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Antidepressants

New Study Finds Antidepressants And Antipsychotics Can Be An Alternative To Opioids

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Opioids have long been used for pain relief in emergency departments, especially in America. Paralleling these prescriptions has been a major opioid crisis in the US, which first began in the 90s and has lasted to this day. Many healthcare workers from all branches of the medical industry have looked towards alternatives to opioids to help reduce the national impact, and most recently it has been found that medications used as antidepressants and antipsychotics, could be a solution. 

According to a new recently published study, these non-opioid medications, that are already available within emergency departments, could also provide pain relief. Akash Shanmugam, a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and first author of the study, told the Guardian that the goal of this research was to “create a very targeted list for specific pain conditions” that can help physicians all over the country create new “toolboxes” for themselves to treat patients. 

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While opioids do have the reputation of reducing pain effectively, uneven prescriptions and the highly addictive nature of these drugs is what’s currently fueling the opioid epidemic in America. 

The study also provided recommendations for the most common types of pain that patients come into the emergency department for such as abdominal pain, back pain, chest pain, headaches, etc. 

Dr. Kathy LeSaint, an associate professor of emergency medicine at UCSF and fellow author of the study, agreed with Shanmugam regarding the fact that opioids do still have a place in modern medicine, but this study can hopefully lead to a place where it’s not creating addiction problems for patients looking for relief. 

“The desire to reduce opioids shouldn’t come at the expense of under-treating pain.”

Dr. LeSaint also emphasized that even looking beyond concerns regarding opioid addiction and overdose, it’s integral in a general sense to have a variety of medications for pain available that will work from patient-to-patient. 

“The enzymes that are responsible for metabolizing opioids can have different strengths in people,” LeSaint explained, pointing out that the variation is often genetic depending on what medications work for each patient. 

The study examined all sorts of pain medications, starting with common ones like acetaminophen and ibuprofen. They also looked into drugs with “targeted applications” like ketamine, which is used as a common anaesthetic and showed potential for chest pain relief. SNRI (serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants showed promising results for back pain relief. Additionally, several kinds of antipsychotics could help with headache and abdominal pain. 

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Shanmugam pointed out that psychotropic medications have been used for a while for pain relief in addition to psychiatric symptoms. He gave the example of gabapentin and how it was initially approved to be used as a drug for epilepsy, but “now it’s used a lot for the management of neuropathic pain.” 

He emphasized that the parts of psychotropic medications that make them effective for pain are quite complex, and their efficacy is likely connected to the fact that “neural circuits that create the sensation of pain are also involved in the emotional experience of pain, and the distress that pain produces for human beings.”

“In chronic pain conditions, the nervous system can become highly sensitive, and it’s thought that antidepressants and antipsychotics can maybe reduce this heightened sensitivity in the brain,” Dr. LeSaint added. 

“Chronic pain is often linked to things like poor sleep, depression, anxiety, fatigue,” and medications that help people sleep better and experience less anxiety can also make managing pain easier to deal with. 

Dr. LeSaint emphasized how doctors need to review the evidence and what occurs with the individual patient’s specific symptoms. 

“Talking to them and asking about their prior experience with opioids prior to giving opioids can be really helpful in tailoring the pain regimen for that particular patient, for that particular pain syndrome,” Dr. LeSaint said.

According to Shanmugam, when physicians prescribe psychiatric medications specifically, it’s integral to make sure the patients understand it doesn’t mean the pain is mental. 

“I’ve seen a lot of clinicians use the basic science approach of explaining that there’s a lot of overlap between the pain mechanisms and also the emotional understanding of pain, that really helps reassure patients.”

pill

New Experimental Pill Offers Hope For People With Advanced Pancreatic Cancer 

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A new novel pill is reportedly helping people with advanced pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest, live longer, according to new research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

“While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study. 

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The new drug is called daraxonrasib, and it works by blocking a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in over 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. Pancreatic cancer is also known for being very deadly with very little viable treatment options. 

The pills are meant to be taken daily and have shown to nearly double one’s survival time with fewer side effects in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients with metastatic cancer that have stopped responding to other treatments, according to reports from AP. 

The research showed that those who took daraxonrasib lived for an average of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. Dr. Wainberg said while this may seem like a small improvement, it marks the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy. 

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying when first seeing the study results,” Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, said at the ASCO meeting. 

“[I was struck by how] patients stayed on this treatment because it was providing a durable and meaningful benefit to them.”

The pills’ effects eventually decrease but those taking it for significantly longer than the chemotherapy group reported less pain and a better quality of life. Many continued to use the medications after the data was analyzed. Dr. Wainberg stated this means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue to track them. 

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Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presented the findings and said “the drug should become a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer. Researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumor shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery,” AP reported. 

He also said the side effects most likely to impact the treatment course were a rash that can become severe and mouth sores. 

The Food and Drug Administration is planning to expedite their review of the drug because of its success. It was developed thanks to funding from Maker Revolution Medicines. The agency is granting “expanded access” to the drug for patients who meet the criteria. 

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms due to the fact that it’s hard to detect before it starts spreading throughout the body. The American Cancer Society estimates around 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the US this year with more than 52,000 people dying from the disease. 

Pancreatic cancer is also harder to treat and doesn’t respond to chemotherapy the same way other cancers do. This drug is leaving a lot of experts very optimistic about the future of treating this deadly disease, as well as other cancers.

vaccine

Twice-a-Year HIV Prevention Drug Gets FDA Green Light

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new long-acting HIV prevention medication that has shown near-total effectiveness in clinical trials, offering a potential breakthrough in the decades-long effort to curb the spread of the virus. Gilead Sciences, the maker of the drug, announced the approval on Wednesday.

The injectable medication, branded as Yeztugo (generic name: lenacapavir), is administered just twice a year and is being hailed by public health experts as a significant advance in HIV prevention, particularly for individuals who struggle to adhere to daily oral PrEP regimens.

“This is the single best opportunity in 44 years of HIV prevention,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, an HIV advocacy nonprofit group.

Clinical trials of lenacapavir showed striking results. In a study involving gay and bisexual men and transgender individuals, participants who received the twice-yearly shot experienced an 89% lower rate of HIV infection than those who took Truvada, a daily oral PrEP pill, and a 96% lower rate than what would have been expected without any preventive medication. In a separate trial conducted among cisgender women in sub-Saharan Africa, no participants who received lenacapavir contracted HIV.

Yeztugo is the first drug in a new class of antiretrovirals designed to prevent HIV from infecting and replicating within the immune system’s target cells. It was previously approved in 2022 under the name Sunlenca for use alongside other medications to treat certain drug-resistant strains of HIV.

All PrEP medications operate on a similar principle. If a sufficient level of the drug is present in the body at the time of exposure, it can prevent the virus from establishing a permanent infection. What sets lenacapavir apart is its extended duration of protection, requiring just two injections per year, administered in a clinical setting.

Gilead’s CEO, Daniel O’Day, called the drug “a major milestone,” suggesting in a statement that it has the potential to “end the HIV epidemic once and for all.”

“Providers are excited about the approval of long-acting lenacapavir for HIV prevention since this once-every-six-month injection has been shown to have high efficacy in preventing HIV in both women and men in two large trials,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, told Healthline.

“Data from our clinic in San Francisco, which serves low income people with or at risk of HIV, and others have shown that long-acting PrEP works well for people living with HIV who have high rates of concomitant challenges such as housing insecurity and substance use where it can be difficult to take a daily oral pill for PrEP.”

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However, despite the excitement surrounding the approval, public health experts warn that political and financial obstacles could limit the drug’s reach.

The cost of Yeztugo is expected to be a significant hurdle. At $14,109 per injection—or approximately $2,352 per month—the drug is significantly more expensive than generic oral PrEP options like Truvada, which can cost as little as $30 per month. Experts worry that insurers may either decline to cover the injectable or place it on a higher copay tier, making it financially inaccessible to many of the people who would benefit most from it.

A looming Supreme Court case that could strike down provisions of the Affordable Care Act requiring insurers to cover preventive services, including PrEP, adds another layer of uncertainty. Elizabeth Kaplan, director of health care access at Harvard Law School’s Health Law and Policy Clinic, said the potential policy shift “could further complicate access for the populations most at risk.”

Although a Gilead spokesperson stated that individuals could begin requesting the drug from healthcare providers within two days of FDA approval, it may take up to two months for patients to receive their first injection.

PrEP has been available in pill form for more than a decade. Truvada received FDA approval in 2012, followed by Descovy in 2019, both of which are manufactured by Gilead. While these drugs are highly effective when taken daily, reducing the risk of HIV transmission by more than 99%, their success has been uneven across demographic lines.

PrEP uptake has been highest among white gay and bisexual men, who make up the majority of PrEP users. But the HIV burden remains disproportionately high among Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, whose rates of PrEP usage remain comparatively low. Even when PrEP is prescribed, adherence rates are lower among these groups, limiting its effectiveness.

In 2021, ViiV Healthcare introduced an injectable PrEP option called Apretude, administered every two months. While Apretude demonstrated superior efficacy compared to Truvada in clinical trials, it has seen limited uptake. According to the manufacturer, only about 21,000 individuals are currently taking Apretude. Experts cite the frequency of required clinic visits, every two months, as a likely deterrent for many patients.

Yeztugo could overcome some of these barriers. Requiring only two clinic visits per year, the drug has the potential to simplify prevention for people who cannot or will not take a daily pill. However, maintaining adherence to a biannual injection schedule will still be a challenge. Two recent studies found that fewer than half of oral PrEP users continued the regimen for more than six months.

Dr. Susanne Doblecki-Lewis, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who led several lenacapavir trials, said the new drug could help reduce racial disparities in HIV transmission, provided access is equitable.

“If there are barriers, like complicated prior authorizations or high copays that will prevent people from easily starting it, we could see disparities just get worse.”

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Another concern is the erosion of public health infrastructure needed to support the wide-scale deployment of new prevention methods. The Trump administration recently proposed a 35% cut to domestic HIV funding, including a plan to eliminate the CDC’s $794 million HIV prevention division. Although the administration says elements of the program will be absorbed into a restructured federal agency, many experts fear the impact of such cuts will be severe.

Much of the CDC’s HIV prevention budget is distributed through grants to local health departments and nonprofits that provide education, outreach, and services, such as PrEP navigation. If funding dries up, experts say, it will be significantly harder to raise awareness about lenacapavir or to get it into clinics and community health centers that serve uninsured or underinsured populations.

Despite these challenges, Gilead says it is working to make the drug accessible. The company has pledged to cover up to $7,200 in annual out-of-pocket costs for insured patients and will provide the drug at no cost to low-income individuals through its patient assistance program. Additional funding and logistical support may be available through a patchwork of federal and state programs that help cover the costs of clinic visits and lab work.

Some telehealth and clinic networks are already preparing to distribute the drug. Tristan Schukraft, CEO of the PrEP-focused telehealth service Mistr, said his company plans to begin offering lenacapavir immediately at its storefronts in seven major U.S. cities. The company is also partnering with a nationwide network of community-based clinics to provide the drug to uninsured patients. “We’re ready,” Schukraft said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the national HIV transmission rate declined just 17% from 2012 to 2022, dropping from 38,300 to 31,800 cases annually. Most of the progress occurred in recent years, including a 12% drop between 2018 and 2022. That same period saw increased investment in HIV prevention under the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, launched by the Trump administration in 2019, which targeted nearly $3 billion in new spending to reduce infections in 48 high-burden counties.

Still, the reach of PrEP remains limited. In 2023, about 200,000 people were using some form of PrEP each month, a small fraction of the estimated 1.5 million gay and bisexual men who meet eligibility criteria. Whether lenacapavir can reach those who have been left behind by previous prevention methods remains to be seen.

Johanna Mercier, Gilead’s chief commercial officer, said in a recent interview that the company is “optimistic” about securing broad insurance coverage for lenacapavir and believes the new drug could play a transformative role in ending HIV transmission—if the systems to deliver it are adequately funded and supported.

For now, the focus will shift to implementation. With a medication that could radically change the trajectory of HIV prevention, the question becomes not whether it works, but whether the U.S. health system can deliver it to the people who need it most.

White Pill

Experts Are Hopeful Over Covid-19 Antiviral Pill, But Emphasize Vaccines Are Still Our Way Out Of The Pandemic 

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Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced this past week that they created an antiviral pill that can reduce Covid-19 hospitalization and death by 50%. Experts believe this pill could be a “game-changer” in the way we treat Covid, however, they’re also emphasizing that this pill is not an alternative to getting vaccinated, and vaccinations against the coronavirus arte the most effective way Americans can bring this pandemic to an end. 

Over 255,000 Americans are becoming fully vaccinated every day, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 65% of Americans are now fully vaccinated. On the opposite end, the US surpassed 700,000 Covid-related deaths this week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The US is currently the world’s leader in Covid deaths. 

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“This new antiviral pill can be used in conjunction with the vaccine. And it’s not an alternative to vaccination. We still have to try to get more people vaccinated. The antiviral medicine could be effective for those who choose not to get vaccinated, as well as those who catch the virus while fully vaccinated,” explained Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. 

“This is the most impactful result that I remember seeing of an orally available drug in the treatment of a respiratory pathogen, perhaps ever. I think getting an oral pill that can inhibit viral replication — that can inhibit this virus — is going to be a real game-changer.”

Merck is now seeking FDA emergency use authorization for its medication, and if it’s permitted, it will become the first oral medicine that fights viral infection for Covid-19. 

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“If approved, I think the right way to think about this is; this is a potential additional tool in our toolbox to protect people from the worst outcomes of Covid. Inoculation remains our best tool against Covid-19 because the shots can prevent people from getting infected in the first place, and we want to prevent infections, not just wait to treat them once they happen,” White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said.

The FDA is also meeting with its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on October 14th and 15th to discuss booster shots for Americans who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

The FDA’s vaccine committee is also set to discuss approving Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. The company has already begun submitting data about that specific age group. 

Vaccine mandates are beginning to appear all throughout the country as well as a means of getting more Americans to receive their inoculations so the nation has an actual fighting chance at bringing this pandemic to an end.

Study Says Merck COVID-19 Pill Cuts Risks Of Hospitalization, Death In Half

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According to results of a clinical trial released, an experimental COVID-19 pill known as molnupiravir could assist in cutting the chances of hospitalization or death for at-risk patients by up to 50%.

Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical company that developed the pill in partnership with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, announced in a press release that it is planning to submit an application for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Merck stated that it expects to produce 10 million courses of molnupiravir by the end of 2021, with more courses on the way in 2022.

Back in June, Merck announced a procurement agreement with the U.S. Government, where the company would supply 1.7 million molnupiravir courses at the cost of $1.2 billion. Merck is also discussing supply and purchase agreements with other governments worldwide.

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If the EUA is approved by the FDA, molnupiravir will be the first oral medicine made available to combat the risks of COVID-19. The pill will require a prescription, and is intended for those with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms.

ScienceDaily detailed how molnupiravir works, with the agent targeting the RNA genomes of the COVID-19 virus:

“When it [Molnupiravir] enters the cell, it is converted into RNA-like building blocks. In the first phase, the viral copying machine, called RNA polymerase, incorporates these building blocks into the RNA genome of the virus. However, unlike Remdesivir, which slows down the viral RNA polymerase, Molnupiravir does not directly interfere with the function of the copying machine. Instead, in the second phase, the RNA-like building blocks connect with the building blocks of the viral genetic material.”

Thanks to multiple mutations in the replications of viral RNA, pathogens are thus rendered unreproducible.

Merck noted that in their “MOVe-OUT” study, which consisted of 1,550 patients with varying COVID-19 symptoms and underlying conditions, only 7.3% of participants (28 out of 385) who received molnupiravir were hospitalized or died.

That number was significantly lower than the 14.1% of participants (53 out of 377) who were hospitalized or died while being treated with placebo. Additionally, no molnupiravir patients died through the 29th day, as opposed to eight placebo deaths.

Wendy Holman, the chief executive officer of Ridgeback, stressed how important it is to have a form of antiviral medicine that isn’t intertwined with healthcare facilities, which are currently swamped with COVID-19 related cases.

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According to Our World In Data, there are over 71,000 COVID-19 patients that are currently hospitalized in the United States. Despite hitting just around the 12,000s in July, the lowest hospitalization total in over a year, the U.S. saw that number skyrocket to nearly 99,000 in early September.

For a country that has dealt with wave after wave of the virus for months on end, it is hard not to be excited by the game-changing developments that molnupiravir could bring. It’s easy-to-obtain, practical nature could be attractive to those who have been hesitant of vaccination, or cannot take the vaccine for medical or personal reasons.

While vaccines remain the best method of protection against COVID-19, alternatives in any form are sorely needed in order to help speed up recovery processes and assist in preventing deadlier cases.

Merck and Ridgeback are not the only pharmaceuticals that have been developing COVID-19 oral drugs. Pfizer Inc., which started the first phase of their oral agent in March, is close to reporting clinical trial results, as is Swiss Roche Pharmaceuticals.

According to Retuers, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Pardes Biosciences, and Japan-based Shionogi & Co. are all in the processes of producing oral treatments as well. Rest assured, there should be no shortage of medicine such as molnupiravir.

HIV Drug Medicine

Over 70 Countries Experiencing Shortage In HIV Medication Due To Pandemic

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More than 70 countries in the world are currently at risk of running out of essential HIV medication due to the coronavirus pandemic and the multitude of vaccine trials using drug cocktails that involve said medication. 

According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), twenty-four countries currently claim to have a “critically low” stock of antiretroviral medicine, more commonly known as ARVs. ARVs are largely used around the world as a therapy to treat HIV, and now a majority of these countries are seeing disruptions in their supply chains as a direct result of the pandemic. 

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated recently that the organization thinks “the findings of this survey are deeply concerning.”

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SUDAN – JUNE 18: Sudanese pharmacists, holding banners protesting against medicine shortage

“Countries and their development partners must do all they can to ensure that people who need HIV treatment continue to access it. We cannot let the COVID-19 pandemic undo the hard-won gains in the global response to this disease.”

In May of this year the WHO and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS estimated that AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa specifically could double due to a six-month disruption of access to ARV medication.  

The estimation itself applies only to 2020, however, that doesn’t make it any less staggering. While there may not be a direct cure for HIV/AIDS, ARVs and drug treatments like it have made it so individuals can get to a place where they’re completely undetectable, and therefore, untransmittable, which is remarkable when you think about what the AIDS epidemic looked like in the 1980’s and how bleak the future looked in terms of the virus. 

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Pharmacy owner Abdulaziz Othman speaks about the acute shortage of medicine at his drugstore in the Sudanese capital Khartoum

The fact that we’ve gotten to a place where HIV and AIDS can practically disappear from an individual’s body goes to show that we should all remain hopeful for a Covid-19 treatment/vaccine, however, it’s important that we continue to provide resources to parts of the world that need HIV/AIDS relief the most. 

According to the WHO survey some of these main “disruptions” that are causing so many countries to struggle with their ARV supply includes the closure of air and land transportation, failure for suppliers to deliver the medication as a result of that, and a limit on access to health services due to Covid concerns. 

In 2019 alone more than 25 million people received ARV treatment; which is around the average every year for HIV treatment using antiretroviral medication. Now, the WHO is predicting that number will be much smaller because of the pandemic. 

This past weekend the WHO also announced that they would be discontinuing a Covid-19 vaccine trial that involved a drug cocktail using lopinavir and ritonavir; two HIV medications. While both drugs are regularly used in ARVs and successfully help treat individuals with HIV, the medications produced “little or no reduction in the morality of Covid-19 patients.” 

Drug and vaccine trials are continuing to develop throughout the world, but in the meantime it is imperative that we continue to listen to our healthcare providers and remain indoors as often as possible. If we want to get to a place where Covid-19 becomes completely undetectable and untransmittable, we have to take every necessary precaution.

Climate Change

Studies Detail Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health

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One of the concerns associated with climate change is the effects of rising global temperatures, pollution, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events on human health. Typically, this concern is related to people’s physical health; heavily polluted air can lead to respiratory illnesses, contaminated drinking water can contribute to all manner of illnesses, and extreme weather events can cause traumatic injury as well as dehydration and starvation resulting from damage to infrastructure. But another aspect of the health impacts of climate change is often overlooked, which is the psychological impact of understanding the global threat imposed by the phenomenon.

Climate change has been in the news with increasing frequency lately for a number of reasons. One reason is the increasing number of extreme weather events, some of which have been shown scientifically to have been worse as a result of climate change. Another reason is the work of activists, particularly young people such as Greta Thunberg, to raise awareness about the scope of the impacts of climate change, including the historic global protests on Friday. As I write this article, the U.N. is holding a climate summit to discuss the problem and potential solutions, where Thunberg is speaking. And in the United States, democratic presidential candidates are discussing the policies they’d implement to fight climate change, many of which call for unprecedented political change.

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A meta-analysis, which will be published in the April 2020 edition of Current Opinion in Psychology, takes a holistic approach of understanding the health impacts of climate change by reviewing research that has been conducted on the subject over the past several years. This study identifies three different forms of climate-related events and how they relate to mental health. These events are “acute events” such as hurricanes and wildfires; “subacute or long-term changes,” like droughts and heat stress; and “the existential threat of long-lasting changes, including higher temperatures, rising sea levels and a permanently altered and potentially uninhabitable physical environment.” The various ways in which these factors impact mental health is broad, and the authors specifically point to the development of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Children and poor people are particularly vulnerable, as these are populations most directly threatened by the effects of climate change.

For psychologists, eco-anxiety is a natural and reasonable reaction to the science of climate change, and the best response to eco-anxiety is to take action.

The term “eco-anxiety” has been introduced to describe the sense of being overwhelmed by the nature of climate change as an existential threat, and has been identified as an area of concern among psychologists. The phenomenon impacts even people who do not have a history of mental illness, and is characterized by “a chronic fear of environmental doom,” according to a 2017 report produced by the American Psychological Association. Sufferers of eco-anxiety, a condition which is thought to be rapidly growing among the global population, worry about the future of themselves and their children, and experience feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration owing in part to their conceptualization of themselves in relation to the global environment. According to psychologist Molly S. Castello, sufferers of eco-anxiety use denial to distance themselves from their existential concerns, but that denial only serves as a distraction from their anxiety, worsening the condition in the long term.

Several therapies have been proposed to treat eco-anxiety. Both cognitive behavioral therapy and medication have been shown to be useful treatments for the depression and anxiety that can result from environmental concerns, but psychologists who specialize in environmental concern recommend additional steps. These steps involve changing your lifestyle to reassert control over your feelings and instilling yourself with the knowledge that you are not remaining complacent in the fact of climate change. Duncan Greere, who edited a report detailing solutions to the climate crisis, recommends that individuals “make climate change a factor in the decisions you make around what you eat, how you travel, and what you buy,” “talk about climate change with your friends, family and colleagues, and “demand that politicians and companies make it easier and cheaper to do the right thing for the climate.” For psychologists, eco-anxiety is a natural and reasonable reaction to the science of climate change, and the best response to eco-anxiety is to take action.