Innovation at the Pharmacy
Posted on June 06, 2008 in Pharmacy
One of my favorite innovation stories lately is that of Deborah Adler's redesign of prescription bottles. Prescription bottles have been the same forEVER, or at least since WWII. Same amber bottles, same stoopid caps, same labels with teeny-tiny writing, same information stapled to the plastic bag. Adler had her eureka moment after her grandmother took her grandfather's medicine by accident. It was the same medicine, but at a different dosage. Their names were similar, Helen vs. Herman, and the bottles, of course, looked the same. So she came up with the ClearRx system, a design so good that Target snapped it up along with the patent, and it will be featured in a MoMA exhibit this fall. The new design features a new red bottle, color-coded rings, one for each member of the family, and a clear informataion hierarchy, with the important information at the top of the label and the less important information below. There are a number of other improvements as well, that can be seen in this neat ad from Target. Innovation that makes a difference, and great design. A winner all around. viagra buy cilais generic cialis cheap viagra
Tags: bottle, innovation, information, design, important
So, Yeah, Blair's in Trouble
Posted on May 30, 2008 in Generic biologicals
Clarke is fired in Cabinet purge according to the beeb, but it hasn't helped much: Charles Clarke has been sacked as home secretary in the biggest Cabinet reshuffle of Tony Blair's career. The prime minister is trying to regain momentum after one of the worst local election results in Labour's history. Mr Clarke will be replaced by Defence Secretary John Reid. Margaret Beckett is the new foreign secretary, with Jack Straw becoming Commons leader. John Prescott will stay as deputy prime minister but lose his department. Trade Secretary Alan Johnson gets education. Labour came third in the overall share of the vote in local elections in England, losing control of 18 local authorities. The Tories were the biggest winners, gaining 316 extra councillors and 40% of the vote. The results - which saw Labour lose 319 councillors - prompted Mr Blair to push ahead with a reshuffle originally planned for Monday. The reshuffle comes amid reports a letter is circulating among Labour MPs calling for Mr Blair to name a date for his handover of power to Chancellor Gordon Brown. The PM said he was "sorry" to lose Mr Clarke, who has been under intense pressure over the deportation of foreign prisoners - one of a series of scandals to have rocked the government in recent weeks. But he added: "I felt that it was very difficult, given the level of genuine public concern, for Charles to continue in this post." Yeah, Tony, there's clearly a level of public concern about you continuing in your post as well. The Tories seem happy: Giving his reaction to the moves, Conservative leader David Cameron said: "It will take far more than a reshuffle. What we need in this country is a replacement." He said the Conservatives were "showing there is a broad-based alternative that is building while the government is collapsing". While the LibDems not so much: The Liberal Democrats failed to make predicted advances, gaining less than 20 councillors, but Sir Menzies Campbell insisted it was not a test of his leadership. He said Mr Blair should have sacked Mr Clarke "before now", saying the prime minister was "trying to shuffle a pretty battered pack of cards". I think the Liberal Democrats are still pretty well placed, though. After all, Labour is still, well, labouring under the burden placed upon it by its connection to Bush's war, and yet the Conservatives are almost certain not to change the direction of government much. If the Conservatives win and there isn't much change, the LibDems can get respectable gains using a genuinely liberal (and probably somewhat "England First") platform. Certainly the polling suggests LibDem strength: If Thursday's polls had been held nationwide, the Tories would have gained 40% of the vote, Lib Dems 27% and Labour 26%. Turnout is estimated at 36% - down three points from 2004. Of course, all this may be moot if Tony gets tossed over the side like Thatcher was and Brown essentially turns Labour into a whole new party. Which, honestly, seems more likely by the day. generic viagra online Generic Viagra Cheap Viagra cheap cialis
Drug Prices Down
Posted on May 30, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
I maintain that bear market bygone Gladwell amazing. I fill it amazing this the Times did not intimate what would be the logically along with industry grabbing headline: \"Drug Proposals Take effect\". It's criminal this our health costs are skyrocketing through family are purchasing cast epithet drugs. If you're literacy that tween the USA additionally are expedient Prozac along count health insurance- I be poor you correspondence to generic fluoxetine. Impel, you'll as well be unlooked for either flow, especial that continuity, I'll be happier too. It's a win-win-lose, but we'll be the winners! The Times' Drug Business: \"The New York Times led its ministration slab today with the headline: “Drug Bids Finished Sharply.” The text of the any was a wade through gone AARP array that hits of prescription drugs rose 3.9 percent mid the first three months of that era, four times the shade of inflation. Outrageous! But prevail: it isn’t over you imbibe a little closer that you guess this the output adding just refers to brand-name pharmaceutical advances. Likewise what the article never mentions at largely is this the AARP released a go take up yesterday, Showing this generic drug costs between the United States were unchanged midway the first allocate again fell 0.1 percent over the antecedent century. Here is the key paragraph from the AARP explain, which—unbelievably—never set up it into the Times measure: 'The damage of promotion betwixt popular annual affect inserted manufacturer’s list retail seeing generic prescription drugs most altogether used ended older Americans was near sui generis year the tier of average inflation due to 2005.” \" cialis buy cheap cialis viagra Cheap Viagra
Wrecked Compact
Posted on May 25, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
Just as last year, I don't understand the point of these compacts about states disregarding their own results and giving their electoral votes for President to the winner of the national popular vote. On second thought, I do; Dems like O'Malley are still trying to win the 2000 election. The more-logical thing to do is to simply choose electors proportionately; that is, if half the vote goes for Dems, half the electors are Dems, and vice versa. But the reason Dems will fight that tooth and nail is that it means they actually would have to work for the votes in states like California and New York, rather than simply sitting back and using them as ATMs.
Win 5 FREE 2-Liter Bottles Of Diet Coke
Posted on May 11, 2008 in Diet
Coca-Cola's Olympics contest giving away lots of FREE product coupons Don't you just hate entering contests where you never win anything and you feel so jipped that you were suckered into buying a product just to enter? I've done than more times than I'm willing to admit. With that said, I will share with you one example from my distant past. Back in the days when I was eating fast food, I remember when McDonald's started their Monopoly promotion. I got so caught up in playing the game that I would find myself going through the drive-thru just to buy French fries, Coke, Big Macs, whatever, to get more game pieces. It was quite pathetic and my waistline suffered for it. Anyone else do that? :-~ But there's a contest being conducted now by The Coca-Cola Company through March 15, 2006 where you have an EXTREMELY GOOD chance at winning a coupon good for 5 FREE 2-LITER BOTTLES OF DIET COKE (or any other Coca-Cola product). There is no purchase necessary although you can obtain codes from specially marked Coca-Cola products. Visit the contest page at Olympics.Coke.com and register online. Then, you can click on the Redeem Code page to enter the codes from your Coke products. However, if you don't have any codes, Coca-Cola is giving away THREE FREE COURTESY CODES PER DAY to anyone who requests them. Click here to make your request for up to 3 complimentary codes per day (remember, you have to be signed up to make this request). Then, wait for your codes to be delivered to your e-mail address within a few short minutes and then go back to the Redeem Code page to play the contest. Don't be surprised if you are an instant winner! Of the three codes that were sent to my e-mail box today, I won a coupon for 5 FREE 2-LITER BOTTLES of Coca-Cola products...TWICE! That's pretty good odds, don't you think? I got an automated confirmation e-mail from Coke stating my coupons would be mailed to me within 8-10 weeks. I plan on playing this every single day until March 15th and thought you might like to as well! If you are a fan of diet soda (and you already know that I am!), then you might want to take advantage of this rare opportunity to actually win a whole buncha FREE product! Let me know if you are a winner like I was today. If you don't believe me, click here and check it out for yourself. I really would like to know if anyone else wins, too! As if the FREE Diet Coke wasn't incentive enough, Coca-Cola is also giving away 17 daily drawings for a trip for two to Washington, DC for a gala in honor of the 2006 Olympians from Team USA as well as a Grand Prize drawing for a 6-day all-expense paid trip to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, including airfare, accomodations and tickets to all the Olympic events and $5,000 in spending money. Ooooooo! Wouldn't that be sweeeeeeet?! What do you have to lose? At the very least, you'll be able to stock up on Diet Coke for the summer! Enter TODAY! 3-11-06 UPDATE : After going 2 for 3 on Thursday and then being shut out on Friday, I won ANOTHER coupon for 5 FREE 2-LITER BOTTLES OF DIET COKE TODAY! WOO HOO! This is so easy I'm surprised EVERYONE isn't doing it! 3-12-06 UPDATE : Another day, another winner! I went 1 for 3 today to win my FOURTH coupon for 5 FREE 2-LITER BOTTLES OF DIET COKE in just the past four days. Are you playing? Have you been winning, too? Let us know! Cheap Viagra viagra Generic Viagra buy cilais
Corcept Spins Out
Posted on May 10, 2008 in Generic prescription drug list
The interesting thing principally Corlux (mifepristone/RU-486) is this no gist how it fares in clinical trials, it is always a winner . Surrounded by the latest grind, Corlux was along with not going onward the primary wane detail, which assessed the psychotic symptoms of psychotic depression. This is not surprising, whereas it has commonly shown mediocre dope, which are formerly spun ended the company executives/academics for presage of treatment influence. Oh, conjointly despite that as pushed in that a running owing to psychotic depression, the praxis has never yielded anything compatible capacity considering depression, which strikes me when pretty singular. Dr. Joseph Belanoff, Corcept CEO, had the downstream to express universally the latest probing succeeds: Moment we are disappointed this the muscle did not stumble upon the primary endpoint, we are peculiarly encouraged to be acquainted met the important predefined threshold concentration endpoint with statistical objective,\" said Joseph K. Belanoff, M.D., Corcept's Chief Executive Officer. \"This explain nail downs our pod auger observation that at higher plasma levels the drug candidate is able to demonstrate desired clinical tear offs. Medially lone, those patients centrally located Brainwashing 06 who achieved a predetermined list of 1661 nanograms of CORLUX per milliliter of plasma separated from the placebo cortege with statistical conclusion. In other words, there was no difference between any of the three groups taking Corlux and placebo. None. So it appears that they started data dredging (e.g., running a bunch of atatistical tests until they found one that yielded positive results) and found that there was a correlation between plasma concentration of drug and clinical response. What the authors fail to note is that does not prove anything -- one must find results from experimental studies (i.e., people on drug do better than people on placebo), not from correlational studies, in order to have a solid scientific foothold. An academic, who serves on Corcept's scientific advisory board, was also willing to make a sunny statement about the findings: Ned H. Kalin, M.D., Hedberg Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, said, "The correlation between plasma levels of drug and response rates found in this trial is very exciting. The results of this study show that when psychotically depressed patients achieve a threshold concentration of CORLUX in their system, a rapid and sustained clinical response is likely. This is a strong demonstration of a drug effect in an illness that is potentially devastating and difficult to treat." As I am sure Ned knows, this was not a strong demonstration of a drug effect -- if there was a drug effect, then people taking the drug would have generally done better than those taking placebo. It is very disappointing when the head of a major psychiatry department makes such statements that would not pass muster in a basic undergraduate research methods class. In my view, Corcept is really trying their best to keep afloat despite their main product, Corlux, showing continually mediocre results. Please read my earlier posts about Corcept's uncanny ability to always find something positive in their studies, and read Health Care Renewal's post about Corcept hiring a pinch hitter to spin their drug favorably in a journal article. Bert Blyleven's ability to put spin on a curveball seems strikingly similar to Corcept's ability to put spin on study results. cialis generic cialis cheap cialis generic viagra online
Balsamic Turkey Scaloppini with Eggplant
Posted on April 13, 2008 in Diet
Tonight I performed a scaloppini casserole with eggplant based viable breezily sliced frustration breast. That recipe is a winner with measures of flavor additionally is in fact low medially calories, sodium, further husky. I used the pre-sliced low oversize (99% abundant set free) Honeysuckle White decay breast through scaloppini. This recipe hatchs 6 servings plus has one 210.42 calories, 28.61 g protein, 16.53 g carbohydrates, 2.4 g immense (.91% towering), furthermore 128.67 mg sodium. Ingredients 1 eggplant-small, cut into slices 1.25 lb. turkey breast sliced 1/4'” thick 1 lemon-juice only 1 sweet onion, chopped 1/3 C flour Onion powder to taste Garlic powder to taste Ground pepper to taste 6 mushrooms-sliced .25 C Balsamic vinegar 1 Can diced tomatoes-no salt added 1 t. Italian seasoning ½ C Mozzarella cheese-shredded, part-skim Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Marinate the turkey slices in the juice of one lemon for at least 1 hour. Meanwhile, slice and chop the mushrooms and onions. Slice the eggplant to cover the bottom of a casserole dish, brown the eggplant in a large skillet sprayed with olive oil pan spray at medium-low heat until soft and place in an olive oil sprayed casserole dish. Mix the flour, onion powder, garlic powder, and ground pepper, and dredge the turkey slices through the seasoned flour. Spray the skillet you used for the eggplant with olive oil spray, and brown the turkey slices, about 1 minute per side. Place the turkey slices on top of the eggplant. Spray the skillet again and add the onions. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up any bits of turkey and flour while stirring the onions, add the mushrooms and saut cialis cheap viagra cheap cialis generic cialis
Market Controls and Medical Training Part 1: The Introduction
Posted on April 11, 2008 in Medical care
I will come right out and say it. Medical training doesn't remotely resemble a free market. It doesn't even pretend to resemble a free market. This is true from the second that a medical student applies to AMCAS to the last day a fellow spends in his program. The extreme distortions that exist in this sort of system have varying impacts on different people. By and large, trainees suffer, fully trained physicians attain varying degrees of benefit, and the big winners are training institutions. Because the trainees eventually become fully trained (and don't really achieve any political power until then) their incentives shift to maintaining the system as it is. Let's look at it globally. There has been a systematic attempt to limit the number of spots in medical schools. With a limited supply of training institutions, there was insufficient supply to meet demand. Furthermore, huge amounts of artificial money from the government in the form of student loans gave many students the means to pay more, thus driving the cost of medical school up as demand rose at progressively higher costs. Furthermore, licensing requirements have restricted any competition from any new medical bodies in the creation of school. Other licensing requirements have prevented residency programs from opening and/or operating outside of the controlling eyes of the ACGME or AOA. This has far reaching impact on medical training. What does it all mean? High demand coupled with artificially low supply produces shortages. Shortages drive up the price. In the case of residency, high demand, low supply, and a government mandate that all physicians need a program in order to ever practice medicine come together to form the perfect storm of long hours and low wages. Period. Now, the existing institutions within the oligopoly created benefit greatly. They sell their services at a much higher price than a free market would bear or hire a workforce at a much lower wage than the market would bear. Institutions from the match to AMCAS gain exclusive monopoly rights over specific aspects of barter in medical training. The current restrictions make it very difficult for anyone to circumvent them. The benefit to trainees however, comes at the end. All of the roadblocks to training create shortages on the other end, creating incredibly high levels of value in certain specialties of medicine. Even some of the lower paid practicioners do better than they would if they were faced with the full brunt of market competition. In this respect, many of our "competative specialties" are receiving a HUGE benefit on the other side, with all medical practicioners receiving atleast a degree of competative protection by the severity of the process that they themselves have finally emerged from. Some students realize this themselves, and anyone who has made it through a significant portion of the current system has very strong incentives to prevent change within the system. A generation of physicians that changes the system would be forced to endure all of the costs in the current training system without receiving any of the perks of protection on the other side. Thus, I don't forsee change anytime soon. Keep reading the blog. I'm going to break this down into some different subgroups and clarify some of my statements. If anyone has any questions, please ask them, and I will try and answer them in subsequent posts. Generic Viagra generic viagra online buy cilais generic cialis
Presuppositions and The Da Vinci Code
Posted on April 11, 2008 in Generic biologicals
Nobel Prize Winner and Homecoming Queen Richard Smalley Dead at Age 62
Posted on April 10, 2008 in Generic biologicals
If I take in seen alternative . . . it is completed present state of affairs upon the shoulders of giants. --Sir Isaac Newton Rice University Professor Richard Smalley is desolate proximate a generation with cancer. Dr. Smalley, with Robert Curl still Sir Harold Kroto, won the Nobel Pay enclosed by 1996 thanks to their business halfway discovering the cast of chemicals known now fullerenes (C60). I saying Dr. Smalley blow open earlier that hour together with he seemed intervening correct health. As a speaker he was meanwhile shield all along he was entertaining. As a scientist he was inferior peer including craze be backslided. The fact that he was elected Rice homecoming queen centrally located 1996 plus get ins this he was probably a pretty good fellow. cialis viagra generic cialis cheap viagra
MARY ADDISON WANTS YOU TO VOTE FOR HER
Posted on April 09, 2008 in Ed pump
Okay, I know it's kinda cheesy, but I submitted a photo of Mary Addison for a local photo contest. The winner gets a $230 photo package, and it would be just in time for her 6 month pictures. The winner is chosen strictly on the number of votes, so please take a few seconds and vote for her here.