iwamasa is said to have administered more than 20 shots of ketamine and three on the day Perry died. Whereas ketamine is only administered by a physician. Authorities also found that weeks before Perry’s death, Dr Plasencia allegedly bought 10 vials of ketamine and intended to sell to Perry.

He also injected Perry with a large dose, two days later. This caused him to “freeze up” and spiked his blood pressure.

When I Die, I Want Helping Others To Be The First Thing That’s Mentioned

Perry had always been open about his drug addictions, struggles with alcohol and his depression. He said that his openness would help others who are also struggling and wanted to be remembered by his quote which also is on the homepage of the Mattew Perry Foundation that helps others struggling with the disease of addiction: “When I die, I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned.”

Five arrests have been made in the case so far.

Flu cases are starting to fall, yet experts caution that the United States still faces risks. In the week ending January 10, fifteen more children died from the flu, bringing the total pediatric deaths this season to 32, as per NBC News.

Flu Season: Latest CDC Data

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an 18% drop in confirmed flu cases compared with the previous week. Visits to doctors for respiratory illnesses decreased by more than 5%, and hospitalization rates fell by nearly 55%. Influenza-related deaths, however, rose by 2%.

So far this flu season, the CDC estimates that 18 million people have been infected, including 230,000 hospitalizations and 9,300 deaths.

“It seems like there is some cautious good news that cases are declining,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. “But I’m going to put a giant asterisk on this because that does not mean the worst is behind us.”

Last year, flu cases dipped around this time before climbing again in early February.

Flu Season: State-by-State Variation

CDC data reflect a national trend, but not all states have necessarily reached their peak. “We are not going to all experience this at the same time,” said Beth Carlton, a public health professor at the University of Colorado, as per NBC News. “Nationwide, the trend is downward, but different states and communities may see spikes as the virus spreads.”

Flu often appears first in densely populated areas like New York City before moving to rural regions, but the virus can behave unpredictably.

Flu Season: Impact on Schools

Although flu cases may be falling overall, other winter illnesses such as norovirus, Covid, and strep throat are still causing school closures in states including Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

High flu activity continues in Idaho, New Mexico, New York, and parts of Appalachia, while Montana, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming report lower case numbers.

“The number of people hospitalized for influenza around New Year’s was extremely high—the second highest in the past decade, with last year being the highest,” Carlton said.

Flu Season: A Difficult Flu Season

This year’s severe flu season is driven by a heavily mutated strain of influenza A called H3N2 subclade K. Its mutations make it less similar to the strain used in this year’s vaccine. Influenza-like illnesses, including RSV and Covid, are also unusually high, Nuzzo said.

“Typically these viruses peak at different times, but this year they are peaking together, making the season particularly harsh,” she noted.

While there were concerns that the vaccine would be less effective against subclade K, recent research shows the current flu shot still offers protection, particularly against hospitalization. The vaccine covers three strains: H1N1, H3N2, and one B strain.

Flu Season: Pediatric Risk

As per NBC News, last year marked the deadliest flu season for children since the CDC began tracking pediatric deaths, with 289 children dying—more than during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

“That double peak last season clearly had consequences,” Nuzzo said. “Any decline this season is welcome, but we can’t assume the worst is over.”

Among children eligible for the flu shot whose vaccination status was known, 90% of pediatric deaths occurred in unvaccinated kids.

Following recent CDC guidance, flu shots are no longer recommended for all children, a change from the previous advice that everyone six months and older should be vaccinated annually.

The Saudi Arabian Food and Drug Authority has cleared Anktiva, an IL-15–based immunotherapy created by billionaire physician-scientist Patrick Soon-Shiong and his biotech firm ImmunityBio, for the treatment of bladder cancer and lung cancer. This marks the first time the therapy has received national regulatory approval outside the United States.

The move signals an important global step for Anktiva, which currently holds a limited approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the U.S., the drug is authorised only for patients with BCG-unresponsive, non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) that includes carcinoma in situ. American regulators have so far resisted expanding its use to other bladder cancer subtypes. Saudi regulators, however, have adopted a broader stance, approving Anktiva for two cancer types under their domestic regulatory system.

What Is Anktiva?

Anktiva is an interleukin-15 receptor agonist designed to stimulate the body’s own immune defences. It works by activating and expanding natural killer (NK) cells and memory CD8⁺ T cells, which play a key role in immune surveillance. Unlike chemotherapy or gene-based treatments, Anktiva does not attack tumour cells directly. Instead, it boosts existing immune pathways to help the body recognise and destroy cancer cells.

ImmunityBio describes Anktiva as “the first FDA-approved immunotherapy that activates what’s called a natural killer cell to target and kill non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer cells.” In clinical practice, the drug is used alongside BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) in patients whose NMIBC has not responded to BCG alone. It is administered directly into the bladder through a catheter, followed by a structured maintenance schedule

Clinical Evidence Supporting FDA Approval in NMIBC

The FDA’s approval, issued on April 22, 2024, was based on results from a single-arm clinical study involving 77 patients with BCG-unresponsive stage 0 NMIBC. Participants received intravesical Anktiva combined with BCG, with maintenance therapy continuing for as long as 37 months.

The main efficacy results were as follows:

• Complete response rate: 62%

Durability:

• 58% of patients who responded remained disease-free for at least 12 months
• 40% stayed disease-free for 24 months or longer

For patients facing the prospect of radical cystectomy as the only curative option, these results were considered clinically significant. Still, the absence of a randomised control group has remained a point of contention among regulators and experts.

Regulatory Tension in the United States

Although the FDA approved Anktiva for NMIBC cases involving carcinoma in situ, it declined to extend the indication to patients with papillary-only disease. ImmunityBio pushed back against the decision, arguing that the same clinical data had already been deemed sufficient to support approval in a closely related patient group.

Rachel Sherman, MD, former principal deputy commissioner of the FDA, publicly criticised the agency’s stance, saying: “it is incomprehensible to me that the FDA refuses to file a supplemental BLA, stating the study is not sufficient to support a regulatory review, when it has already approved a product based on that very same study in essentially the same indication and population.”

The FDA has also expressed concerns about how the drug has been marketed. It issued a warning letter to ImmunityBio over promotional materials that cited survival benefits and cystectomy-avoidance rates not supported by robust evidence.

Saudi regulators, by contrast, have taken a more permissive view, approving Anktiva for both bladder and lung cancer and highlighting a willingness to act in areas of high unmet medical need.

With this decision, Saudi Arabia becomes the first country to approve Anktiva beyond NMIBC, potentially placing itself at the forefront of evaluating the therapy’s wider role across multiple cancer types.

Once a rare condition, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) now affects one in three Indians, scientists say.

NAFLD, now called as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), is when excess fat builds up in the liver, unrelated to heavy alcohol use, due to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol.

It ranges from simple fat accumulation to inflammation and damage, which can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis or liver cancer, The disease often has no symptoms and is managed with lifestyle changes such as diet and weight loss.

A JAMA study has now found that about 40 percent of the global population is now suffering from NAFLD, with abdominal obesity identified as its single biggest risk factor. Between 2010 and 2021, India recorded a 13.2 percent increase in age-standardized prevalence, ranking just behind China at 16.9 percent and Sudan at 13.3 percent.

What Did The Study Find?

Researchers found that nearly 70 percent of people with Type 2 diabetes and about 80 percent of those with obesity are affected by NAFLD. They also discovered that NAFLD prevalence is higher in men than in women, with rates of 15,731 per 100,000 population in men compared with 14,310 in women.

Additionally, the disease peaks earlier in men, between 45 and 49 years of age, while women show the highest prevalence between 50 and 54 years.

Why Is NAFLD on the rise?

Experts also note that working long hours at desks without any proper physical activity can lead to weight gain and fat accumulation in the liver.

According to the Union health ministry, the prevalence of the condition could be in the range of 9-53 percent. Multiple other health studies also suggest nearly 40 percent of urban Indians may have some form of fatty liver disease

Hepatologist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as LiverDoc on social media, noted on X that many patients do not realize that timely lifestyle changes can completely reverse the condition. “All it takes is being in charge of your body and health. No shortcuts—go slow and steady,” he wrote.

If left untreated, NAFLD can progress to Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH), where liver inflammation begins. Over time, this inflammation can lead to scarring of the liver, known as fibrosis. Advanced fibrosis results in cirrhosis, which severely affects liver function.

NAFLD can also increase the risk of chronic liver disease, liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma. Many patients diagnosed with liver cancer have a history of untreated fatty liver.