Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The New York Times Caves.

Who says the little guy can't take on corporate power? Shortly after meeting with my attorney, The New York Times and I are happy to announce a settlement of my plagiarism complaints against them. In a major mistake on their part, there is nothing in the letter I received that requires confidentiality, so I am free to discuss the terms they agreed to. Quoting from the letter:

Sign up now to save 50% on your first 12 weeks of The New York Times using automatic payments (first 8 weeks if you choose to pay your bill using a traditional monthly invoice).

7-Day delivery - $ 5.95 per week introductory offer

Monday-Saturday delivery - $ 3.66 per week introductory offer

Saturday And Sunday delivery - $ 3.60 per week introductory offer

Sunday Only delivery - $ 2.99 per week introductory offer

Monday Through Friday delivery - $ 2.95 per week introductory offer

Home Delivery. As part of Home Delivery, you'll also get free access to TimesSelect premium online content.


A multitude of settlement options, AND free access to TimesSelect. I am obviously very happy with the way my attorney represented my interests. I haven't decided which settlement option to go with, as there is still the matter of his legal bill, but the important thing is, a principle has been established, justice has been served, and all creative minds can sleep a little easier tonight. I can only hope the Times takes the lesson I taught them to heart in the future.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

The New York Times Editorial Board Must Be Stopped.

Shock. Absolute shock was what I felt today as I looked over the editorials of The New York Times and saw this from April 22nd:

The Bush administration's habit of politicizing its scientific agencies was on display again this week when the Food and Drug Administration, for no compelling reason, unexpectedly issued a brief, poorly documented statement disputing the therapeutic value of marijuana. The statement was described as a response to numerous inquiries from Capitol Hill, but its likely intent was to buttress a crackdown on people who smoke marijuana for medical purposes and to counteract state efforts to legalize the practice.

And then this:

The government is actively discouraging relevant research, according to scientists quoted by Gardiner Harris in yesterday's Times. It's obviously easier and safer to issue a brief, dismissive statement than to back research that might undermine the administration's inflexible opposition to the medical use of marijuana.


Can you believe this my friends? Could it be any clearer? This "newspaper" is obviously taking its cues for what to put on it's editorial page from this very blog, while giving me no credit whatsoever. Now I understand this "paper" has been around a long time, which is why I am all the more shocked at it's conduct. I also understand this outfit has won over 94 Pulitzer Prizes, and I can't help but to think that I may have had one yanked out from under me here.

But of course this isn't about me. My mission here is simply to get information into the hands of the people. It's about the legions of other thinkers, opinion leaders, and hard hitting investigative writers whose ideas may have been co-opted by this "paper" Plagiarism is never pretty my friends, but this time they have gone too far. My latest numbers show I've been getting almost TWO HUNDRED READERS A DAY who now know the truth. My uncle, an attorney, was very skillful in forcing the state to drop it's driving too fast for conditions charges against me last year. I will be meeting with him tomorrow.

Read their theft of my ideas here

Monday, April 24, 2006

The New York Times Follows My Lead.

For years I have been saying that the way the FDA approves new medicines is crappy. You see, when the FDA approves a new drug, contrary to what many customers and even doctors believe, that does NOT mean the new drug works better than the alternatives already on the market. It might even be less effective, as the legal standard for approval is simply that the new med has to show it works better than a placebo. Not even a lot better. Pass your safety tests, work a teeny bit better than a sugar pill, and you're good to go. Not only does this lead to pieces of shit in a box like Sarafem, but it means the medical community is on its own most of the time in finding out how the many blood pressure pills, anti-depressants, painkillers, and intestinal worm treatments compare against each other. (you don't know the frustration of being a patient and facing this type of dilemma. I don't want to give any clue as to what type of medical problem I was battling, as it's a bit embarrassing, but there was many a time I cursed the FDA as my stomach was quivering)

Drug companies will do these types of studies when they pick up the smell of money though, as in a recent trial where Eli Lilly was looking to expand the market for it's osteoporosis drug Evista. They had a hunch it might be able to prevent breast cancer as well, so they put it up against the current "gold standard" of breast cancer prevention, tamoxifen. They got mixed results, but enough that they'll soon probably be able to raise the price and start marketing it more widely. Doctors also have a clearer picture of what options are available for breast cancer patients. Yay. Exactly the win-win type of situation that would happen if Big Pharma and the FDA would just do what I say.

In comes The New York Times to marsh on my mellow. Seems like someone on their editorial board got wind of what the drugnazi has been telling dozens of disinterested people over the years. In an April 19th editorial they write:

Typically in this country, a drug is approved for marketing based on comparison with a placebo in clinical trials. This new study reinforces accumulating evidence that the most meaningful data is derived from comparing one drug with another. The government ought to sponsor more such comparative studies, and manufacturers should do the same.


Shameless. Absolutely shameless. My first thought was to immediately sue them for the way they blatantly ripped me off. After I cooled down a bit though, I've decided, that for the good of humanity, I will allow this to pass in the hope that reaching however many people read this paper, added to the ones I'm able to reach here, may further the advance of MY idea. In the future however I do at least expect credit for my intellectual property. New York Times, you have been put on notice.

Read the whole editorial here.

Todo I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore......

Saw a flyer at the restaurant where I ate lunch today that asked "Are You Tired Of Mainstream Gay Culture?"

Now I like boobies and the chicks that are attached to them, but I also like living in a place where people complain of "mainstream gay culture," and no longer in a place where you can be stoned to death on suspicion of homosexuality for not showing enough enthusiasm at the monster truck rally. If you're in the middle of the country and aren't some sort of Neanderthal, move. Seriously. You'll thank me later for the advice.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Medical Marijuana Follow Up.

Ok, they did lie. Flat out lied. Here's what the FDA said yesterday:

"smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment."


The intent here was to be all lawyerly and hide behind definitions of words that cannot be precisely defined, such as "currently accepted" and "proven." Tactics like this are usually described as "misleading" as opposed to "lying", which is a deliberate untruth. Today's New York Times says this however:

Several officials in the 11 states that allow medical marijuana disputed the F.D.A.'s contention that there was no research supporting the drug's medical use. They noted, in particular, a 1999 review by the National Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory panel, which found marijuana to be "moderately well-suited" to some conditions, including wasting disease from AIDS and the nausea that often results from chemotherapy.


Sounds to me like the "nations most prestigious scientific advisory panel" "accepts" that there is "proof" of marijuana's medical value. I'm no lawyer, but if I'm on a jury, I'm finding the government LIED.

A government that is still ostensibly yours my friend. Please do something today to hold it accountable.

Friday, April 21, 2006

So If Your'e A Woman Who Doesn't Want The Government Inspecting Between Your Legs....

....to see if you're a virgin, or if you have AIDS, you already know, or should know, why it matters who wields political power in this country. Today we'll see why it also matters to people dying of cancer. The New York Times reports that the public servants at the FDA today issued a report that "dismisses any medical benefit from marijuana." From the article:

Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday's statement resulted from a past combined review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment."


Well that takes care of that I guess. At least we can give these sick people a medicine called Marinol, which according to it's official prescribing information:


is indicated for the treatment of:

1. anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with AIDS; and
2. nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy in patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional antiemetic treatments.


Sweet, so it would seem there is no doubt that this Marinol most certainly has a couple currently accepted or proven medical uses in the United States and is an approved medical treatment.

Thing is, when you look at that official prescribing info, you'll also see this:

Dronabinol, the active ingredient in MARINOL® Capsules, is synthetic delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC). Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is also a naturally occurring component of Cannabis sativa L. (Marijuana).


What? also a naturally occurring component of Marijuana? But the Government said marijuana had no currently accepted or proven medical use. They wouldn't.....LIE to us would they?

Well to be fair, the FDA did say that it was smoked marijuana that had no currently accepted or proven medical use, so maybe they meant that if you were sick you should eat it in brownies. More than likely though, they were using what little scientific credibility this administration has left to provide propaganda cover for the absurd war on drugs.

Marinol, by the way, retails at drugstore.com for $310.81 a month at the most common initial dose. Hmmmmm......I wonder.....if protecting the profits of Big Pharma from competition from a naturally occurring weed that pretty much anyone can grow, anywhere, might have anything to do with today's FDA report?

Whatever the motivation, it seems to outweigh any interest in helping to alleviate the suffering of the sick and dying in this case. Your government is at work, but most assuredly not for you.

Read the whole article here.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Scariest Book Title Ever:

Laura Bush : An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady


Um......I'll stick to Playboy, thanks.

Drug Company Rip Off Of The Day Number 3

I have visions of people stumbling across my little blog garden while they're surfing around the Internet before bedtime and being transfixed by what they see. So excited beyond belief at my writing that they cannot get enough, and certainly won't be able to get to sleep anytime soon as they had planned. Why do I have thoughts like this? Because I'm an egomaniac. Should my fantasy be happening to you as you read these words however, you may be thinking of reaching for some Nytol®. (diphenhydramine HCl 25mg) After all, it's probably America's best known sleep aid. I prefer scotch. But hey, to each his own.

Or maybe it's those damn allergies that are keeping you awake. The sneezing, runny nose, watery eye thing making you absolutely miserable. In that case you might be thinking of taking some Benadryl Allergy Relief® (diphenhydramine 25mg) Just watch out for the side effects though, it makes a lot of people drowsy.

Hmmmm...you know what would be funny? If I took some of that Benadryl Allergy Relief® (diphenhydramine HCl 25mg), slapped a different label on it, and sold it as a sleep aid since it makes so many people drowsy anyway. Except our friends at (surprise!) GlaxoSmithKline beat me to it. Look at the drug name inside the parenthesis after both Nytol® and Benadryl ®. Same stuff. (click here for an earlier post on how GlaxoSmithKline is a master at the "money for no research" game) I've given up trying to explain that to people though, as that peaceful blue label evidently makes you unable to comprehend what is in the section that says "active ingredients." Or maybe there's a scientific study out there on the effects of different labels and resultant drowsiness that I'm unaware of. Either way I'm sticking with the scotch.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

An Update on Roche Sliminess

When last we left giant drug manufacturer Roche Company, we saw how they decided to price their 2 breakthrough cancer drugs, Avastin and Herceptin, at $100,000 and $40,000 a year respectively, not because they say that they were so expensive to develop, but simply because they can. Today we'll see how the terminally ill evidently just aren't a big enough demographic to meet quarterly profit projections.

Let me be clear on one thing. Both Avastin and Herceptin are major breakthroughs in cancer therapy when used in the right patients. Across the pond in the UK though, The Guardian Weekly tells the tale of how Roche aggressively (and by aggressively I mean "acting like slimeballs") marketed Herceptin for cases where the benefits are a little more dubious. I'll let The Guardian set the stage.

Just a few years ago, nobody had heard of Herceptin, although stories about a new generation of "targeted drugs" had begun to circulate, raising hopes of medicines with better cancer-killing powers. In 2002, Nice (Drugnazi here: Nice = "National Institute for Clinical Excellence". Isn't it cool how Europeans try to put a happy face on their Government agencies?) licensed Herceptin for use on women with advanced breast cancer; it undoubtedly saved lives. But then Roche did trials on women who had just finished chemotherapy for early-stage cancer. The company had not yet applied for a licence for this change of use in this country, but it decided to announce interim results showing that the drug halved the risk of the cancer recurring. The clamour for Herceptin began, and amid all the noise, any chance of a reasoned debate about the drug was lost.

Well why wouldn't there be a clamor for a miracle drug that can "halve the risk of cancer recurring?" Maybe because "halving the risk" in this case means 17.2% of women in the placebo group had a recurrence of their cancer, as opposed to 9.4% in the Herceptin group. "Halving the risk" sounds way better than "going from 17.2 to 9.4" doesn't it?

And then there's the way those pesky side effects can get in the way of a good marketing plan. 8.5% of women in the trial stopped taking Herceptin because they couldn't tolerate it, including 2.2% that developed congestive heart failure or warning symptoms of heart failure. More women had to stop taking the drug than were helped by it. Again, not the best material for marketing your product.

That's not about to stop those can-do people who need to make sales projections though. First Roche made a big deal by declaring they were stopping the trials early because it would be (ahem) unethical to withhold the drug from the placebo group. In reality, the trials were stopped at the first possible moment that Roche could start shouting how wonderfully they turned out, and at a point where, according to The Guardian:

We cannot possibly know yet, from the data available, whether the drug stops people dying - and all the "Last chance for breast cancer victim" headlines (as in yesterday's Sun) do not change that. The published results spell it out clearly in the New England Journal of Medicine: "Overall survival in the two groups was not significantly different.

"Overall survival in the two groups is not significantly different!!!!!" probably wouldn't make the best marketing pitch I'm thinking. Better to recruit an army of Breast Cancer survivors to counter the science that isn't going your way. But c'mon, you might be saying, playing to people's raw emotions in such a way is surely beneath any reputable organization.

It would be beneath a reputable organization, but we're talking about drug companies. Back to the Guardian:

"Halfway through the following week, the phone goes at home," says Jardine, professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, writer and well-known television presenter. "It's a really nice woman. She says to me, 'I read about you in the paper and I gather you'd like access to Herceptin and you can't get it.'"
By now, however, Jardine had decided that she did not want the drug. "I said, 'No - that's not the case with me. I have decided not to have Herceptin.'
"She said, 'Even if you don't want it yourself, would you come and talk to some of our seminars because we're running a big campaign to promote Herceptin? Either we could find funding for Herceptin or, if you really don't want it or decide against it, there would be fees for appearances.'
"I said, 'Could you tell me where you are from?' She said, 'We work for Roche'.
'"I wasn't feeling well. I said, 'Would you please get off the phone?' Then I hung up.
"There was no mistaking the directness of the approach - she said she would make it worth my while."

I couldn't say it any better than Jardine. Would you please get off the phone Roche?

Read the whole story here.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Dear Republicans; The Jihadists Want To Destroy You As Well.....

Ok, so you may have picked up by now that my politics are a bit left of center. That being the case, I was anti-war before being anti-war was cool, and I loathed Mr. Bush back in the day when doing so made you some sort of sicko terrorist bent on ending western civilization. Don't assume everyone to the political left and/or who is against the Iraq war is a pacifist though. I firmly believe that, as Malcolm X would put it, "sometimes you have to have a conversation with your enemy in the only language they understand." So I was more than a bit intrigued when I came across a story about a group of protestors who had actually grown a pair and were using tactics a bit different from the typical namby-pamby "oh please stop your policy that we think is incorrect" protest parade. From The New York Times:

As dozens of mourners streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.


"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war.


Damn. I thought I was pretty hard core, but protesting at a funeral is a line I'm not gonna cross. Ever. Who the hell are these people? The Weathermen? Al-Queda In America? Relatives of dead Iraqi civilians? Back to the Times:

To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.


Christians. Should have known. So, God kills soldiers .......who are part of an organization that will immediately expel any member who publicly admits to being a homosexual...because God hates homosexuals? Ummm....just a thought, but wouldn't it be easier and more effective for God to flood Amsterdam or break off the San Francisco peninsula into the ocean if he hates gays so much? Not to mention a little easier for us mere mortals to pick up on the message he was trying to send.

Before you move on with your life, do me a favor and imagine for a couple minutes the press coverage if it had been Arabs or other Muslims who were doing such a thing, and ask yourself why these people are getting a relative free ride because they practice their hate in the name of Jesus and not Mohammed.



Read the whole story here.

Freak of The Week

Today I had the pleasure of listening, for I swear to God over 5 minutes, to a customer tell me why he was switching all his prescriptions to my happy little pill store. It was because, he not-so-calmly explained, that when he showed up at his former pharmacy for refills, they "pulled a gun on me and told me I had 30 seconds to get off their property." Not to be humiliated in such a fashion, the customer then told the gun-puller that "he shouldn't point that thing at me unless you mean it" and then knocked the weapon out of his hand with a flick of his arm, as he learned to do in "over 40 years of martial arts training" (he looked to be about 25 years old)

Imagine my surprise when all the meds he wanted transferred turned out to be antipsychotics. Imagine my longing to run him off at gunpoint myself.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Clear Channel Killed The Radio Star.

I'm sure that's not news to most of you, but for those of you unaware, Clear Channel is a company spawned from the deregulation of the broadcast industry in 1996. In case you've ever wondered why every fucking radio station sounds the same these days, one reason is that Clear Channel alone owns over 1,200 stations across the country.

The first format to get the Clear Channel treatment was country music. Just listen to Johnny Cash sing about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die and try to imagine one of today's fluffy-hair under the $500 cowboy hat pussy boys on mainstream country radio try something like that. I started hearing the difference years ago but had retreated into my Frank Zappa and Velvet Underground collection for so long I had no idea just how bad it had become...... until the other day, when I came across Country Music Television. I couldn't look away. It was horrible beyond belief and I had to keep looking back to make sure it wasn't some sort of joke. It reminded me of the novel 1984, when the music for common people was actually random sounds and words spit out by a computer and no one was the wiser. I honestly wonder if there isn't a Clear Channel computer somewhere spitting out this dreck. Beyond the incredible simplicity, two themes emerged in the subject matter of the songs:

1) The singers are proud. Always proud. And if they are somewhere very different from where they started, they should be very proud of where they are from.

2) They are always happy. The days of country music being about getting drunk and beating your dog are over. These days, no matter what shit-ass hand life has dealt you, you are happy and workin' hard. All the better to keep John Q. Dumbass Redneck from realizing he's getting the shaft in the New World Order.

So I'm thinking about this and I figure I can do as well as any corporate robot at writing a song. Think I'll give it a shot.

I'm a Mississippi girl in the big 'ol city/
life is hard and not always pretty/
but I'll get by/
until I die.

I got my Momma's old hymnal and a piece of back bacon/
my feet hit the floor and my ass starts a shakin'/
gotta move my hips/
to get those tips.

Once in awhile when I'm down and out/
I open my legs and a baby comes out/
in 9 months then/
I'm back in debt.

Ok....I usually only write things like that after a martini or two. I can only conclude after reading what just came out of my keyboard that today I'm one step closer to insanity. The trip is kinda fun though.....

Saturday, April 15, 2006

One Class I Don't Want To Take

Customer calls me up to bug my life at work today, and in the middle of the general psychobabble, tells me that his doctor "uses me as an educational exhibit for having the cleanest catheter"

Mind you, the reason he was calling had nothing to do with a catheter, and the subject wasn't brought up again.

I Guess I'm glad he has something in his life to be proud of.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Not That I'll Ever Voluntarily Have Anything To Do With Children.

I suppose in the abstract I'm glad that people are out there creating a future tax base for the money that will end up in my Social Security check, but my contacts with the little banshee-devils never go well. I don't like them, they don't like me. It's best for all concerned that we avoid each other.

For some unknown reason though, I found myself in the children's section at the local bookstore the other day and what should catch my eye except for a book on.....farting. It wasn't a bad read really. I learned that the average fart contains about 4 ounces worth of gas. I never would have guessed that, I thought they would be way smaller.

I left wondering why they can't teach something at least a tenth as interesting in the continuing education I'm forced to take to keep my license, and with a new book to share the next time I get roped into one of those "Oh you have to come over to see the baby" hell events.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

The Jihad Watch Never Stops.

I was going to try and take a break from the seriousness of the last few posts today with a dumb customer story or two, but just like a whack-a-mole game, the right-wing jihadists and Christian Fascists keep popping their heads above ground at a rate that makes it challenging to keep up. It's no longer news when some self-righteous prick looking to boost their self esteem by playing the power trip game won't give some lady her birth control. We're beyond that now. In what, less than a year? We've moved on to "you don't deserve vitamins or antibiotics because you're a slut" From The Stranger In Seattle:

Cedar River Clinics, a women's health and abortion provider with facilities in Renton, Tacoma, and Yakima, filed a complaint with the Washington State Department of Health this week alleging three instances where pharmacists raising moral objections refused to fill prescriptions for Cedar River clients. The complaint includes one incident at the Swedish Medical Center outpatient pharmacy in Seattle. According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was "morally unable" to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for abortion-related antibiotics.

The complaint also includes an incident from November 2005 in Yakima, in which a pharmacist at a Safeway reportedly refused to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for pregnancy-related vitamins. The pharmacist reportedly asked the customer why she had gone to Cedar River Clinics and then told the patient she "didn't need them if she wasn't pregnant."

You can read the whole story here.


I remember as a young drugnazi intern saying things like " Your pharmacist couldn't care less if you're getting a birth control prescription filled, as a matter of fact, I'll tell you exactly what he's thinking when he's filling it. 'Oh thank God, no counting on this one, just slap on a label and out the door'"

As a not-quite-as young drugnazi with a full fledged license, my first thought when I heard the incredible story of a pharmacist (who looking back I think was the evil Karen Brauer) who got fired from a K-mart for refusing to fill a birth control prescription was,"Where in the hell does that woman work that she has the TIME to pull a stunt like that?" Then I laughed at her stupidity and didn't give it another thought.

And now, with a gray hair or two popping up, It seems like the times are passing me by. Well fuck time. There will always be an island of sanity in the incoming tide of religious fascism sweeping the planet wherever the drugnazi is employed. A drugnazi.....protecting you from fascism.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Pharmacists For Life, Unless It's A Genocide

Regular readers of my little blog garden may remember how I mocked Kemi Olunloyo, a Georgia pharmacist who was planning a pharmacy-type radio talk show in Atlanta. I found the idea way lame, and couldn't resist the opportunity to be a smart-ass. It was all in good fun though, and Kemi herself even made an appearance here to put in her 2 cents. Point being, she was a good sport about the whole thing and more than likely is a decent person. Today however, you'll be introduced to a whole other level of evil in my profession. A pharmacist not to be mocked, but hated. And I don't mean the irony tinged way I've used that word to get a laugh when I'm talking about customers. I mean hated. Loathed. Despised. I know real hate is an ugly emotion not to be taken lightly, but read on for the tale of someone truly deserving of all the hate you can throw her way.

Meet Karen Brauer, President of the outfit "Pharmacists for Life." You may have seen Karen on Fox News, CBS, or CNN, read about her in the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Economist, the leading pharmacy trade magazine Drug Topics, or in your local paper that picked up a story quoting her from the AP and thought to yourself that this Pharmacists for Life outfit must be some big, powerful organization with a giant headquarters somewhere on K street, ready to deploy an army of lobbyists over to the halls of government power to get things done. Or you would think that they'd at least have an office. Think again. According to the group's 2003 IRS filing (most recent available) they raised and spent less than $30,000 and had no paid employees. (Information via Mediamatters.org) Even though that's not a lot of money as far as these advocacy groups go, I would think they would have at least been able to afford a copy of Microsoft Frontpage and/or someone who knows how to use the web-page building program to make a page that isn't...um...hideously fucking ugly, but evidently not, as you can see here. Just in case your eyeballs were starting to melt at the sight of such an incredibly poorly designed web page, or you just didn't feel like boosting this woman's ego by adding to her hit count totals, let me show you a couple highlights from their home page. This first one is her take on the news that an Indian tribe in South Dakota may open a Planned Parenthood clinic on it's reservation, thereby keeping some access for women in a state that just outlawed almost all abortions:



"Sioux tribe gonna scalp 'em own braves, don't need white man to exterminate self"



Well.....that certainly adds some sober, clear-eyed analysis to the debate on this issue, doesn't it?

Next we have this:










"Guv 'Slobodan' sends threatening enforcement letter to IL
pharmacists, dictatorial grip tightens, demands they wear 'scarlet letter' showing they have a conscience"


I'll translate that bit of lunatic ranting for you. She's referring to Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who has signed an executive order in his state to ensure that women have access to emergency contraception. Blagojevich, as far is known, has yet to show up for work at the statehouse wearing military fatigues or that odd looking hat depicted on Brauer's website. She seems to be commenting on the governor being of Serbian origin. Evidently this is funny in the world of the Christian fascists.

So let me bring the theme so far into focus. The "Pharmacists For Life" choose to mock the victims of what might be the most successful attempted genocide in world history (estimates vary from 2 million to over 100 million Native Americans systematically killed), and to make light of one of the most recent genocides in world history. (only 8,000 dead, but hey, the hats were cooler). Lordy. With friends like this, life sure as hell doesn't need any enemies.

Don't take my word that Karen Brauer is evil though, take it from Karen Brauer. Here she is on the FAQ of her website, talking about pharmacists who refer patients to another pharmacy because they don't want to fill oral contraceptive/morning after prescriptions:

Material cooperation with such an evil can never be licit even if it may be lawful, as it is in today's society. In fact, pharmacists aware of the evil nature of such a scenario would have a duty as a pharmacist and a person not to cooperate in such an evil even under pain of serious adverse ramifications. Some authors, hiding their publicly stated support for any and all baby killing, have erroneously stated shameful opinions which equivocate on the rights of conscience and thus claim a pharmacist may have a right of conscience, but if all else fails, he must cooperate with the evil in our example. Such thinking shows the irrational absurdity and confusion in the minds of those who adhere to such ideas.


Wow. referring a patient to another store sure must make you evil in Brauer's mind, as the word is used 4 times in that paragraph. Now here she is on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: I got you. Now, when the customer complained, what happened there? Did you refer that customer to somewhere else?

BRAUER: I asked -- I -- she did not complain to me. OK? What happened is, she came in for a refill. I informed her that we did not carry the drug at the time. And I offered to call a copy of her prescription to the pharmacy of her choice.

O'REILLY: And then she complained. But did you -- how -- why would she complain about that, if you didn't have the drug on hand?

BRAUER: Somehow she found out that this pharmacy actually did have the drug at the time.

O'REILLY: So you lied to her.

BRAUER: Yes, I did.

O'REILLY: Ohh. Well, that wasn't good.

BRAUER: The situation concerning her privacy and concerning the people present did not really -- it was not really amenable to giving her information about her drug.


Again:

And I offered to call a copy of her prescription to the pharmacy of her choice.


Thereby making you one evil bitch using your own criteria. Not to mention a liar. Oh, and someone who sees the deaths of millions of people as material for humor. Also a person the mainstream corporate media repeatedly seeks out for comment who gets her bullshit called not by CNN, but by someone calling themselves the Drugnazi. Up is down, black is white my friends. We live in scary times.

Drug Company Evilness, The Latest In A Continuing Series.

It may be impossible to top this one. I HOPE it's impossible to top this one. Today the Drugnazi will introduce you to Avastin, the latest breakthrough med from Genentech Corp. for cancer of the colon, lung and breast. I'll let The New York Times complete the introduction:

Doctors are excited about the prospect of Avastin, a drug already widely used for colon cancer, as a crucial new treatment for breast and lung cancer, too. But doctors are cringing at the price the maker, Genentech, plans to charge for it: about $100,000 a year.


That wasn't a typo. One Hundred Thousand Dollars a year. An amount of money less than 20% of all households in The United States earns. Enough to buy you a different Toyota Tacoma Prerunner to drive for every day of the week. Enough for me to take about a year long vacation. Too fucking much for a drug that means the difference between life and death.

I can hear the sorry corporate apologists chiming in now with their all too predictable defense of the very corporate entities that screw them regularly. It takes soooo much time and money to develop a breakthrough medicine they'll say, and the prices need to be so high to cover these costs. You hear them repeat that like a parrot every time someone has the bad manners to bring up the fact they are being ripped off by Big Pharma, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there saying that about Avastin. Except in this case Genetech and it's majority owner, Roche, don't agree with them. back to the Times:

Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument — citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies.

If society wants the benefits, they say, it must be ready to spend more for treatments like Avastin and another of the company's cancer drugs, Herceptin, which sells for $40,000 a year.

"As we look at Avastin and Herceptin pricing, right now the health economics hold up, and therefore I don't see any reason to be touching them," said William M. Burns, the chief executive of Roche's pharmaceutical division and a member of Genentech's board. "The pressure on society to use strong and good products is there."


Translation? We're charging this much because we can. And if you don't like it, you can literally roll over and die.

Genentech made over $4,600,000 A DAY during the first quarter this year by the way. Up 48% from a year ago.

I'm an atheist, but you know, should I be wrong about the whole God thing, It'll be way cool to watch people like William M. Burns burn in hell.

read the whole Times article here if you'd like.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Sometimes Fucking Up Your Prescription Can be A Good Thing:

As far as I know, I've never killed or seriously injured anyone by misfiling their prescription. On the other hand, I've never been responsible for the creation of a multi-billion dollar business empire by misfiling your prescription either:

In 1886, pharmacist John Pemberton was making a mixture of leaves of the South American plant coca and African nuts cola known by their tonic qualities. The pharmacist believed the syrup he made could help relieve stress, weariness and toothache. Pemberton took the mixture to Atlanta's biggest drugstore where the first portions were sold at the price of five cents per a glass. But the world-wide known drink that we know today appeared through negligence. A seller incidentally opened a wrong tap and diluted the syrup with soda water instead of ordinary fresh water. That is how Coca-Cola was born.
Let me be clear. Should I ever mess up your prescription in such a way, I retain all rights to resulting product. Unless it kills you. Then it was your doctors fault.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

My Vioxx Rant: Shed No Tears For Merck

Maybe I should just start a separate blog about Drug Company evilness. From today's New York Times:


ATLANTIC CITY, April 5- Delivering a sharp blow to Merck, a New Jersey jury found Wednesday that the company had not properly warned patients of the dangers of its drug Vioxx and had caused a heart attack suffered by John McDarby in 2004. The jury awarded Mr. McDarby, who had taken Vioxx for four years, $3 million in compensatory damages and Irma, his wife, an additional $1.5 million.

Merck stock skidded 3 percent in after-hours trading after the late-afternoon verdict, the second multimillion-dollar award against the company in the four Vioxx cases that have reached juries. Lawyers for plaintiffs predicted that the victory, which came after a month of testimony, would cause the number of lawsuits against Merck to soar.



Poor Merck....Not. Had they not acted like fat little piggies who couldn't get enough of your or your insurance companies money, these lawsuits probably never would have happened, and they more than likely would be making a profit on Vioxx right up to today. It's a long story I know, but read on to see why.

Psst...wanna know a secret? Vioxx and it's cousins, Bextra (also pulled from the market), and Celebrex (still around) DON'T WORK ANY BETTER THAN OLDER PAIN RELIEVERS. Don't believe someone who goes around calling himself a Drugnazi? Let's take a look at the official Vioxx prescribing info for osteoarthrits:

At doses of 12.5 and 25 mg, the effectiveness of VIOXX was shown to be comparable to ibuprofen 800 mg TID and diclofenac 50 mg TID

(TID incidentally, is a medical term that means "we're too lazy to write out 3 times a day")

for rheumatoid arthritis:

VIOXX 25 mg once daily and naproxen 500 mg twice daily showed generally similar effects in the treatment of RA. A 50-mg dose once daily of VIOXX was also studied; however, no additional efficacy was seen compared to the 25-mg dose.



for general pain relief, including menstrual pain:

The analgesic effect (including onset of action) of a single 50-mg dose of VIOXX was generally similar to 550 mg of naproxen sodium or 400 mg of ibuprofen.


Seeing a pattern? Those new, fancy $100 a month meds you saw on TV worked no better than plain old Ibuprofen, naproxen, or diclofenac, which go generally for less than $15.

Not that Vioxx and friends were useless. A problem some people run into with Ibuprofen and other meds in its class (called NSAIDS) is stomach upset. Sometimes people can suffer serious GI (gastrointestinal) complications from taking NSAIDS. Sometimes. Millions and millions of people however, have taken NSAIDS for years with no problem. If you've ever taken Aspirin, Motrin, Aleve, Advil, or Orudis over the counter, you're one of them. But boy, it really would be nice if we could help those people who can't tolerate them, wouldn't it?

That's where Vioxx and friends came in. They were undoubtedly easier on your stomach. According to the VIGOR study (drug companies love to give cute little names to their clinical trials), GI problems were reduced around 50%. Whoo Hoo! We've got us a miracle drug! No need to read any more...seriously...just go and talk to your doctor about Vioxx. Hopefully just demand that he write you a prescription....so you can dance around the ice the way you saw Dorothy Hamil do in the ad on TV.

If you did read more of that VIGOR study however, you would have seen this:

The VIGOR study showed a higher incidence of adjudicated serious cardiovascular thrombotic events in patients treated with VIOXX 50 mg once daily as compared to patients treated with naproxen 500 mg twice daily. This finding was largely due to a difference in the incidence of myocardial infarction between the groups. Adjudicated serious cardiovascular events (confirmed by a blinded adjudication committee) included: sudden death, myocardial infarction, unstable angina, ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack and peripheral venous and arterial thromboses.


Some definitions, for you non-medical types:

myocardial infarction= heart attack
unstable angina= unpredictable bouts of chest pain
ischemic stroke= a blod clot blocking flow to your brain
transient ischemic attack= a blood clot slows or temporarily blocks blood flow to your brain. Also known as a "mini stroke"
peripheral venous and arterial thromboses= blood clots get stuck in other parts of your body.
sudden death= sudden death

So what all this boils down to is this. When you took Vioxx or one of it's friends you were trading lower GI risks for higher cardiovascular risks. Common sense would say that Vioxx & friends should only have been prescribed for people at serious risk for GI problems or who couldn't tolerate the older NSAIDS. I'll sign my next paycheck over to anyone who ever heard that from a Vioxx sales rep though. Merck ran those TV ads for you and gave your doctor a song and dance that had them writing Vioxx or one of its cousins for every little owwie that came into their office, then had no problems cashing the checks that came in the door as a result. Had they made the slightest little effort to make sure their med was being prescribed appropriately, it would probably still be on the market as an alternative pain reliever for people at risk for GI problems. But in the end greed ruled, and destroyed.

I know I'm supposed to be a funny guy, and this post wasn't very funny. Especially for the people who are now dead. Merck, however, was at one point was laughing all the way to the bank. I guess humor all depends on your perspective.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Drug Company Rip Off of The Day Number 2

Damn I hate it when the women are PMSing. That moody, cranky, bite your head off for nothing time of the month. At least I have the decency to be that way pretty much all the time, but with the PMS thing you just never know when your wife, coworker, girlfriend, coworker, sister, coworker or coworker is gonna be pretty much unbearable. I'm sure it's no fun for the ladies either. Wouldn't it be nice if there was maybe;

an FDA-approved prescription treatment that relieves both the mood and physical symptoms of PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). Many physicians believe that Sarafem helps to correct the imbalance of serotonin that could contribute to PMDD.

Well good news pilgrims! Those words of hope were cut and pasted from the website of Warner-Chilcott, sellers of the wonder drug Sarafem, which has been shown to reduce the symptoms of PMDD (the official scientific name for what normal people call PMS) by 38%. Whoo Hoo! If you're interested in learning more you can look at the official Sarafem website or do some research under its generic name.....fluoxetine.

Of course the first thing you'll probably find when you do a web search for fluoxetine will be lots and lots of results for Prozac, the world famous antidepressant. Let me save you some confusion. They're the same thing. Except for the box. That's different. And the price. You'll pay an extra $96.07 a month for that nice box and a brochure so people won't think you're crazy or something because you take Prozac. (Prices from Drugstore.com)

But um....you know, at least you're getting a good, solid cure for the PMS that ails you, right? Take another look at what I cut and pasted. Notice they haven't proven anything there. "Many physicians believe that Sarafem helps to correct the imbalance of serotonin that could contribute to PMDD." it says. Well slap my ass. Define "many"....2....4? I could probably find a couple doctors who believe Elvis is alive. Serotonin "could" contribute to PMDD? Well the author of this blog "could" be Elvis himself according to the "many" doctors who "believe" he is alive. How about some clinical studies? If we dig into the official Sarafem prescribing information, we'll find that 38% reduction number I cited. We'll also see that a placebo achieved a 30% reduction. Translation into English: You're paying $1331.88 a year for an 8% chance that your symptoms will go down. Not go away, an 8% chance they will not be as bad as they were before.

Oh...and the prescribing info also says that the lower 10 milligram strength "was not shown to be significantly more effective than placebo." That doesn't stop them from offering it to you at $117.13 a month though. A price $6.14 HIGHER than the slightly effective 20mg dose.

So as we can see, taking Prozac doesn't mean you're crazy. Taking Sarafem probably does.

State Government, Sensitive Above All To The Feelings Of It's Citizens

Jesus I'm full. I still have enough of that Midwestern financial frugality bred into me that I have to make damn sure I get my money's worth whenever I find myself at an all you can eat buffet. Can...barely...move...my......fingers...to...type....not going to eat again for days I think.

Now that I feel like a fat slob I'm reminded of a customer I had a few years back. This guy was the real thing. I'm not kidding you when I say his car leaned over to one side when he was driving. Five hundred pounds at least. Jimmy Hoffa might have been buried in the folds of his flesh. To his credit though, he decided he needed to make a change for the better, so he talked to his doctor about the best ways to lose some poundage. Doc writes him a prescription for Meridia and sends him over to me. Thing is, Meridia is way expensive, and Medicaid wants to make sure you're actually losing weight before they shell out the bucks for it, so they require the patient to be weighed every month before they'll approve the claim. Fair enough, but this guy was so fat he was off the scales at his doctors office, making it impossible to get a reading of his weight. I explained the situation to my friendly Medicaid bureaucrat, and they OK the prescription for a few months, but then decided they had to get some sort of measurement of this guy's girth before they would pay anymore.

"Well, what do you suggest?" The drugnazi asked.

"Maybe he could go to a slaughterhouse" was the reply. It took a second for that to sink in. I mean, what if the slaughterhouse mistook him for one of their clients and he ended up in Kroger's vacuum pre-pack for freshness section? Now I've had to explain to women that they were too late in getting their morning after pills, I've had to explain to a woman that the only way she could have acquired her STD was from her cheating husband when she didn't want to believe it, and day after day I have to tell people who can't afford it that the only person who can help them is a doctor. But I have never had as hard a conversation as when I had to go to the counter and tell a guy that his state government wanted him to go to a place that processes dead animals to get weighed.

That didn't stop me and my chief tech from mooing softly whenever we saw him from that point on though. I think he ended up going to a moving company.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The 4 "D's" Of Pharmacy.

Ok, so I'm googling myself, why? Because my ego is the size of the Grand Canyon, that's why, and I find that......I have a fan. Seems like a potential young Drugnazi has come across my little blog garden, decided that I'm pretty "freaking funny" and that they "can't wait to be a pharmacist." Time for an intervention.

While I wholeheartedly agree about my freaky funniness, I think a recounting of a lecture I had to attend shortly before graduation may be in order before it's too late for all you pharmacy students out there. The lecture was entitled "The Four D's Of Pharmacy; What You Weren't Told When You Applied To Pharmacy School" The said D's were, in no particular order:

1) Drunkenness

2) Divorce

3) Death By Suicide

4) aDDiction

All of these 4 D's happened at a greater rate among pharmacists than in the general population the lecture said, and I can report today that I have 2 of the D's down. I used to drink my weight in Milwaukee's Best pretty much every weekend in frat-boy college fests, and there has been an ex-Mrs. Drugnazi for a few years now. (Shocking, just shocking that there was a woman who couldn't put up with my shit...heh)

Learn from me future drugnazi's of this country. While drunkenness can be at times quite fun, divorce is expensive, I have heard nothing but bad things about addiction, and if the Christians are right, death by suicide is the surest way to get your ticket punched for hell. (Which in a pharmacists case means spending all eternity answering questions from fat old diabetics as to how to work their blood glucose meter. The One Touch customer service department is my fate unless I straighten up before judgment day.) The only consolation of course, is that with the drugnazi-size paychecks I'm knocking down these days, I long ago traded in the $1.98 a six-pack swill for a bottle of good scotch. So if you do end up washing your life away in an alcohol induced fog, at least you won't be on the corner with a cardboard sign pretending you'll work for food. Damn I need a martini all the sudden. We'll have to finish this later.

Not Sure If This Was False Advertising Or Not.....

Anyone here remember the bygone days of your friendly corner druggist diligently grinding away with his mortar and pestle, compounding the exact prescription written just for you? Probably not, as the only places where that kind of thing happens these days are independent stores whose owners have found the only way to stay in business is to play to the more-money-than-brains demographic. Friend of mine has one of these stores. They're a rip off, but that's not the subject of this post. My point here is that in most modern pharmacies, the mortar, if anyone knows where it is, is probably under 2 inches of dust under the bathroom sink. The only compounding I've done in years is the occasional Rx for something called "magic mouthwash," used to soothe your oral type parts when they're irritated. Compounds are a major pain in the ass to enter into our computer, as you have to create a new product from scratch every single time, because the electronic wizard doesn't have the ability to remember a simple fucking recipe. This means you have to give it a name. I'll usually try and list as much of the ingredients as I can in the space I have , something like "Diphen/Mylant/Lidoc 1:1:1", so when you show up in the emergency room after having shoved some up your ass because you decided what you really needed was an enema, the Doc will have some idea what he's dealing with if you were smart enough to bring in the bottle. (You may laugh, but I would bet my next paycheck someone, somewhere has tried the enema thing) That's just me though, you can put any name you want on the label, and most pharmacists will just put something like "magic mouthwash recipe #3" Sometimes though my coworkers can get a little lazy....as evidenced yesterday when I was going through someone's profile and saw they had been given a prescription of ........"magic" The label actually said to use a teaspoonful of magic four times a day as needed for pain.

I wonder what the customer did with their magic. Did they become invisible? Gain the power to fly? Do like Endora on Bewitched and turn their son-in-law into a braying donkey? One of those questions that will never be answered I suppose, but the magic was refilled 2 times, and they'll need a doctors authorization to get any more.

Monday, April 03, 2006

So if This Fuck Couldn't Even Help His Own Parents......

...you can imagine what hell-like conditions I've been working through since the start of the Medicare part D(isaster) plan. From the Center For American progress:


President Bush's new Medicare drug plan is so confusing "even the parents of Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, ended up picking a plan that put their retiree medical coverage at risk. And this after Leavitt helped his parents in making their initial selection."



Got that? This clown WAS IN CHARGE OF THE DEPARTMENT THAT IMPLEMENTED THIS FUCK UP AND HE ALMOST COST HIS PARENTS THEIR INSURANCE COVERAGE BY PICKING THE WRONG PLAN.

The guys parents by the way, were quoted at the time in The Salt Lake Tribune as saying the enrollment process had been “smooth” and the program was “a guaranteed money-saver.” Oh....and the father....made his fortune in THE INSURANCE BUSINESS. Honestly. I couldn't make something like that up if I tried.

So to recap....rich white folks in the insurance industry whose son was in charge of the program get it wrong. And I work with customers who are predominantly poor, many of whom speak English as a second language, and are almost universally stupid. I think you can see why I've started drinking again.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Why Don't Basketball Teams Change Their Names When They Move?

There are very few lakes in or around Los Angeles (the Lakers moved there from Minnesota, land of a thousand lakes) and quite honestly, Salt Lake City is the least jazzy town on the face of the earth (the Utah Jazz moved there from New Orleans) if you're looking for team names that actually reflect the character of the towns in which they play, might I suggest the Los Angeles Silicone Enhanced Boobs and the Utah Osmonds (Utah Polygamists is just too obvious)

OK...I need to get some sleep.....

From The Jihad Watch......Remember This When You're Craving A Pepperoni....

....literally or figuratively. Substitute "Afganistan" for "Florida" and "Taliban" for "Catholic," and you could pretty much run the same story. Please wake up before it's too late people. From the Chicago Sun Times:

New Catholic town may keep birth control out

February 28, 2006


The founder of Domino's Pizza is starting a Florida town where he will build a Catholic university -- and possibly keep out contraception.

Tom Monaghan, who sold Domino's years ago, is using his fortune to help construct Ave Maria, a town and school near Naples, Fla.

"I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil," he was quoted as saying this week by Newsweek. "I don't want to be on the sidelines."

Monaghan, a conservative Catholic, controls the commercial real estate in Ave Maria along with a developer, the magazine said.

He wants drugstores to keep birth control off their shelves, and the developer said it would favor pharmacies with such a policy, according to Newsweek. A clinic opening already has said it would refuse contraception to students.


Notice he never says that he's actually on the side of good in the "battle of all of history." Just that he "doesn't want to be on the sidelines" Call him what you may, just don't say he's a liar.

It's Friday Night, Which Means Here Come The Freaks....

Ok, so, all I'm trying to do is grab a sandwich for a little lunch in the middle of the work day, and there's a guy in his underwear standing next to the checkout counter. Seriously. Evidently he was astounded by the bargains being offered on a selection of sweatshirts and pants priced to go, and just had to try them on before purchasing. Because you know, it's really important that sweats have just the right cut to make you look fabulous while you're out on the town decked out, and it would be just a tragedy if the $9 he spent for an outfit went for naught. God forbid a chick should ever try and pull a stunt like this. Oh no, it's always got to be some freak of nature, middle aged, potbellied, wrinkled, hairy man-beast that feels the need to get naked in public.

Right before I was going to eat. And my friends ask why I'm losing weight.