My secret plan to win the Nobel Prize In Medicine....

by reading the rest of this post, you agree not to "borrow" this idea and steal the Nobel prize from underneath my feet. Especially if you're one of the world's major drug companies, as you have enough friggin' money already.

Ok....so before I spring the Nobel secret on you, I'll have to give you some background information. My little plot will end up ridding the world of turburculosis, the respiratory infection that has plagued humankind since probably close to the time people began to breathe. TB is treatable today, for the most part. The problem is, you'll have to take a combination of antibiotics every day, on time, for months on end. This is a pain in the ass as you can imagine. But if you don't take the meds as scheduled, you're helping the little bugs inside your lungs get used to the antibiotics, and you know the deal about what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Yup, having TB sucks in many ways. The resistance problem isn't helped by the people who were only *exposed* to the disease, but haven't developed it yet. These folks usually take an antibiotic, isoniazid, the same way, for months on end, every day, and these people feel just fine. Not a good recipe for compliance.

Now let me introduce you to #2 in my list of the 10 different types of pharmacy customers. If you would like to see one in person, just wander into any drugstore on a Friday night. They'll be explaining how they lost their pain med....maybe their dog ate it (and somehow had no side effects). They'll be coming in for a refill on a 30 day supply of their Tylenol with Codeine #3 on the 15th day, for the 4th month in a row. They'll be bringing me a 3rd prescription for the same medicine from a 3rd doctor. They'll be explaining how they had to take twice as much because one dose was for their foot pain and the next dose was for their back. Yup....meet the addict. Every drugstore has a few. Gotta be firm with them because they can sense weakness. I've been begged to, propositioned, threatened, offered money on the side, and cursed at (it's never good to curse at a drugnazi, story for another time) It comes with the territory of having a job working in a room full of narcotics. I'm used to it.

So what's this got to do with me taking a little trip to Norway to get a medal from the king you say? Simple. Four words, Isoniazid with codeine #3. Can you imagine it? People lining up at the pharmacy on Friday nights, telling me......"you don't understand!!!!!!! I NEED my TB medicine NOW!!!!!!!" The scourge that has been civilization's unwanted companion from time eternal would be banished from our planet within a year, future rap stars hustling isoniazid on the streets, to ensure it will never return.

My next plan involves Vicodin and the flu vaccine.........