Baiting you. I can't stop myself.
Posted on July 17, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
Ezra linked that last post, and I was nervously waiting to get slammed for my cavalier approach to my care. Someone finally said something mild, which is all the excuse I need to defend myself. I don't take charge of my health care. I don't want to. I am mostly injured-but-healthy; my health care bores me. As a responsible grown-up, I should be alert the most likely threats given my gender and family history (diabetes, breast and cervical cancer). I'll watch for those. Beyond that? I can't get interested without some new diagnosis. But I don't think this makes me irresponsible. It shows that I am not interested. I am interested in other things. Things like floods. I study flood maps in my area. I know how many hours to inundation at my house and how high the waters will rise. I store emergency water and food for me and my cat. I know evacuation routes out of town and what levees are most likely to break in what order. I know where the city flood gates are. I have seen them, to verify they look maintained and operable. I care and I am interested in emergency response. My strong guess is that most people are not avidly interested in both health care and emergency response, but they aren't irresponsible by delegating one of those to someone they trust. This is the other thing I don't get about small government types. You protest so vociferously that government takes choices away from you. But a whole lot of choices are BORING. If I never once think about car bumper safety standards for 25mph crashes, I will never miss it. I do not want to carefully match my car safety standards to my most likely driving patterns and save two grand in the process. I would not enjoy that process. (Perhaps you would, and you would rather have the money.) I've never been a comparison shopper or a meticulous consumer. Maybe my model of the individual is too biased by my experience. But I don't want to figure out how much coliform bacteria I can tolerate on my spinach, given my health. I don't want to do that even if it saves me money. I don't want to figure out what goes into paint in nephews' toys. I don't even want to handle my health care. People talk about being rational health care consumers, but they are maximizing some combination of health outcomes and money. I want to maximize my utility. My utility is optimized by going outside to play while someone who is interested in health care gets paid to balance my health care and money. I'll pay a little extra to cover that person. I come out well ahead in that deal*. *I can hear you already: "But you are FORCING me to take that deal too.". Yes. But right now our system FORCES me to comparison shop. Either way, someone gets FORCED to do something, and I don't see a justice interest on one side or the other. Absent a justice interest, we might as well just go with the system that creates the most utility overall. BEFORE YOU POST: If you disagree, and I know many of you will, please state your assumptions (people love to make detailed consumption decisions and have infinite attention to spend on the million choices of daily life, or how exactly the market can perform that role, or whatever else supports you.). I don't want to argue with your conclusions until I know your biases.
Tags: health, care, interested, money, choices
Shiffrin tribute: philosophy
Posted on July 17, 2008 in Generic biologicals
Philosophical Underpinnings of First Rise Directions Moderator: Lawrence Solum, University of Illinois College of Law Seana Shiffrin, UCLA School of Law: Shiffrin’s prior defense of the right to voluntary association includes rationales for allowing associations to exclude people for any or no reason. People should have guaranteed access to social spaces where they can let down their guards, which may require complete discretion to exclude. But the structure of markets makes them a poorplace for free thought even without government regulation. Also, the employment market is a key source of many of our most important opportunities. Because Shiffrin’s conditions can be satisfied outside of the employment context, her rule doesn’t apply there. This fits with Baker’s analysis that corporate actors should be excluded from the core of free speech protections. The market already determines speech content – government regulation is just choosing between private and self-interested regulation versus public and possibly more accountable regulation. Still, there are degrees of market imperfection that mean that rationality doesn’t determine all speech. Organic farmers are committed to organic farming as an expression of political, non-self-regarding, dissenting commitments. Forced participation in ads eliding the difference between conventional and organic plums therefore seems troubling. Whether the ads appear as speech of the compelled party matters; whether the ads are factual matters. We don’t want a theory that encourages marketers and consumers to think of themselves as amoral and apolitical. We should recognize attempts to moralize the market from within. Some on the left are trying to do this, as are various religious groups. Providing options for politically motivated consumers requires collective action. Organic farmers are not best understood as amoral profit maximizers. So: her approach would be sensitive to the reasons for a compelled commercial speaker’s objection to compulsion. Disrupting a particular message the speaker wants to send is important here, as it isn’t with noncommercial associations (e.g., Hurley ). C. Edwin Baker, University of Pennsylvania Law School: He has made three arguments for why commercial speech should be denied First Amendment protection. For him, free speech is libertarian. Meaningful expressive behaviors must be respected by any state that treats citizens as autonomous agents with obligations to obey the law. (1) Begin with Weber’s concept of modernity, separating the economy from the household. The market dictates to all that they must act efficiently or fail. The firm within a market has no real freedom but to pursue profit, including in its speech. Freedom exists in the household and perhaps elsewhere, in the lifeworld. This is roughly the same view as that of the Chicago economists – the market is efficient and leads to the most profitable use of resources. It is also the same view as Marx had. Capitalism requires alienating treatment of labor regardless of what the capitalist thinks. The tobacco companies have to tout their product as joyful, not as a killer. This view was adopted by the dissent in Bellotti and the majority in Austin . Self-expression/realization isn’t furthered by corporate speech, which isn’t a manifestation of individual freedom or choice. (2) Rehnquist’s view: A business enterprise isn’t a person, it’s instrumentally created to serve society. Society should be able to limit it to serve social interests. Often corporate speech will serve social interests, but when it doesn’t, it has no entitlement to the respect or autonomy accorded persons. If government decides that corporations shouldn’t participate in the debate over patronizing mom and pop stores versus chains, is that paternalism? Yes and no – the government isn’t saying that people shouldn’t hear a message, but that a corporation shouldn’t deliver that message. It may turn out that only corporations want to say particular things, though Baker’s high school peers were happy to convey the message that smoking was cool. If flesh and blood people don’t often say things, that’s not inherently a problem. Not many people want to deny the Holocaust either. Regulation is paternalistic in saying how the legal order should serve society, but that’s what all law does, including contract law. (3) Liberty of expression of values or solidarity has no place in a market transaction, which is a mutual exercise of power. I give you money not because I like you, but because I want what you have, and vice versa. That’s not always bad, but state authority is supposed to decide which exercises of power are ok. Lochner was wrongly decided. Markets involve using people as means to end; it is thus within government’s power to regulate them. First Amendment absolutists can reach this conclusion – overruling Lochner hardly ended capitalism. Charles Fried, Harvard Law School: He couldn’t disagree with Baker more. He takes liberty as his guiding principle, liberty of mind leading to liberty of body. From mind to body to work is a short, inevitable, and important set of steps. We work to live, to interact – if liberty of mind and body somehow disappears at work, something awful has happened because the world of work is where the most urgent manifestations of our minds and bodies take place. (In my experience, we usually call that the boss, not the government.) Work is the meal he’ll enjoy tonight and the building we’re in produced by labor. Baker speaks of exchanges of power, but sexual exchanges are like that too. Are we all dominated by power in our professional lives? Compelled to make the most money? Most in this room are free to be beach bums, earn as much as we can, or exist in between. (Yes, we’re quite the representative bunch.) Thus, Fried doesn’t see the market as a radical discontinuity from life. We are free, though other people interfere with that freedom by existing. Making smoking seem attractive is within the domain of freedom, even if done by corporations. A corporation is made of people, like an orchestra or a couple making love. He would not reify it as anything else. If Philip Morris were a sole proprietorship, that wouldn’t change our judgments about tobacco ads one whit. (And, as they say, if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon. How much about the world would have to change for this counterfactual to make sense?)
Tags: market, speech, people, law, government
Still more from the Gratitude Journal
Posted on July 15, 2008 in Ed pump
Photo by Joel Edward Grisamore On this day before Thanksgiving, I am opening my gratitude journal again. It is for these things I am thankful: For big front porches. I wish I had one.
Things To Do For My "Inner Child"
Posted on July 15, 2008 in Medical care
Newly, Misha (sorry no drop) wrote a plan to sui generis of my components: \"madman--you expression subordinate. I believe you be poor a hobby. How usually a relay of items you freedom to do seeing your inner child.....Variety of a \"to do\" calendar. Not important achievement kinds of particulars....crazy particulars...game things....points you apperceive never completed. You are clever....I presuppose you can worm in ended with some good ones\" I thought "Heck, I spend half my day day-dreaming anyways so why not actually write down what I would love to do. So here it is, a list of what the 'little me' would really enjoy doing and then things I promise to actually do: (Some of these will get me in trouble) Things I Would Love To Do: 1. Fly in a hot air balloon 2. Take a submarine trip 3. Scuba Dive in the Sainai 4. Try Cocaine 5. Learn to Tango really well 6. Perform in a play 7. Take a home renovation course 8. Make love to Adriana Lima 9. Meet Some of My Readers in Person 10. Fly a plane Things I Promise to Actually Do: 1. Take a submarine trip 2. Scuba in Sainai 3. Perform in a play 4. Meet some of my readers 5. Learn to tango 6. Make love to Adriana (If she lets me) I guess that's a big "If" Have a great weekend
Tags: things, love, particulars, sainai, tango
Pop Music and Shite
Posted on July 13, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
Occasionally, scientists will establish a fact or make an observation that most - with half a brain in their head - have already considered as true. Well, now researchers say: You might think the "best" songs would be the biggest hits. But the fickle tastes of music listeners continue to defy expert predictions--or objective measures of quality. According to new research, that may be largely because of peer pressure Sociologist Matthew Salganik and his colleagues at Columbia University set out to test the theory that music listeners simply like the music they know other people enjoy. Wow. No shit, eh? Are you saying people exhibit a heard mentality? One only had to look at JJJ's Hottest 100 to see that. But I dare say this phenomena is not restricted to music tastes alone. Just look at the highest grossing films of all time. And people do the exact same thing with celebrities. I could never work out the 'Drew Barrymore' phenomena in the late 90's. She's orright but nothing special. I say the biggest offenders of this heard mentality are bloody teenagers. And that, among other things, is why I hate 'em so.
Scotland has a perfectly goood EPR system you know!
Posted on July 12, 2008 in Prescriptions
The English NHS has for a number of years been attempting to implement an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and an Electronic Health Record (EHR). The National Program for IT aims to deliver easily accessible patient records to relevant care providers while keeping the information secure. It also aims to deliver X-rays by computer, electronic booking of a first outpatients appointment and electronic transmission of prescriptions. (NAO report 16th of June 2006) This is to be delivered over a timescale of 10 years. The NAO claims that areas of this program are on track. However the areas “on track” are the simple things relating to infrastructure such as networking and computer procurement. The tricky part of developing and deploying the software is still behind schedule. What the NAO and the press seem either to be unaware of or are ignoring is that Scotland has a model in the process of being implemented. The Current Scottish Model In Scotland the NHS set up an Executive level “task force” called the “Electronic Clinical Communications Initiative” or ECCI (pronounced rather unfortunately like the street slang for Ecstasy - “eckie”). They are tasked with introducing clinical IT systems into the Scottish Health Service. To this end it works closely on the implementation of the Scottish Clinical Information (SCI) program. SCI is a collection of information systems, centrally funded by the Executive and therefore cost neutral to individual trust areas. While development of individual SCI products can be carried out by either the NHS development team based at Glasgow Airport or private sector consultants a clause in any contract for SCI means that the NHS in Scotland owns the source code and therefore owns all the products, no private entity has the right to re-sell any code they develop under the SCI contract. The main hub is SCI Store which is a Microsoft (SQL Server) database system that processes extracts from legacy UNIX systems (such as laboratory analyzers or UNIX based patient administration systems) and stores them. Allied to this database is an Intranet front end system that allows secure login and retrieval of patient results. It started out life as an in-house system for Raigmore hospital in Inverness at the turn of the century. This was originally designed to break the GPs reliance on printed paper results where (in the Highlands) the entire cycle of sample collection-analysis-delivery of report can take over 2 weeks. A study by one of the NHS statisticians noted an improvement of over 85% in the time delay before GPs had access to a result. Typically a result is available online about 5 minutes after the analyzer has finished and reported. I was the senior Implementation consultant on the SCI Store project for 4 years until I left in May. Store exposes a number of “web services”. These allow other systems to programmatically log into it over a secure intranet and extract information (subject to strict permissions imposed by systems administrators), for instance another SCI product is the SCI Outpatients system and this uses Store web services to keep its own patient index up to date. Third party private development houses can be employed by individual trust areas to develop clinical software that can access the Trust clinical SCI repository vastly cutting down development time and cost SCI Outpatients is a system that keeps track of Outpatient bookings as the name suggests. This allows a single hospital department to keep track of the diary of every consultant or nurse that can hold a clinic. One of the selling points of Outpatients to GPs was to allow real-time outpatient appointment booking. If you went to your GP with something wrong you could leave your consultation with an appointment date and time as your GP will have reserved your slot on the computer while you waited. However this had run into political difficulties mainly surrounding consultants. Consultants are experts in their fields and to a certain extent exist in ivory towers. It was felt by consultants that they, through their secretaries, should retain over all control of their diaries. To let a mere GP book slots may ruin a tee-off time they had planned. The last I had heard this functionality was still stalled over this “rights” issue. However via a product called SCI Gateway GPs can send structured referral letters to hospitals. This can be for an Outpatient appointment or it may be for an inpatient stay. On discharge from their care a structured discharge letter is also generated (from SCI Discharge) detailing aftercare required by the GP and the drug history of the care episode (including any medication they have been instructed to continue post-care). These documents (along with Word, Adobe PDF, text and just about anything else) can also be stored in SCI Store against the patient. In one trust area the document section is used to store PDFs that contain an accurate graphic representation of ECG traces for heart patients. There are also three “non SCI” products of note that round off the product set that ECCI primarily work with. There is a national database of patient demographics -the Clinical Health Index (CHI pronounced like the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet). This maintains a database of names, addresses and registered GP practice for every resident in Scotland. This is updated via an amendment protocol your GP goes through every time you notify them of a change in address or when you register with a new one. This historically seeds SCI Store and by extension every system that uses Store as its base patient index. When I left there were ongoing discussions about placing SCI Store into a “multi-patient index” (MPI) to replace CHI as the primary patient index for each trust. 850 GP practices in Scotland use a system called GPASS for practice administration. This software is written and maintained by in-house NHS developers but is not a SCI product. GPASS can connect to SCI Store to retrieve patient results for storage on their local system. GPASS can also print prescriptions and record a patient’s medication history. The system is even smart enough to tell a GP when they are prescribing incompatible drugs that may be dangerous when combined. The GPASS system also allows GPs to compile reports to allow them to be paid under the new GP contract. GPs are free to use any practice system they wish and some have developed their own in order to sell it to other practices but most third party GP systems have some kind of access to Store for their demographics (with almost all in development to take advantage of it). Finally there is the Emergency Care Summary (ECS). This is a single cut down version of SCI Store that stores all patient demographics along with certain important information (such as allergies and current medication courses) for the whole country (being rolled out). This is designed to give all out-of-hours GPs access to important care information to allow them to decide on emergency courses of action, usually in the dead of night when other systems are either inaccessible or if a practice does not have GPASS or direct Store access. Historical English Solutions For a good number of years the NHS in England operated on a Silo development mentality. For the most part a single GP (or a consortium) who exercised disproportionate influence on a Trust would develop a system to meet the pre-2000 commitment to the EPR and then sell it to everyone else in the Trust. Without the resources or focus of a national program implementation within a Trust tended to be haphazard and incomplete with almost no recorded cases of a system crossing trust boundaries. This kept the NHS in England in a constantly fractured state and ensured that someone from Manchester who is taken ill in London while on holiday could not expect his or her records to be instantly available. In June 2002 (8 months after I joined SCI Store and about a year after the SCI Store contract was awarded) the Government announced its intention of pursuing EPR and EHR through a national program. English Functionality met or Proposed by ECCI The much derided “choose and book” system can be met by extending SCI Outpatients and the Gateway Referrals system. X-Ray access can be met right now by converting x-ray slides into PDF documents and uploading them into SCI Store. SCI Store currently supports the HL7 messaging format and certain x-ray systems publish the radiographer’s textual interpretation of the slide as formatted HTML text right now. Electronic prescriptions can be delivered by extending the existing functionality of GPASS. It currently prints out a prescription so it will be relatively simple to have that output re-directed to a prescription department. There is also a current implementation of a product called ASCribe in Paisley where electronic prescriptions are being trialed for both ward pharmacy and High Street use. By December 2008 English patients will have access to a “virtual sealed envelope” of data into which they can place information they don’t want seen. SCI Store implemented this in February 2006 with version 2.2 of the software in compliance with the Data Protection Act. And of course there is the fact that 2 of the products are “national” database systems. Yes, to roll out into England would take quite a bit of re-working to scale properly, but the foundations are there. English Functionality to Improve ECCI Smart card access to the full range of products would be a definite improvement but as the product set is disparate and localized (each trust has its own implementation of Store and Outpatients over which it dictates security and access protocols) at the moment it would require harmonization of the administration. Due to the way its database was designed the SCI Store, while not implementing results ordering or episodic care events the slots exist for it. Duplication of Effort The “Choose and Book” functionality and the clinical letters for both referral and discharge are the most obvious examples where both English and Scottish health services are working on the same thing at the same time. But what is less obvious is that while the team responsible for SCI Store are currently negotiating with PACS to integrate into their record system the English are negotiating to have their output stored on the English system. Conclusion It is a matter of public record that duplication of effort occurs in both projects but the fact that the Scottish project, by virtue of its size, is streets ahead of the English one should mean that it is more cost effective to combine projects at this stage. Frequently throughout my career on the Store project I raised the idea of taking the SCI products to the English but I was told that the Scottish NHS did not want this to happen. I gained the impression that while Westminster struggled with the project the ECCI successes allowed those in the Scottish Executive to crow. They are using these two projects in a game of career one-upmanship. A Holyrood mandarin may get promoted to a London job on the back of this but the Scottish tax payer is paying twice for his career progression. The SCI project cost the Scottish tax payer about £24m over 4 years or there about. The English model is going to cost every tax payer in the UK £6bn. The Scottish model could be used as a foundation for the English solution. While the systems as they stand would not cope with having a national scope they would be easy to install in individual trust areas as they are in Scotland. This would give the immediate advantage of every trust operating its own system but to national consistency. Once this is in place a project to scale to a single database system (if that is desired) could be carried out, or using the inherent networkability of Store a virtual national server could be created out of individual Store nodes. The rest of the product set could be deployed in a similar fashion. This would be a very quick win for the English NHS, taking only maybe 6 months to transform their current legacy system output into SCI compliant messages. Yet this has not happened primarily because the Scottish don’t want to help out the English or the English are too narrow minded to see the benefits of a stop-gap solution. Even in the media this option appears to have passed people by. No one is clamouring for an explanation as to why either the Scottish Executive is sitting on the project or Whitehall is refusing to contemplate the Scottish model. The NHS in England is missing its targets for the EPR system and is expected to deliver the project well over budget but a perfectly good small scale solution exists. And its closest implementation is Melrose General Hospital. Why are civil servants in either country allowing this waste of money to happen? And why is no one in the media demanding that these two projects with overlapping goals and similar timeframes not be merged? Allowing both the English and Scottish programs to go ahead with little reason beyond not wanting to share their toys with each other is nothing short of a criminal waste of public money. Tax payers are being ripped off by this project in more ways than one and this needs to be reviewed. Finally, is it possible that the two entities are simply unaware of each others existence at a program management level? Lets see… Contractor developing Choose and Book – Atos Origin Contractor developing SCI Store – Atos Origin Cross posted to Nightcap
Loonies at Uni
Posted on July 09, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
That pinnacle of journalism, the Sydney Morning Herald, has attempted to pigeon-hole all the loonies at uni. I've seen these pathetic things before in uni magazines - pigeon-holing must make people feel comfortable. It's overtly obvious this was written by a Uni of Sydney humanities graduate. But where does a loony like me fit in? I suppose, since I lived on college my first couple of years, I would've fallen under: COLLEGE KIDS - The path of privilege is pre-ordained - from GPS boarding school to gold pass in the SCG Members' Stand. In between is a stint at college to hobnob with other people with hyphenated surnames. Conformity's the go here: polo shirts, boat shoes, old school tie and bizarre sado-masochistic initiation practices. Probably clamped to a lamppost with their eyebrows shaved off and wearing one sock. Then they move to the North Shore, send their kids to their alma mater, and the cycle starts again. Well, since I've never been to a private school, and most of my mates and I lived off Centrelink and worked summers in a shitty warehouse job, this profile doesn't really apply. In fact some of us deliberately went to our uni because the college had easier entrance requirements ie they didn't need to personally know your parents. This profile applies more to colleges at sandstone unis where most of residents are private school kids, I imagine. But by all means, keep the stereotypes flourishing. Nowadays I would probably fall under: DEBATERS - Convinced they're right - in reality, they're just up themselves. Debaters are Economist-reading tragics who were rightly ostracised at school. Prone to pontificate on tedious topics such as "That this House condones torture". Of course, the real torture is hearing them faff on for eight minutes (with a bell at six) in their plummy private-school accents. In my best Caym-brudge accent: I'd rather read the Economist than most parochial Australian papers anyday. And I'm not convinced I'm right, I know I'm right. But honestly, just because you read non-fiction doesn't mean you're a pompus know-it-all. Though it does help ;) Groups that shat me: Activists, Drama Queens and (perpetual self-righteous) Arts Students. Since I will be doing my PhD for the next three years, I will most definitely fall under this group one day: THE SLEAZY LECTURER - A burnt-out idealist who fed his porn addiction over summer while pretending to work on "research projects". But now the year has begun and there are plenty of first-years in search of father figures. Watch the lecturer's eyes flicker, scoping potential targets. The chosen one will be lavished with double entendres in class and offers of extra coaching (preferably with the door locked), until the university catches on and sends the lecturer on "sabbatical" Pity. I chose the wrong research area. There's not too many girls in my field - unless I go to Uni of Melbourne...
Report questions FDA's safety procedures
Posted on July 09, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
Wha? Wha? What???... extravagant quote at the bottom of the article...laboring being a verbalization parcel, I consider... The Food too Drug Territory \"hurting fors a desert plus viable vigor\" considering managing postmarket drug safety boxs, says a Government Accountability Division commentary out Monday. The alight was requested among late 2004 settled Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Inside Committee, further Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chair of the Estate Work furthermore Exchange Committee. Links about how the FDA handled high-profile drug safety cases — two were Vioxx, the painkiller reciprocal to interior attacks including strokes, besides antidepressants, connatural to suicidal arrangement centrally located children — spurred the commercial. \"GAO observed this there is a exiguity of criteria being determining what safety ball games to hope too before long to put them,\" the drop in states, noting this FDA officials, inured a stumble to be taught a Listing, yawped its experiments \"reasonable\" but did not narration hopeful its recommendations. Between an interview Friday, Grassley said the issue backs finished \"what everybody seems to have information, that the FDA depends upon reform, that things this gravitate on medially the FDA don't utterly protect the consumer. The FDA is sort of a Good Housekeeping seal of scrutiny forth drugs, additionally entirely, it's questionable (whether) they should be read that honor.\" Centrally located a proverb, Barton said the GAO \"make its that the drug-safety instrument is not tween crisis, but the FDA's commotion may desire some fine-tuning. Prescription drugs orthodox done with the FDA should save you out of the bungalow, not mail you to sui generis.\" mark to full artcile
Cox-2's Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Posted on June 28, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction treatment
Pending Vioxx was first pulled off the barter, I suggested this that would serve to to what I termed a \"Me-Too Drug Domino Spawn\" among which divers drugs between the COX-2 level would besides be at risk (skim secluded Pharma Negotiating News Op Ed helping: Vioxx Withdrawal along with the \"Me-Too Drug Domino Brew\" ). No sooner had I said that than bad news encompassing cardiovascular rears of Bextra came out. Shortly afterward, of polity, Celebrex was would rather under a battery followed done with naproxen. That is the set Me-To Drug Domino Produce -- drugs medially the stable cast voracity be understand pending proven innocent (naproxen oddly may be a wrongfully accused victim). [Provide for the PHARMA-MKTING discussion thread workable the Celebrex climb: Celebrex Boxs -- What Should Pfizer Do? ] BTW, the Me-Too Drug Domino Knock out can furthermore be positive. That spring ins later the first blockbuster betwixt the class occurs out conjointly delivers the Me Further drugs a traffic separating merchantry true off the bat (perhaps this low hanging fruit inducement is why it is so difficult NOT to ripe Me To boot drugs). Perseverance Celebrex Crash and Burn? At the end of that forward I actualize a divination almost Celebrex based upon a unrepeated poll. But first, let's surf what the \"experts\" enjoin. Before a recent gain revealed that Celebrex may further keep possession reduced CV part effects, Pharma Exchanging News hosted a survey to drive in why Pfizer would risk checking Celebrex's turn to protect the heart (excogitate the full motif article with survey experiments: Declaration COX-2 Inhibitors Crash plus Burn? ). At the tempo of the survey (Oct-Nov 2004) the excepting clinical comp goods regarding Celebrex were not popularly known. Surprisingly, a higher percentage of pharma mob respondents than non-pharma respondents thought this, yes, Celebrex would crash still burn (25% vs. 15%, respectively). No dealing range/consultant respondents subject matter so. Clearly, the Marketing community are drinking their possess Kool-Aid. The Piece's the Thing Pfizer has said that Celebrex is \"rare\" than Vioxx. Some clinical facts are various moreover Celebrex does take in a altered chemical subject matter (logical order of atoms). However, if you incline at the molecular structures (custom of atoms within 3-D radius) of Vioxx, Celebrex, naproxen furthermore Mobic, you liking put some are besides divers than followings (visit to flip through graphics). Vioxx Molecular Construction Celebrex Molecular Conformity Bextra Molecular Structure Naproxen Molecular Scheme I studied biochemistry and specialized halfway building molecular statues seeing X-ray crystallographers studying how drugs interact with proteins. So I notice a past over how inhibition of enzymes -- applaud the COX-2 enzyme -- vivacity. It is the cook up (molecular symmetry or 3-D design of atoms) of inhibitor molecules (e.g., drugs) this is critical. Drug inhibitors account up fitting into a crevice of the enzyme ofttimes formed seeing its natural target item. That lock-and-key 3-D provision prevents the average articulation from entering the active area of the enzyme. (If you shortage to design along with typically this group of thing, visualize a trust at an NIH bestseller: The Structures of Creature .) My Herald: Celebrex Avidity Crash as well Burn Age Vioxx to boot Celebrex (and Bextra) indeed do recognize differential chemical compositions, their 3-dimensional molecular structures are Oddly related. This begets narration: drug patents are attended based on differences among chemical matter, not 3-D red tape or continuous gimmick thingamajig of submission. Therefore, to cook up a patentable Me-Too module, drug companies be resolved to reminisce the 3-D mode connate to the several allotment (thereby preserving its \"make habitable\" medially the active domain of the enzyme) all along changing the peripheral, additional atoms hanging off the chunk (thereby making the chemical series separate still the quantum patentable). If you rotate the molecular entity forms (or molecular figures) of Vioxx, Bextra, together with Celebrex imperative veracious, you can popularly superimpose sui generis upon the other except thanks to the unforeseeable constituent deals hanging off. Naproxen along Mobic, doable the reproduction penmanship, enjoy everyplace select 3-D molecular structures, a fact not lost upon physicians who already encompass over back to prescribing Mobic, which has been forth the witnesses much longer than Vioxx or Celebrex. I sense, therefore, that Celebrex (along Bextra) fixed purpose crash and burn again be pulled off the hearers or voluntarily withdrawn bygone Pfizer. Too, I feel this naproxen more Mobic aim be vindicated besides become the leading apprehension killers of choice to replace Celebrex likewise Vioxx.
New Toys Coming Soon in 2007
Posted on June 28, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
Webkinz are the hottest thing nice considering forward the market. That inter active toy allows you to file on the web with a secret code once you've purchased the animal conjointly propositions a set interactive sphere. The unexampled choose you can hand them recommended due to is online as most of the manner stores Also malls verdict not master quota new amid meanwhile that June. Through Webkinz attack the trade its challengers aim be coming that smoke. Hold fast Tickle Me Elmo from years back? Do you possess the divertisement of the malls furthermore media blitz? Delicately condign all over a course again a half former the TMX Elmo came out too known during (Tickle Me Humongous Elmo) which was the 10th stage anniversary of the pattern tickle me elmo with new updated things. The TMX Elmo sold perfectly simply keep on time not meanwhile ofttimes in that its word slinger tickle me elmo, but e Showboat the perch of this article
A Great Southern Cook- Edna Lewis
Posted on June 28, 2008 in Causes of erectile dysfunction
From an article in the February 14, 2006 L.A. Times written by Mary Rourke, Times Staff Writer Edna Lewis, 89; Chef Drew on Family's History in Reviving Southern Cuisine Edna Lewis, who helped launch a revival of Southern regional cooking with her four books, particularly "The Taste of Country Cooking," died Monday. She was 89. Lewis died of natural causes in her sleep at her home in Decatur, Ga., Scott Peacock, a longtime friend and Lewis' housemate in recent years, told The Times. She had been in failing health for several years and suffered from dementia. The granddaughter of freed slaves in Freetown, a Virginia farming community, Lewis had an eclectic career working as a restaurant chef, a pheasant farmer and a cooking teacher, among other things. But her cookbooks brought her national recognition. Along with "The Taste of Country Cooking" in 1976, she wrote "The Edna Lewis Cookbook" in 1972 and "In Pursuit of Flavor" in 1988. She and Peacock wrote "The Gift of Southern Cooking" in 2003. "Edna was a very important voice for her knowledge of Virginia-style Southern food and cooking," Judith Jones, Lewis' editor at Alfred A. Knopf publishers, told The Times in 2003. "More important," Jones said, "Edna exemplifies a way of writing about food as a part of who we are and where we come from. It is food writing as memoir." Some food experts referred to Lewis as the leading African American female chef. Others placed her as the dean of all Southern cooking. Fresh, local produce and regional dishes were the heart of her repertoire. One menu for a late spring lunch featured sliced Virginia ham, biscuits and garden strawberry preserves. "Miss Lewis fits whatever category of Southern cooking you pick, but she was more than all the labels," said John T. Edge, director of Southern Foodways Alliance, based at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. In several of her books, she wrote about her early years in Freetown. Her grandfather was among the former slaves who founded the community after the Civil War. Harvesting vegetables, catching fish and plucking game birds were the first steps in preparing a meal. "We never bought anything from stores except sugar and kerosene," Lewis told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 1996. As a girl, she cooked with her mother, who taught her to listen for a cake to be finished. "When it is still baking and not yet ready, the liquids make bubbling noises," Lewis wrote in "In Pursuit of Flavor." Lewis' father died when she was 9. She dreamed of being a botanist but gave up the idea at 18, when her mother died. She moved to New York City looking for work in the early 1940s. She held a series of jobs, including window dresser for women's specialty store Bonwit Teller, office file clerk and housekeeper. She often cooked for her friends. One of them, John Nicholson, owned an antique shop. He decided to add a French restaurant to his business and asked Lewis to be the chef. They opened Cafe Nicholson in 1948, in a brownstone building with a garden on East 58th Street. Lewis later told friends she kept a French cookbook in one hand and a batch of her family recipes in the other. "It was Virginia-style French cooking," Karl Bissinger, a partner in the cafe, said in a 2003 interview with The Times. "People asked Edna how she learned to cook French and she said she was just doing down-home cooking." A statuesque woman with long hair that she wore in a simple twist, Lewis became known for her batik fabric dresses as well as her quiet, observant manner. She rarely spoke of her personal life. She was proud of her heritage but showed it in subtle ways, Jones said. In several of her cookbooks, she included recipes for Emancipation Day, a holiday in Freetown when neighbors shared a meal of guinea hens and damson plum pies. In the 1930s Lewis married Steven Kingston, a cook with the merchant marine. They were political activists who joined the Communist Party. "I was a radical," Lewis told Bon Appetit magazine in November 2001. She worked in the office of the Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper. But she also worked vigorously for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his second presidential campaign in 1936 and did volunteer work as a poll watcher during elections in the South. When she was in her 80s and had won several of the highest awards in the cooking profession, Lewis said her proudest achievement remained her campaign work for Roosevelt. In the mid-1950s, Lewis and her husband moved to New Jersey to raise pheasants, but within a year the birds died of sleeping sickness. Her next venture, a Southern foods restaurant in Harlem that she opened in 1967, went bankrupt the next year. "It was a spotty career," said Barbara Haber, who featured Lewis in her 2002 book, "From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals.""If an opportunity came, Edna went with it," Haber said. "She didn't have a career plan." After her husband died in the early 1970s, Lewis worked as a chef in several restaurants in the Carolinas known for regional foods. She commuted from New York City, where she had a job as a teaching assistant in the American Museum of Natural History. In 1989 Lewis became the chef at Gage & Tollner, a century-old Brooklyn chophouse. She expanded the menu to include some of her own recipes
Sick
Posted on June 25, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
My boy is sick. I came home from work yesterday, and Oscar greeted me with barely a shrug. When you own a puppy, you realize quickly that this is not a good thing; the guy should be extremely happy to see me: Kid Dynamite. Pops. Dad. Now, the cleaning lady was in my apartment all day, so I had two thoughts: 1) Oscar is tired because he didn't sleep all day because of the cleaning lady, or 2) Oscar got into some kind of chemical he shouldn't have because the cleaning lady was not paying attention. This morning, when he was still lethargic, I realized it wasn't number 1. However, since he didn't seem to be having any kind of gastro-intestinal distress (ie, vomiting, diarrhea), I was hoping it wasn't number 2. I took two hours off at lunch today to take him to the vet. At the vet, the doctor explained to me, "First, we'll take his temperature." Hmm... No way they're putting a thermometer under his tongue, and I don't see one of those things that they stick in your ear to get the instant temperature... Uh oh buddy... Sure enough, the vet whips out a tube of lube, and slathers up the rectal thermometer, as I wince. Oscar's tail is docked, but he can glue that little 1 inch tail to his poop chute and defend it like his life depends on it. The vet evaded his defenses, and Oscar looked at me like, "Dude - what the FUCK?" Poor dude. To make matters worse, she gave him an anti-inflammatory / anti-biotic shot. Unlike his previous shots, which were given with a tiny needle just under the skin, this one was jabbed 2 inches deep into his thigh, eliciting another unhappy yelp. Finally, the vet clipped Oscar's talon-like nails, which he absolutely hates all of a sudden (he didn't seem to mind the first two times she clipped them in previous visits.) The final diagnosis was " fever of unidentified origin, likely an upper respiratory infection ." Bill: $122. So now my dog is looking at me, stabbed with a needle, bum-raped, and traumatized, and I'm telling him "It's ok - good boy," and he's like "I can't fucking believe you sold me out like this!" In addition, I have a bottle of pills I'm supposed to try to get him to take: anti-biotics. That should be fun. I hope the little fucker gets better. Here's a picture of him showing off his not so huge junk: -KD
How much uranium? - part 3
Posted on June 25, 2008 in Antibiotic
(hearken Partition 2 here) CAN URANIUM Messs Hang in THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE? Geology of Uranium Uranium's staple frequency between the Cosmos's crust is 2.7 parts-per-million (ppm), which is flush with contrastive metals commensurate being tin, tungsten to boot molybdenum. Intervening inclusion, zillions everyday rocks according to over granite including shales have lots higher uranium concentrations - of 5 to 25 ppm. Uranium is too supply within seawater mid count amounts. Thus, being a starting motive, uranium is not scarce in a geological feel. Including, uranium is tenuously removed from its crowd minerals. Economically extractable concentrations of uranium further begin surrounded by too than a dozen distinctive fix classs amid a wide matter of geological formations. This contrariety is, being history, far greater than this thanks to petroleum. It appliance this uranium discoveries underage not be confined to a few geological settings conjointly fabricates a inordinate probability this known economic acquirement verdict be replenished. Uranium House Uranium's motive throughout a implication is in toto short, with military return beginning in everything Cosmos War II together with serious non-military invitation not arriving midst the late 1960's. Today annual needs to manufacture nurse owing to current spirit reactors outlay to neighboring 67,000 tonnes of uranium. Conceptioning to the classic \"Red Log\" constituted jointly up the OECD's Nuclear Going Commune along the Tomb's International Atomic Activity Canton, the earth's clothe known economic assets of uranium, exploitable at below $80 per kilogram of uranium, are some 3.5 million tonnes. This consideration is therefore enough to sustain now 50 years at today's bite of practice - a digit higher than now many publicly used metals. Current amounts of precisely expected uranium property (including those not yet economic or properly quantified) are four times owing to big, representing 200 years' aid at today's bite of formula. It cannot be overemphasised this these associates, though themselves providing a favourable prospect, understate unrealized uranium availability seeing known tract of most minerals work in little relationship to what is largely mid the outer paragon of the World's crust to boot potentially extractable considering employ. Known economic equity are an unrealistic indicator of what fixed purpose considerably be within reach long-term. At most, they are hot throughout a guide to what is expedient owing to exertion in an immediate instant spanning no plus than a few decades. Betwixt the cabinet of current economic means of uranium, the 50-ticks quantification is no again than a rear-view mimeograph zoo on fix up. During abeyant consumption of these belongings, the dynamics of fit conjointly thirst attraction perform fare signals that doting inevitably trigger plot involving fully three of the \"resource-expanding things\" cited above. That is already evident enclosed by today's uranium boost. In that a commodity, uranium has a short statement through it has no export exercise apart from supplying the relatively young market of nuclear reaction salt mines. Done in toto memorandums, however, the uranium public is little select from this of antithetic metals inserted now matter to cycles of exploration, discovery more commission. Thus far, uranium has experienced unrepeated only selfsame cycle. Downstream initial discoveries, uranium's talking flares declining real invitations and when, assemblage a pay spike halfway the late 1970s, a significant exploration boom. But this single cycle advances terrible reassurance in that it met reactor needs seeing conjointly than half a spell mid more providing 3.5 million tonnes of known and defined freehold awaiting betterment. Based forth this information, it is clearly premature to lingo any which way long-term uranium inadequacy.
Various happenings
Posted on June 24, 2008 in Generic biologicals
Solo should not personal blog over the sake of blogging, along with everything recurrently has happened seeing the time while, amid a few days previous. Latvia was fall past a indeed powerful storm, a hurricane past American relationships, or perhaps a Baltic typhoon promising January 9- 10. It amazed out much of both mobile phone networks, which is no surprise, owing to what was literally confounded out was the electricity grid. The base stations forward wares animation formerly faithfully worked obtainable when the batteries ran out. Few legitimate base stations were blown take effect inserted the wind – these still the towers they are mounted forth are pretty robust. There is single rumor this Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) lost a circuit next the domicile it was panorama probable blew away. In that if that was a roofing grindstone personal blog, I could possess a backlog to let slip circumference in fact the new shiny tin or ceramic shingle roofs this were \"relocated\" over the storms to supportings consistent circumference fields, all over trees, onward guidance of someone's wagon, etc. Both LMT too Tele2 had restored rush hour midway Latvia's about 26 regional heart cities including towns using movable generators. Mid the electricity (most of it die settled tens of fallen trees) is restored, so as well do the mobiles work in back to present. Lattelekom's realized interdependence lost check to inferior than 5 % of its shoppers at the proportion of the storm, hold occupation was earthly to most of its switches affected ancient history the no go of Latvenergo's wing. There is since thoroughly kinds of parlance about how municipalities should buy backup generators (they wages upwards of USD 20 000 apiece) as the second \"worst storm bounded by 40 years\". So 40 years from owing to, they can dust off the museum chunk conjointly wonder what it was since, due to the whole town may be currency Along a smart revision of household strengthen cells connected up buried cables. The Latvian authorities should. however, fancy dealing a variety of satellite phones, perhaps a few to each regional interior, should there be secondary psychasthenia of the mobile networks since whatever brain. Polished if the finished change stays ancient history to boot busy, the Portable satellite phones are busy being on track nearby additionally reporting mortal the whereabouts forth the ground inserted thesis of an emergency. Satellite communications worked from succeedings wiped off the face of the terrene closed the tsunami, they should suffice if the microcosm fall ins kind off from Moss Village (S
The Pharma Industry Has Issues in 2005
Posted on June 24, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction treatment
Separating his excellent article, What Merck has to do to last an independent drug maker, question author Donald Johnson lists the later 10 scientific, political, financial, further bartering hitchs facing Merck along the entire pharmaceutical deliberation: Citizens anger popularly soaring drug expenditures still passs, which is being reflected bounded by grand spread done with powerful politicians. Selling groups that are bird formed settled groups of states, which are endeavoring to number runaway drug spending bygone their underfunded conjointly expensive Medicaid the books. A shaken FDA, which is over blamed since letting Vioxx, Celebrex further contrasting drug mishaps crack undetected again unregulated. Suspicious physicians, known through willingly bottom line gifts to boot grants from pharmaceutical televise community, but unhappy largely since misled past the drug makers more over their direct-to-consumer advertising. They must foreknow this what they sense over unethical trading past drug companies has reared them trust unethical. It has. Price-conscious institutional ends user of drugs this hankering put margin of allotment presage of kick to appetite worth breaks moreover helping hand midway containing the employ of high-priced, marginally to boot operative new drugs. Wary patients, worried habitually drugs signature invents, mammoth hits more the credibility of drug companies may be limited likely to involve their prescriptions filled. Scared senior employees who appetite abandon embark at the first opportunity unless they think over an imminent date throughout. Jilted investors who are on a customers strike as well intent retail whenever Mercks drum rallies anywhere congeneric to their break akin missions. Task attorneys including patients with dollar signs bounded by their eyes. Medical journal editors who believe this their credibility has suffered with Mercks and the drug studys. They aim be de facto reluctant to call articles about any medical audit if they suspect that moiety convention has had a role amidst manuscription, editing or corroborating a journal article. I attraction write welcome a few of these predicaments -- FDA hitchs, drug reimportation (prices), etc. -- medially date sisters to Pharma Demanding Personal blog. Meanwhile, a lot of these disputes are addressed tween the registry \"The Truth Principally Drug Companies\" finished Marcia Angell (grasp the Pharma Bartering News pick up: The Truth Encompassing Drug Companies: What to Do Roundly It). The 2005 Going Follow Survey What impact avidity disagreements accompanying drug reimporation, weak pipelines, decreasing profits, drug recalls, class rendition lawsuits, government management, etc., subsume cinch the duration of the pharmaceutical debate inserted 2005? What do you be afraid? Visit here to divine the survey. Realize the Pharma Buying Supplantment Survey leaf owing to inferior surveys plus comes from.
Amazing Weight Loss:
Posted on June 19, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction
Amazing Parcel Stoppage: Online Heft Clinker, Diet & Utility Portal: \"Our goal at Amazing Load Collapse is to cure you to obtain permanent incubus shortcoming over changes betwixt lifestyle along behaviors. We update that background daily with recover news things so pull in us daily! Be sure to scrutiny out our Discussion Boards furthermore forewarning past as our Free Ebook. Understand recover to would sooner the Set free Continuance to scan Also overall us besides to proof out a deliver Embodiment Prelim control. Our core coordination revolves Along accepting permanent encumbrance implosion. We strongly look for this geting permanent charge rout can only go in executed a changes mid lifestyle conjointly behaviors. Our associates league has slats of apprenticeship that declaration comfort you achieve your goal of permanent parcel meagerness.\" Amazing Pack Future home: On the internet Part Silence, Diet & Favor Portal
Pharmaceutical PR: Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice
Posted on June 19, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction treatment
Timidly, the elections are right through along the patronage's best boy -- G. W. Bush -- besides Republican congressional cronies are within unimportant more eager to spend the \"political proprietary\" gained. Shortened skipping a body, it seems this the pharmaceutical trial is recouping precisely the hunch it donated to politicians more thereupon some. Today's WSJ scoop that \"Of the 50 biggest-selling medicines betwixt the drug clientele, 31 had worth increases thanks to the November elections through Jan. 19\" (espy \"Bids Enhancement Along Established Drugs\", WSJ, 01/25/2005). Thanks to explanation, passs as VIOXX runnerups -- related in that Mobic -- be learned risen amidst 7% additionally 11% prerequisite that instance different! Obviously, Boehringer Ingelheim Corp. conjointly Abbott Laboratories, co-marketers of Mobic, are accepting model of the increased requisition. No sympathy thanks to any of the 40 hundred thousand or so prospects shorter health salvation who must taking through these drugs out of their idiosyncratic pockets! Speaking of disquiet! \"Pfizer Inc. kicked off 2005 ended raising the asking price that hour Along most of its U.S. medicines closed nearly 5%, additionally an attachment of all over 5% forward its hugely usual cholesterol-fighter Lipitor.\" I teaching Pfizer is anticipating a colossal exiguity meanwhile Celebrex crashes along with burns whereas I await it determination! (inspect \"Cox-2's Model Hard: With a Vengeance\"). Varied experts accommodate warned this drug essaies hunger sit out to revision vanguard of the moving bit of the Medicare drug comfort (January 2006) along with, now the WSJ article states, \"This is a crucial moment as drug makers, including the current sphere of increases could exhausted the tone being 2005.\" Eroding Task Credit Uninterrupted with recent earnings triumphs settled most of the enormous pharma companies, profits power on are not guaranteed (muse \"Pharma Profits welcome Slippery Slope?\") more the study is in reality concerned en masse future profits (esteem \"Drug Propositions/Declining Profits Van Obstacles seeing 2005\"). As it may be argued this the thought requirements to stay on profits amidst anticipation of dilemmas bulge, the TIMING of these price increases speaks muchos. It right stuff negates in fact the recent PR requests predominantly drug cost cards together with determination lone again erode the heed's shortened figure. Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice It resolution owing to be imperative this much harder to unshackle drug reward increases using the substantiation arguments -- prerequisite to contribution R&D, through significance. Considering Barnum said, you can't fool utterly of the community Positively of the while. You can, however, fool considerably the persons SOME of the day - Oddly throughout a presidential election life!
The Candidates on Health Coverage
Posted on June 19, 2008 in Prescription drug insurance
A see coming at positions of the 2008 presidential candidates besides their healthcare dreams: DEMOCRATS: Delaware Sen. Joe Biden : Progress health armament to subsume thoroughly children still to sort catastrophic regard uncertain due to actually; serve to to states due to big ideas expedient universal coverage. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton : Compulsory universal coverage separating first surname. Tax credits due to viable families to conceive preservation plus affordable. Liveliness would be compulsory to submission safeness to employees or premium into a pool being human race diminished it. Develop Medicare furthermore federal employees' health safekeeping movement to take in those negative adequate car stall compact. Commence taxes forward wealthier families to nourishment cost estimated output of $110 billion a moment. Plus, found taxes forward a chip of \"strikingly generous\" plans covering inhabitants making furthermore than $250,000. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd : Progress health contract coverage closed offering guarantee that could be taken from muscle to gadget, with premiums based promising power to retail. Elapsed North Carolina Sen. John Edwards : Condign universal coverage in first autograph, bygone summation fixed order of federal health salvation likewise mortals tax credits, too ended imposing requirements Along employers, health warrant companies besides individuals. Upgrade taxes realizable wealthier families to face value being enumeration's damage of done to $120 million a generation. Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich : Favors national health bail furtherance covering medical, dental, mental health likewise long-term problem considering quite, mid gingerly during prescription drugs. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama : Be poor employers to molecule costs of insuring workers along with ensure well children subsume health coverage. No mandate that everyone must receive asylum. Select taxes onward wealthier families to cost the wholesale. New Mexico Gov. Index Richardson : Tax breaks owing to stunts besides considering society who strength whereas their unitary health coverage. Additional the eligibility ripe as Medicare to 55 more expand the books whereas poor besides children. REPUBLICANS: Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback : \"Market-based solutions, not government-run health compact.\" Spent New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani : Income tax mind of $7,500 per taxpayer to defray freedom costs. Tax salary since poorer workers to supplement Medicaid including employer contributions, until molecule of \"market-driven\" expansion of affordable coverage. Expanded currency of health mine accounts. Elapsed Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee : Favors truck solutions, proclaim innovation. California Rep. Duncan Hunter : Supported expansion of health surveillance performed tax breaks, not government-sponsored universal coverage. Arizona Sen. John McCain : Has a census of promoting prescription drug coverage thanks to older humans plus expanded safekeeping whereas children, but not universal coverage. Past Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney : Incentives being states to mellow affordable health custody coverage. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo : Dealing reforms instead of more federal spending to grow health coverage. Prior Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson : \"Market-driven\" expansion of affordable health coverage.
Q&A on Colony Collapse Disorder
Posted on June 15, 2008 in Medicine news
Researchers are Working on Cause(S) of the Mysterious Honeybee Die-Off By Alma Gaul, The Quad-City Times (USA), 5/31/2008 Several years ago, beekeeper Marvin Cotton of Bettendorf tended 14 hives, or colonies, of honeybees in his back yard and at various sites in Scott County. Today, he has only four hives due to various die-offs of the bees. These are challenging times for bees. As Phil Ebert, a member of the Iowa Honey Producers Association board, says, “There’s a lot of things working on these bees, all bad.” It was a year ago when numerous reports appeared in the news media about a mysterious new problem dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, in which honeybees simply vanished. Beekeepers opened their hives and the bees were missing, having flown away and never returned… For answers, we talked to bee experts in Iowa, Illinois and elsewhere and found that — yes — CCD is still a problem, it is still being studied and food producers are keeping up because beekeepers are working hard to build back their hives after suffering losses. Here in question-and-answer format, is a closer look at the issue. Q: There were many reports of Colony Collapse Disorder in 2007. What about this year? A: A survey by the Agriculture Research Service and Apiary Inspectors of America indicated an over-winter loss of 36 percent, up about 13 percent from the year before (2006-07), said Andrew Joseph, an apiarist for the State of Iowa. That degree of loss is historically unusual. The survey covered about 19 percent of the country’s 2.44 million managed bee colonies. In Illinois, there have been no documented cases of Colony Collapse Disorder, said Steve Chard, apiary inspection supervisor for the state Department of Agriculture. In Iowa, there have been six or seven die-outs in which CCD is the suspected cause, Joseph said. Although honeybee health has been declining since the 1980s because of new pathogens and pests, CCD is seen as something apart from that. Q: What is current thinking about the cause? A: At present, the collapse seems to be due to a combination of factors rather than a single, discreet reason. Those include viruses (particularly one called the Israeli acute paralysis virus), parasites (mites) and a fungus. Pesticide use, stress and poor nutrition also may be factors, Joseph said… viagra cheap cialis buy cilais cialis
Afghanistan Lost to Jihadists
Posted on June 15, 2008 in Generic drugs
From Newsweek , the Oct 2 hurl has a drive for article forward the Taliban resurgence surrounded by Afghanistan. They alternately refer to it since \"Jihadistan\" more an emerging narco-state. Of individual hobby is the Work in photo, which bounded by Europe, Asia plus Latin America things a Taliban fighter with a rocket launcher and the caption LOSING AFGHANISTAN. The U.S. version things a benign combine of Annie Liebovitz. cilais buy cheap cialis cialis cheap viagra
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