I wish I could replace my plumbing
Might be going away for a while. No, not to jail. :p Will know more tomorrow.
It sucks that we can augment breasts and tighten up faces, but we can't fix internal plumbing. Bits and pieces can be removed, but not fixed. Not in my case, anyway. I've got two problems right now. 1) My Crohn's is kicking my ass out the window and 2) I have some sort of testicular issue that's not probably not epididymitis. I've been taking diclofenac for #2 (thinking it was epididymitis), and I think it might be aggravating #1, despite the Crohn's being located in my ileum, and not my duodenum or stomach. Apparently diclofenac is considered a contraindication in Crohn's patients (just found this out). We will have to see. SSRIs play havok with my GI tract — I appear to be very sensitive to just about every psych med in the book. (Except benzodiazepines. :rolleyes: ) Not that diclofenac is a psych med.
Ironically, I'd probably have found this out quicker if I was healthy — feeling terrible makes it difficult to step outside yourself and look and think objectively about what is going on.
I think stress is playing a role here, too. I could really use a vacation. Somewhere quiet with a lot of alone time and some good books. However the finances do not allow it.
The prospect of drinking another liter of liquid chalk barium doesn't particularly thrill me, either.
I feel pretty horrible, and it shows in my crappy writing of late. 
[tags]Crohn's disease[/tags]
Are you sure you want government-run healthcare?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.
[...]
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.
Link.
They can't get FEMA right, more than a year after Katrina showed just how poorly the agency performs. Are you sure you want this government running your healthcare, too?
Healthcare as a "right"
Graham has a post up about Al Gore's opinion on America's right to healthcare.
I disagree. Strongly.
Last time I checked, rights were things that didn't cost money. Rights don't take from one person to give to another. They are a product of mere human existence. They are the things that cost nothing but are worth everything.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion, freedom to petition, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and freedom from forced self-incrimination.
These are the things worth shedding blood for. These are the things worth dying for. It is insulting to every person who ever fought or died for these ideals throughout the course of human history to even think about elevating "healthcare" to the same level as our most basic, inalienable rights.
Healthcare is NOT a fundamental right. It is a privilege and nothing more.
Genentech: an exercise in greed
I love the word "greed." It's nice and… eee-vil. Which happens to perfectly describe Genentech's latest stunt. They're going to try to restrict the use of Avastin so that it cannot be used for age-related wet macular degeneration — a practice that is quite common. In fact, there are several specialty pharmacies in my area that specialize in compounding Avastin for this purpose.
But wait! Genentech wants to curb this practice because Lucentis is much more expensive, despite being (basically) the same thing. Only a bit more diluted. I'll quote from the old SFGate article:
While no rigorous studies prove Avastin’s effectiveness or safety in eye treatment, the doctors claim it can improve vision in some patients.
Now that Lucentis has been approved, Avastin may retain some share of the market because it costs a fraction of the price Genentech has set for Lucentis. That price per dose will be $1,950, company officials said Friday. Doses of Avastin are available to doctors at $50 or less from compounding pharmacies that divide up vials of the cancer drug into the much smaller amounts needed for eye treatment.
But now Genentech is going to stop providing Avastin to compounding pharmacies:
In a letter yesterday to retina specialists, Genentech said that its wholesalers would no longer provide Avastin to compounding pharmacies — companies that under sterile conditions can divide a vial of Avastin into tiny portions for use in the eye. The company said the distribution change would take effect Nov. 30.
Genentech has discovered that they are their own worst enemy. Unfortunately for them, the right course of action is to remove the compounding pharmacies as the middlemen and make an Avastin formulation specifically for ARWMD.
Genentech did not plan to compete with itself. It said it intended Lucentis specifically for use in the eye, believing that Avastin, a bigger molecule, would not work there. But while waiting for Lucentis to be approved, doctors started using Avastin and found it worked.
Instead they've opted for karmic seppuku for the sake of money. And this WILL bite them in the ass. It's only a matter of time.
(Oh, and if this nonsense is allowed to stand, that'll add $1 billion in yearly costs to Medicare. I think I speak for every US citizen that's not employed by Genentech when I say "Go die in a fire.")
Chocolate placebo?
Research from the Nestlé Research Center in Switzerland and published in the Journal of Proteome Research.
In a clinical trial made up of 22 men, half of which described themselves as "chocolate lovers" while the other half were "chocolate indifferent," participants ate chocolate or placebo over a five-day period. During this time, their blood and urine was monitored for various metabolite levels. The researchers found a "hallmark" profile in the men who described themselves as chocolate lovers: low levels of LDL-cholesterol and slightly raised levels of albumin protein. The same levels were found in the chocolate lovers even when they ate no chocolate. The researchers also noted that the activity of the gut microbes of chocolate lovers was distinctively different from the other subjects.
(They should have used women. :haw: )
But seriously… what the heck is a chocolate placebo? Wouldn't you know that you're not eating chocolate?
My name is Owen Thomas
And thus it begins: Xyzal
The money being wasted on pointless research, that is. Xyzal (levocetirizine), is beginning to have some money spent on research proving that it's a good drug. I have no doubt it's a good drug. They've isolated the active isomer and decided to market it since the patent on Zyrtec (cetirizine) is running out.
Let's review, SAT-style:
Zyrtec:Xyzal::Claritin:Clarinex
Expect Zyrtec to go OTC as a means of ensuring continued profitability through marketing. (More people buy brand name Tylenol than the generic — same story for Claritin.)
Here's the bottom line: everything that Zyrtec works for, Xyzal will work for, and vice versa. Same side effects, too. And because this is so, you will never see a head-to-head study comparing Xyzal with Zyrtec, because the results will prove that it's just a waste of money. Like Clarinex. Oh sure, there will be a few isolated cases where Xyzal is 0.5% better for 0.1% of the study population, and these studies will be trumpeted, but remember that they're actually meaningless. You'll also see studies that show Xyzal is effective for some obscure condition that Zyrtec was never studied for. Just remember that this is done to make Xyzal seem like something more than a me-too drug, and that if someone bothered to spend the money, Zyrtec would work just as well.
So if you like to waste your time doing PAs or you feel an insane need to throw your patients' money away, prescribe Xyzal. Otherwise keep on using Zyrtec.