Sunday, March 30, 2008

I Don't Like The Service At Gas Stations In The Alternate Universe Very Much

So in my dream my tire went flat, and I was at the gas station waiting for it to get fixed.

You ever get into a philosophical discussion with one of your nerdier friends, usually after ingestion of some alcohol, and your nerdy friend will ask how you know that when you're dreaming that the dream isn't the real world?

I long ago developed an answer. I have some pretty nerdy friends.

It all comes down to the time and place. When you go to bed you'll wake up where you went to sleep. Go to bed on Monday night and you'll wake up on Tuesday morning. When you slip into dreamland though, you can be in elementary school one moment, flying around chasing evil Frankenstein monsters in New Jersey a second later, then the next time you go to sleep be back behind the pharmacy counter. God I hate it when I dream about being at work. Anyway, you get my point. You can pretty much count on where you're gonna be in the world of the awake, and that's how you know it's the real one.

Thing is, during my dream about the gas station, I kept waking up, and when I went back to sleep, the dream would pick up again right where it left off. It took the dipshit at the gas station several tries and forever to fix my tire, and I would wake up and go back to sleepyland several times to see him still working on it. Last night I could pretty much count on where I was gonna be when I was both asleep and awake.

I don't think I need to tell you the implications of this. Obviously last night I stumbled across a portal into an alternate reality. Somehow I had always imagined something like this being more exciting.

I can report though that they have hamburgers in the alternate universe, and that it takes a tow truck forever to show up.

I like this reality better, mostly because in this reality I'm not so damn helpless as to not be able to change my own flat tire.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Angry Pharmacist? Is That You?

Local Pharmacist Ira Freeman of Key Pharmacy is in his 11th day of a 15 day fast to protest the Governors proposed 10% reduction in Medi-Cal spending, which he says will negatively affect all Medi-Cal beneficiaries and the pharmacies that serve them.

The Medi-Cal population is very vulnerable and these budget cuts put providers in a compromising position of either going out of business or turning patients away. Its a no win situation, said Freeman.


I know times are tough for you independents Angry Pharmacist, but I mean really, is this necessary? I'm sure the Governator and the legislature will work something out.

Or maybe you just got hit with a wave of customers, haven't been able to get away from the pharmacy counter for 11 days, and decided to at least get some publicity out of the deal. That would be kinda smart.

Smarter than the way the Angriest Pharmacist announced he was going on a 5 day fast once he heard the news.

Disclaimer: The story about the hunger-striking pharmacist is true. The part about it being the Angry Pharmacist is not, I just thought it would be kinda funny if it was.

And really, if it did turn out to be the case, would you be at all surprised if the Angriest Pharmacist tried to horn in on the limelight? Of course you wouldn't.

Oh, and I played editor with the first paragraph I pasted here, because the way the original press release was written hurt my eyes.

Thanks to the alert reader who sent me a tip.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

A Quick Question to 80% Of The People I've Ever Told We Were Out Of Something.

What makes you think I would know if another store has it? You just saw that I had to go check to see if my own damn store had it. Do you really think I am more familiar with the inventory of another store than I am with my own?

Next time I'm going to fuck with you. "Yes, the Walgreens on the other side of town has it. They're kinda stingy with it though, so you have to be real adamant about asking for it, and don't take no for an answer. Ask for George. George is the key to getting this product. Definitely. "

As soon as I say that though, it will dawn on you that there's no way I could know this. Yet you will never realize what a stupid question you just asked.

Dumbass.

Highlights From Today's Pill Counting Action.

I pulled into the parking lot to start this day and I saw one of my regular customers walking into the store.

The great thing about community pharmacy is that you get a chance to know your regular customers. Because of this I went to Starbucks. Because I knew this customer all too well.

I waited in a long line without a care in the world. I decided to buy something for my keystone tech as well. "No hurry" I told the barista...... I ended up being about 5 minutes late to open the gate.

The first words out of the customers mouth when that gate opened were exactly what I knew they would be:

"HOW LONG?"

I am the king of passive-aggressiveness. Just ask my ex-wife.

Opportunities to fuck with customers will present themselves regularly to those who remain vigilant in the search for them. We had a customer this day who was named after happiness and joy. When her prescription was ready I couldn't resist:

"Are you Gay?" I said as I looked out into the waiting area. I played it perfectly straight but I have a feeling the customer knew what I was doing. There was a pained look on the customer's face. Huh Huh.....huh huh....

If you're the help desk rep from Cigna I went off on today, I'm sorry. Kind of. You started it.

At lunch I got some insight into the life of a hot chick. I mean smokin'. I mean Playboy would have been more than happy to sign her to a contract hot. There were two guys with her in line in front of me, obviously competing for her affections, and obviously not quite in her league. She got to the cash register first, stopped, stamped her foot impatiently and said:

"I don't know which one of you is paying for me but you better get up here now!"

Whereupon one of the guys did. I miss the ghetto sometimes.

Back to work and the other extreme. At least 250 pounds of fugliness spilling over hip-hugging jeans and wearing 2 or 3 faces full of makeup. "I cry after bad sex too, don't worry about it," she said into her cellphone as she walked past. I got the feeling she's cried a lot. Sometimes I don't miss the ghetto at all.

I spent a good 5 minutes trying to explain to a customer that the fact Toprol is off patent does not mean it's over the counter. I spent 5 more explaining to someone else that even though their insurance covers a 90 days supply of medicine, in the case of Amoxicillin and an ear infection, that might not be the best idea. Maybe it was karma getting me for the Starbucks incident.

That woman really was Gay though. Huh-huh.....huh huh......

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Fun With HIPAA Legalese

A quote from my corpo-pharmacy's Notice of Privacy Practices:

We may disclose your health care information to the following entities and/or under the given circumstances......

.......to contact the patient for the purpose of fundraising.


So, after raping you with a price tag of over a hundred bucks for 30 generic Ambien tablets available on drugstore.com for $17.99, my employer reserves the right to contact you for fundraising purposes.

Say what you want to about my employer, but they do not lack in the chutzpah department.

My favorite entity and/or circumstance in which your healthcare information may be disclosed however, is this:



-to authorized federal officials so they may provide protection to the president, other authorized persons, or foreign heads of state.



Why the hell was it considered necessary to write this into my store's HIPAA policy? In my fantasy world it would be necessary to include this in my HIPAA policy....

Fade to dream sequence here.....

Secret Service: DRUGMONKEY! We need your help!! The well being of the president is at stake!!

Drugmonkey: Are you high? I told you no early Soma refills.

Secret Service: WE ARE NOT JOKING AROUND!! We must know if Ali Al-HusseinCheney has had a prescription for Viagra filled at this store! We have reason to believe he may be planning a sodomy attack in the oval office!

Drugmonkey: A sodomy attack on George Bush?

Secret Service: Yes!

Drugmonkey: Hmmm.....well.... if the anal integrity of the president of the United States is at stake....

The Drugmonkey then punches up Al-HusseinCheney's profile on the store's computer and sees 500 Viagra tablets have been dispensed to him over the last month.

Drugmonkey: Doesn't look like we've ever filled anything for him here.....

There has to be a reason they put that in the HIPAA policy. Hope springs eternal my friends.

Monday, March 24, 2008

A Clinton Lie Sure Isn't What It Used To Be.

Time was a Clinton wouldn't lie unless they had a good reason, like the threat of impeachment, and then only after they spent 20 minutes trying to wear you down parsing the exact meaning of the word "is"

These days though, ...seems like a Clinton will lie just for the sake of lying. Or maybe to try and make themselves look more presidential when they know they're about to lose a presidential election. Here's Hillary on March 17th:

I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went.


She was talking about a trip she made in March, 1996. Except the president went 2 months earlier.

She continues:

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.


Whatever the motivation, a Clinton definitely used to be much better at lying. At least when Bill said he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, we (thankfully) didn't have video evidence to the contrary. Here's some video though of Hilary landing to start that Bosnian trip. Notice the lack of running. Notice also the greeting ceremony:



There was a large black man sent along with Hillary, but I have a feeling it wasn't for any protection he could provide:

According to Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with the singer Sheryl Crow, the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of The Post, "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was: 'Do we eat here or at the next place.'" Sinbad questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you."

Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian."


...and thereby missed the point. What Sinbad was saying was the fact that he is indeed, a comedian, and that a comedian went along on this trip would work to undermine any tales of how dangerous the trip actually was. So not only can Hillary not remember if she's ever been under sniper fire, she evidently has trouble figuring out the complex subtleties in the thoughts of Sinbad.

You know what kind of person I want answering the White House phone at 3 in the morning? Someone who can remember if they've ever been under sniper fire, and also preferably one who's smart enough to understand Sinbad. That rules out Hillary, and it will soon rule out John McCain, who's so damn old he's probably never heard of Sinbad and will be lucky to even remember what country he's in by November.

That only leaves one guy. Vote Obama. The only candidate who can remember if he's ever been under sniper fire.

Thanks to the reader who left me a tip.



Friday, March 21, 2008

This Morning Gloom Settles Over Hell's Premier After Hours Club.


"It really was the best weekend ever" Said the demon of the 4th level of hell dejectedly. "It really never has been the same since then"

"Got to feed some Christians to the lions for awhile, that was kinda fun" said 1st level Brigadier Demon Jazzelbub.

"Yeah......." The empty glass hit the bar and sounded almost as sad as the sigh that followed.

"And don't forget how we pinned the whole thing on the Jews. Talk about a successful long term plan, My God, where would we be without Hitler?"

"What did you say?"

"Oh, sorry again"

"Hitler really was a boon to us though"

"You're right, but......what I wouldn't do for just one more shot at him......"

"Who says we won't get it?"

The glasses clanked together one last time and the demons went out to face another year. Even in hell......hope springs eternal.

Happy Easter.

This Is The Kind Of Lawsuit That Drives Me Crazy.

Throwing things, cursing, other expressions of general disbelief.....those were some of my reactions when an alert reader tipped me off to this story from the Wall Street Journal.

CVS Caremark Corp. will pay $36.7 million to settle allegations that it improperly switched customers to a more-expensive form of a drug paid for by Medicaid, the government program that provides health care to low-income people. A lawsuit alleging fraud by the chain-drugstore company was brought by an Illinois pharmacist and joined by the federal government and 23 states that paid for the medication.

The complaint, filed in 2003 in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, alleges CVS pharmacies switched Medicaid patients taking the generic form of stomach medication Zantac to capsules from tablets. Medicaid sets maximum reimbursement prices for the tablet form of the drug but not for capsules, which are more expensive but prescribed less frequently by doctors.

The suit alleges that the switch cost taxpayers as much as 400% more than what would have been paid for tablets. The pill-switching allegedly took place from April 1, 1999, through Dec. 31, 2006.

The case was brought by Bernard Lisitza, who worked as a pharmacist processing CVS prescriptions. Mr. Lisitza previously filed a suit against pharmacy company Omnicare Inc. that settled in 2006 for $50 million. Both suits were filed under the False Claims Act, which allows people to file claims alleging fraud against the government and lets them recover a share of any payments.
Mr. Lisitza received a $6.4 million share of the Omnicare settlement, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release. His attorney, Michael Behn, said his client's share of the CVS settlement will be $4.3 million.

What had me so upset, of course, was that I had not been the one to butcher this cash cow. Almost $11 million dollars this guy gets for taking down 2 corporations,

CVS, which had profit of $2.6 billion on revenue of $76.3 billion in 2007, said the settlement wouldn't have any effect on 2008 earnings.


Make that mildly inconveniencing 2 corporations, and the best I can do is clack away on my keyboard and see that the subject is about as interesting to you as my cat. Sigh.

I admit I do wonder why you don't seem to care that the nation's largest pharmacy chain by store count was gaming the Medicaid system for tens of millions of dollars. Because I sure don't have to go very far into the pharmacy blogosphere to find all manner of vitriol directed against the Medicaid baby momma trying to get some free Tylenol or cold medicine for her child, gaming the system for less than fifty bucks. It's all about wasting the taxpayers money you'll claim. That stupid baby momma should buy her own Tylenol.

Maybe you don't realize that tens of millions is bigger than fifty. Maybe it's time for a visual aid:

$36,700,000 -amount involved in CVS lawsuit.

$50 -amount involved with baby momma.

Or maybe it's not about protecting the taxpayer's money at all. Maybe it's about kicking the people you see as beneath you because it makes you feel better about yourself. Maybe you're afraid to kick upwards because you've been trained to stay in your place. Maybe you're so focused on kicking downwards you don't feel it when your social betters land their foot across your teeth. Or maybe you do feel it, and it just makes you kick down all the harder.

Or you're just really bad at math. One of the two.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Do Suppose Satan And His Buddies Reminisce Every Year On Good Friday?

"What a day. I have never had so much fun as we did that day."

"You said it. I wish we could have broken his legs though."

"Stop with the broken legs already. Two thousand years you've been going on about the broken legs. "

"Crown of thorns? My idea...."

"Yeah we've heard about that a few times too, enough already, Jesus."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, sorry"

An awkward silence then descends over hell's premier after hours club. Everyone takes a drink.

"It was pretty fucking awesome......that weekend ruled!!!!"

"HUZZA!!!" Shout he demons in unison. And glasses come together to toast the memories....

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

My Ex-Wife Called It "Upselling".....At Least I Think That's What She Called It. I Don't Really Remember.

She managed a Hallmark store back in the day, and whatever it was actually called, it was one of the things they were evaluated on by the corporate mothership. It went something like this:

A customer would approach the cash register. An employee would say. "Have you seen our (insert name of gay product being promoted this month we can't sell any other way) they're just adorable!"

The ex-wife never saw the similarity between this and the pimply-faced teen behind the McDonalds counter asking "do you want fries with that?" No matter how adamantly or how many times I pointed this out. One of the reasons I have an ex-wife I suppose.

Big Pharma's got it a lot easier though. They don't bother to ask if you want your product supersized. To Sunday's New York Times:

The drug...... Cerezyme, is used to treat a rare inherited enzyme deficiency called Gaucher disease. Some experts say that for most patients, as little as one-fourth the standard top dose would work...
The standard Cerezyme dose — an infusion of 60 units of the drug per kilogram of body weight every two weeks — was set in a clinical trial involving only 12 patients.

Dr. Beutler of Scripps said that it was reasonable to use a high dose in the initial trial to prove the drug worked. But after that, he said, “the reasonable thing was to cut back and see what you really need. It didn’t fit Genzyme’s business plan, so they never cut back."


What? A drug company putting its financial interests ahead of those of patients? I've never heard of such a thing. Where would a person get an idea like this? Maybe from Genzyme itself:

Dr. David Meeker, the president of the Genzyme division that sells Cerezyme, said the company thought doctors should determine doses specific to each patient. So there was no point in doing a clinical trial comparing different doses.

“Showing that 6 out of 10 got by with a certain dose doesn’t help us,” he said.


No.....but it might help those 6 out of 10 patients. Let's go over what Dr. David Meeker said again. Dr. David Meeker thinks doctors should determine doses specific to each patient. But Dr. David Meeker thinks those doctors should have no data upon which to base these decisions.

So.....what.....should they throw darts at the package insert to determine the dose? My friends, Dr. David Meeker just provided you with a fine example of corporate bullshit.

And the stakes aren't small. Cerezyme costs $300,000 a year at the dose given in that 12 person study. That wasn't a typo. Three-hundred thousand dollars a year.

Not to mention when other companies do this type of thing with other drugs there's some evidence you can end up dead.

"Stupid drugmonkey" say the Republicans among you. "Why the hell can't you understand these drugs have to cost so much because of the incredible amount of research involved?"

Try again:

...critics say the company’s development costs were minimal, because the early work on the treatment was done by the National Institutes of Health, which gave Genzyme a contract to manufacture it.


That would be the government-run National Institutes of Health. I wrote about this type of thing before by the way. Tell me again why I'm supposed to be afraid of socialized medicine?

I think I'll pass on the fries today.

Monday, March 17, 2008

I Know I've Been Picking On CVS A Lot Here Lately, But It's So Damn Easy.

First, they show that no independent is gonna outdo them when it comes to pharmacy services, even creepy pervy pharmacy services:

Baltimore County police said yesterday that they arrested a former CVS pharmacist and charged him with trading drugs for sex.

Ramon Bautista Juta, 54, of the first block of Trumpet Court in Perry Hall was charged with two counts of possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute, possession and distribution of a controlled dangerous substance, forgery of prescriptions and prostitution, police said. Juta had worked at the CVS in the first block of Compass Road in Middle River, police said.

According to authorities, a woman told them that Juta had asked her to provide sexual favors in exchange for prescription pills she used. Police said the medications included Lortab and Xanax.

Ha ha. But I think this is more indicative of what CVS has done to the profession:

A woman has been charged with impersonating a pharmacist and police say anyone who had a prescription filled by her should have their medication checked. During a routine compliance check at the CVS pharmacy at 4405 East Riverside Drive, the State Board of Pharmacy discovered what it believes to be an unlicensed person acting as a pharmacist.

CVS released this statement Thursday:"Nancy Rose McGowan gained employment as a CVS pharmacist under false pretenses through the use of forged identification documentation and by using the identity of a pharmacist licensed to practice in Texas who is not currently living in the State. By using another pharmacist’s identity, she was able to pass CVS’ extensive pre-employment screening process"


You can stop right there CVS PR hack. You see, I'm thinking the whole point of a pre-employment screening process would to be to...um.....I dunno.....maybe keep a fake pharmacist from practicing at one of your stores?

"During (The Board's) compliance check, they asked her to produce her credentials showing she was in fact a pharmacist, she was unable to do so," said Austin Police Detective Billy Petty

Yeah.....hella extensive screening process you've got there CVS. Turns out all you had to do was actually ask to see her license. Tell me again how government can't do anything, and how we should leave things to the private sector? 'Cause it was the government that caught the fake pharmacist. Leave it up to CVS and some numbnut would be passing out Coumadin in Austin to this day.

Which says a lot about what it's like to, ahem....."practice" pharmacy at a CVS. Evidently she was performing all the professional duties CVS expects from a pharmacist just fine. Because once again, CVS didn't have a problem with her until the state board showed up.

CVS. An Everyday miracle. As long as you don't ask any questions that are too hard or otherwise want your pharmacist to do anything pharmacy-school based.

Thanks to the alert reader who tipped me off to the CVS perv.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

A Direct Quote From The CVS Store Voicemail.

"Pharmacy, press 3"

Whereupon a normal person who wanted to talk to someone in the store's pharmacy would press 3, thinking it would connect them to the pharmacy.

Silly human. What you hear next is "For the pharmacy, press 1"

You see, at CVS you've gotta really want it. Because after this bit of idiotic redundancy, after you do everything the machine tells you to do, human contact will not happen anytime soon. After that weird gurgling sound, you're gonna be on hold. For a long time. You get no credit for doing what the machine wanted. You can try pressing 3 again to see if that will make the machine happy, but it's too late, all you'll hear is that oddly hypnotic piano bar music. I wonder how much CVS paid for that piano music. I wonder if they think that it's calming and therefore people who wait to talk to a human for 20 minutes will be less likely to explode in anger.

Sometimes when it's late at night I'll turn down the lights and call CVS on the speakerphone. That piano music sets just the right mood to end the day, and I know it will be playing long after I fall asleep. I think of it as just another ordinary miracle.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

This Day Brought Bullshit That Was Simultaneously Familiar And Different.

"Uhhhhhhhh........yeah.......ummmmmmmm........is this the pharmacist?"

"Yes it is"

"Yeah...uhhhhh.....I'm here from out of town..."

Any phone call that starts with 10 seconds of "uuuhhhhhhhh" will not go well. Any call that starts with the words "I'm here from out of town" will not go well. This one had both. I prepared for my doom.

"......and I accidentally brought some Norco with me....."

Wow. Haven't heard this a million times before. Snore......

Wait a minute........ Extra Norco? Does not compute......

"It's my girlfriend's, and I was wondering if I could bring them to you, so she could pick some up at the corpo-pharmacy in Orange County. It doesn't have a label on it though"

I wasn't drowning in prescriptions at the time so I decided to play a little bit.

"So.....there's no way for me to know where these pills came from or where they've been, or even if they are what you say they are, but you want me to take them from you so someone 300 miles away can get some free narcotics"

He wasn't getting my drift. "Yeah" he said. There was actually a tinge of hope in his voice.

"I'll give you points for creativity. This is the first time in my career someone's ever made up a story that involved giving me some Norco"

"Huh?"

"The answer's no"

"You're a dick!!"

At least I still have all my hair.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

In A World Full Of War, Pestilence, And Economic Hardship, I Find One Thing For Which To Be Thankful

I am not the least bit bald. I'm not sure I could handle it if I was.

My hair is as thick and full as the day I was born. Wait. Scratch that. I mean as thick and and full as it ever was. I look at bald men and I feel badly for them. I wonder if their heads get cold. So many things have gone wrong in today's society, I just feel it's important to note that my hairline isn't one of them.

I'm extra thankful because my skin tends to be a bit on the shiny side, which means if I were bald I would probably blind you if the room's lighting bounced off my head at the right angle. It's a good thing for both of us I still have all my hair.

If You Called A Pharmacist At His Home Yesterday Morning About Your Vicodin Dose, Please Let Me Know.

I had a dream last night that I was talking on the phone. Keep in mind that when I say "night" I am referring to the period between approximately 5am and 2 in the afternoon.

"Drugmonkey" Said the voice on the line, "I'm sorry to bother you, but I have a question about this Vicodin prescription I got the other day. I know you always used to complain how doctors don't know how to dose Vicodin, but I can't remember how many you used to say you could take a day. My tooth really hurts but I don't want to take too much."

What a boring dream. Not only totally PG rated, but no flying monkeys, falling off cliffs, or monsters chasing me of the sort that put a little spice into the body's downtime.

I do constantly bitch about doctors not knowing how to dose Vicodin though. There are 500 milligrams of acetaminophen (Tylenol) in each Vicodin tablet. The maximum daily dose of acetaminophen is 4000 milligrams. At least 5 times a day I see a Vicodin prescription with instructions of "Take 1 to 2 tablets every 4 hours as needed for pain" Do the math. Doctors will also do this with Darvocet, which has 650 milligrams of acetaminophen per tablet. If you're a doctor and you have ever written a prescription with these instructions for Vicodin or Darvocet, please hit yourself in the nuts and set fire to your medical license.

Back to my dream though. When I woke up I had my cellphone in my hand, and a check of the call log showed that I had just talked to a restricted number for a minute and a half.

Thing is, I don't remember what I said in my dream. I hope I said eight tablets a day, because that's the answer.

At least they didn't ask why their copay was so high.

Monday, March 10, 2008

I Could Write About How Hillary Clinton Hopes To Subvert The Will Of Democratic Primary Voters, But It's More Of A Freaky Customer Kinda Night

The first bit of pill counting action this day was a phone call. "Yeah.....I got some Oxycodone yesterday, and I got another prescription for it today, so I was wondering....."

You know how the rest of the phone call went. The next call was a phone in prescription for Adipex to be taken three times a day. Those of you in the profession will be shocked...just shocked.... to hear it was a Physician's Assistant doing the phoning. Those of you not in the profession should know that taking Adipex three times a day would be a lot like doing the crystal meth. And that this was far from the first time I've come across a Physician's Assistant with their head up their ass.

Drugmonkey to the day's first customer: "How are you today?"

Customer: "Oh...pretty good, I think I had a little stroke last night though."

An hour later a front end employee thought they were fooling everyone by trying to have a cigarette in the bathroom.

Yesterday I had called a doctor's office because a customer said this doctor told them to take more warfarin than originally prescribed. I needed to confirm this so the customer's insurance company wouldn't reject their next claim as a "refill too soon." This kind of thing happens all the time. The doctor returned my call today and said:

"I got your message regarding Mr. Smith.......so....what's the new dose?"

There seemed to be something about the phone that made everyone using it a little extra stupid today.

The pattern continued with the next call:

"YES......I HAVE SOME DIARRHEA." The volume was the maximum a phone's ear piece could produce. "AND MY FRIEND.....HE SAYS IT COULD MEAN I HAVE BEEN.... POISONED!!!!! IS THIS TRUE?"

So I told him he probably had about an hour to live. Not really.

A lady insisted for over 5 minutes that her child had to have Amoxicillin suppositories. She would accept no cure for an ear infection that did not involve the anus. If I were some sort of right-wing evangelical Republican type it would have been obvious to me she was trying to turn the lad into a homosexual.

Last week we put up a counter display of pillholders that you can attach to your keychain. It took less than 7 days for someone to complain that there was nothing inside the pillholders. Then someone's runny nose made a puddle next to the cash register and it was time to go home. Sweet sweet scotch.

By the way, the headline is true. There is no way Hillary Clinton will go into the Democratic convention having won more delegates than Barack Obama. She knows this. This means it is her ambition that two presidents in a row assume office having won fewer votes than their opponent at some stage of the electoral process.

There's a fair chance it might happen. Remember that the next time someone says it is up to us to defend democracy in other countries.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

A Quick Message To My Friends At Medco.

I would like to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to send me the following message in response to my claim on behalf of one of your cardholders:

"1- Tox Dif Goiter No Crisis"

In order to properly express my appreciation though, I would first have to know what the fuck you were trying to say. I was filling a prescription for Flexeril, which unless the subject was covered on one of the days I decided to skip class, to my knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with a goiter. For your convenience, we have staff members at my pharmacy fluent in English, Spanish, Hindi and Tagalog. Please provide any future messages in one of those languages.

Or maybe just keep your mouth shut unless there actually is a crisis.

Fuckers.

Seven Years After I Escaped Its Clutches, The State Of Ohio Continues To Find Ways To Be A Burr Up My Ass.

I guess I'm not really surprised this is the ad credited with sealing the deal for Hillary on Tuesday. It was designed to appeal to the simple, the frightened, and the dim, which of course made it a hit in Texas and Ohio:




November 14th, 2010. 3am. The White House:

Phone: Ring Ring.

Hillary Clinton: Hello?

"HHHHIIIIILLLAAARRRRRYYYYYYY!!!!! MMMAAAAYYYYYHHHH SQUUUAAAAEEEEZZZZEEEEE!!!!!"

"William, I've told you never to call me on this line." Not many people know that when Hillary is pissed she calls her husband William.

"Awwww now honnnnneey....don't be sore"

"You know I have a meeting first thing in the morning to discuss the Iranian problem."

"WWHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Oh God.....ugh......"

This is followed by 2 minutes of soft gurgling noises. The phone then goes silent.

Hillary tells herself to go back to sleep, but there is no sleep. She loves him. Despite his flaws he's her world and when she says she's not worried and he can lie in the bed he's made she only reminds herself that she's never been a good liar.

The Iranian problem is discussed the next day, but Hillary's mind is still in that Bourbon Street gutter. The generals decide maybe this isn't the best time. The day after that Los Angeles is destroyed by an Iranian nuclear device. The quality of television programing increases exponentially.

Turns out Bill just had to throw up.

Monday, March 03, 2008

If You're A Small Government Type, I Guess You Must Have Your Own Pig Farm In Case You Ever Need Heparin

Because this is the type of thing that happens when you and your ilk string together almost 30 years of wins at the ballot box.

With reports of more than 400 patients in the United States suffering serious complications after receiving the blood-thinner heparin, American investigators are trying to determine whether the raw material for the drug, made from pig intestines, became contaminated on the journey that begins in the slaughterhouses of China.

The process of making heparin begins with the intestines of slaughtered pigs, from which mucous membrane is collected and cooked, eventually producing a dry substance known as crude heparin. Major heparin producers like S.P.L. take that substance, refine it and sell it to companies like Baxter that make the final product, which is widely used in cardiovascular surgery and dialysis.

In a village called Xinwangzhuang, nearly every house along a narrow street doubles as a tiny heparin operation, where teams of four to eight women wearing aprons and white boots wash, splice, separate and process pig intestines into sausage casings and crude heparin.

The floors had large puddles and drainage channels; the workshops were dilapidated and unheated; and steam from the production process fogged up the windows and soaked the walls. There were large ovens to cook ingredients and halls lined with barrels to store enzymes, resins, intestines and wastewater.

“This is our family-style workshop,” said Zhu Jinlan, the owner of one heparin operation, who stopped sorting pig intestines and invited visitors to a back room, where she lives with her husband and child. “We’ve been doing this about 10 years.”


Welcome to the new world order.

For those of you who are old enough, ask yourself if back in the 70's you ever......ever would have accepted that the drugs given to you would have started their journey to your veins in the basement of some random house in a third world country?

Of course you wouldn't have. Because back then we had an FDA that was given the resources it needed to do its job. Because back then we hadn't bent over and taken it without lube from the corporations who wanted to take down the barriers to trade but keep up the barriers to labor. Because back then it was still possible for someone to tell the corporations no.

The Chinese heparin market has become increasingly unsettled over the last year, as pig disease has swept through the country, depleting stocks, leading some farmers to sell sick pigs into the market and forcing heparin producers to scramble for new sources of raw material. Traders and industry experts say even big companies have been turning more often to the small village workshops, which are unregulated and often unsanitary.

The problems involving heparin have again focused attention on the quality of products from China and the gaps in regulation by both the Chinese and United States governments. S.P.L.’s plant in Changzhou was certified by American officials to export to the United States even though neither government had inspected it. The plant has been exporting heparin to Baxter since 2004.

I guarantee you whatever plants were supplying heparin in the days of Jimmy Carter had been inspected. But then you started putting people in charge of the government who said that government can't work, so really, are you surprised that it stopped working? If you wanted the government to ensure a safe heparin supply, it would. Just like it ensures the delivery of bullets and bombs like no other government in the world. It's doing what you want it to do.

Think about what you've done the next time you're in the hospital and the nurse starts to inject something into your IV bag. Think about the intestines of the sick pig getting cooked in someone's garage.

Enjoy your tax cut.

Jesus Christ Don't Give CVS Any Ideas....

From the website of Democracy Now! Which you should be reading every day:

Utah Boss Accused of Waterboarding Worker

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting a supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Utah has been accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team. According to a lawsuit, the supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over the mouth and nostrils of one of his workers. At the conclusion of the waterboarding, the supervisor allegedly told the sales team that he wanted them to work as hard on making sales as their coworker had worked to breathe while he was being waterboarded. David Ellis, the president of the company Prosper, defended his staff. Ellis said, “It was meant to be a team-building exercise. Everybody was . . . involved and enthusiastic.”


Who says Big Government doesn't have anything to teach the private sector? If it weren't for Big Government research into how to, um..... "motivate" people. Prosper wouldn't have a snowballs chance in Guantanamo of meeting this quarter's sales goals.

I'm gonna start waterboarding the idiot who keeps transferring calls for the photo department to the pharmacy.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

A Picture From The "What The Hell?" File....


The hand on John's back pulled him closer, and he knew he could resist no longer. John realized the bitterness, the years of fighting, the hurt, it was all just passion misdirected. John struggled to place his own hand all the way around George's expanded waistline, and he realized what a good life his conqueror had lived the last 8 years. John had been vanquished, but he wanted a good life too.

"I.......I....did father an illegitimate black baby, didn't I?" John whispered softly as his head settled into George's soft warm shoulder. "And......I am against breast cancer research....just like you said."

"You're damn right bitch" The words came sternly out of George's mouth. He was the decider. "Tell me who's your Daddy"

"You're my Daddy George." John started to weep softly.

"That's what I want to hear. I'm your Daddy.....and you're going to make me forget all about mine"

George and John then went backstage. What happened next was both a beginning and an an end, but the passion was unchanged. The passion was eternal.

So I'm Still Not Sure Why You'd Want To, But You Can Follow Me Now On The Twitter If You Want.

Some of you may think it's a sign of my impending suicide, but really I just figured if it's good enough for Katie the Jewgirl, it's good enough for me.

Go here if you can't get enough of the Drugmonkey. The picture really is of me.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Sometimes The Customer Is Not The Idiot, Part Three

I lived half of every pharmacists nightmare tonight. Misfill. An absolute, tee-total, unqualified no excuses prescription filled incorrectly. Yay for me that I wasn't the one who filled it wrong. Woe for me that I was the one working when it was brought to our attention. Written for Lipitor 20mg and filled with 40mg instead. The customer was given 100% more drug than he was meant to take. Here's where it gets interesting though. You know what he did?

In a world where we have to specify that antibiotic liquids have to be taken by mouth and not put in the ear "because that's where the infection is......"

In a world where we have to be sure to tell people that they have to unwrap and remove the foil from a suppository before they stick it up their ass.......you know what this customer did?

To those of you in the profession, what I'm about to write may be the least believable thing you have ever seen on this blog, but I swear it's the truth.

The customer saw the 40mg tabs, realized they were wrong, broke them in half, and took them, 20 mg at a time, mentioning the mistake only when he came in to get his refill "because I know that type of thing is important to you"

If Nobel Prizes went to pharmacy customers, there would be no question as to its first recipient.