Saturday, April 18, 2015

The Spawn Of Lloyd Duplantis Of Gray, Louisiana Are Back. And Wal-Mart Tells A Big Fucking Lie.

The Drugmonkey is pissed this night my friends. The kind of spit in your eye hellraising pissed that was so common in my Bush administration prime. If you've been with me that long you may remember Lloyd Duplantis of Gray, Louisiana. The "pharmacist" who had his 15 minutes of fame back in the day for refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, once telling National Public Radio they were "the most dangerous chemicals that have ever been put on the market." The Drugmonkey viciously destroyed Lloyd afterwards. To the point where if you Google "Lloyd Duplantis " right now, the first two results are posts from this very blog,  above his own store's website. 

Awesome.

But I also knew the work of vigilance against these pharmacy pretenders is never done. I wrote this back in 2009:

...don't think you should stop kicking the likes of Lloyd Duplantis of Gray, Louisiana and his ilk. 
Because you and I both know they'll be back. Pat yourself on the ass for awhile and get ready to huddle up for the next play. 

Well it's playtime again my friends. From Mother Jones, the magazine that once broke the story of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" foot in mouth episode: 

When Brittany Cartrett lost her pregnancy in March, her doctor prescribed misoprostol to help her complete the miscarriage. The drug, which would allow her to avoid a more invasive surgical procedure, is the same one used to induce many abortions. Which is why, Cartrett suspects, two different pharmacies in central Georgia refused to fill her prescription.

Yup, we've been down this road. See if you can detect a difference this time though:

Cartrett slammed one of those pharmacies, the Walmart in Milledgeville, Georgia, in a Facebook post published last week. When she asked the pharmacist why she wouldn't fill her prescription, Cartrett claims, "She looks at me over her nose and says, 'Because I couldn't think of a reason why you would need that prescription.'" Cartrett says she then explained that she'd had a miscarriage, and the pharmacist replied, "I don't feel like there is a reason why you would need it, so we refused to fill it."

Did you see it? Not even pretending to have a good reason anymore. No trumped up safety concerns. No thinly veiled medical rationale. Just "I don't think you need it and you don't need to know why"

That is, until it gets to the level of the corporate spin doctor. This is where it really gets crazy folks:

Walmart, however, disputes that its pharmacist refused to fill the prescription on principal. She refused, says Brian Nick, a company spokesman, because the prescription did not follow FDA guidelines.

Everyone in the pharmacy profession just shot scotch out of their nose. Even if they were drinking water, scotch is what came out. Even if no beverage at all was around, the sheer ridiculousness of this explanation caused single malt to flow through sinuses. Because Wal-Mart, through its spokesman, just seemed to say that prescriptions that do not follow official FDA guidelines should not be filled.

Which is unadulterated bullshit. Lloyd Duplantis wasn't allowed to spew bullshit into my profession and you're not either Wal-Mart. Prepare to be called.

It's estimated 76% of all prescriptions of Seroquel are for off-label, non FDA approved uses. Which I'm sure means Wal-Mart dispenses 76% less Seroquel than its competitors. Right Wal-Mart?

Right?

I bet you never allow any amitriptyline for neuralgia to ever leave your place either, right? And no trazodone to treat insomnia. Because there are no official FDA guidelines for that either.

I could go on all night. Because the list of prescription drugs used off label is endless, and Wal-Mart knows it.

But for some reason......only the off label use of misoprostol seems to show up on your radar. What could that reason be?

Because.... that off label use of Seroquel I mentioned really has raised some serious safety concerns, unlike anything to do with misoprostol.  Yet... I don't see any Wal-Mart pharmacists taking a stand on off label Seroquel.

So again, what could the reason be?  That just this one drug......out of zillions that are used off label.....is the one to be concerned about?

Everyone reading this now knows the reason Mr. Wal-Mart corporate hack, so you can cut the crap. That pharmacist of yours didn't fill that prescription because she's an anti-abortion zealot who thinks she's entitled to put her beliefs above the people she is obligated to serve, and is also too stupid to know misoprostol has a myriad of uses that wouldn't raise her self-righteous, hypocritical hackles.

Tell the truth Wal-Mart. If you're going to take a stand and give cover to your employees when they attempt to force others to live by their moral code, at least don't lie.

Because while not everyone agrees on the abortion issue, there's a pretty clear consensus among all faiths that liars go to hell.

Fuckers.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Potential Posts Are So Many, The Time Is So Short.

So I just got back from Hawaii. Which is awesome. I cannot change the fact some colonial imperialist stole the place awhile back so I might as well take advantage. You should too.

Many things going on in the world of pills while i was away evidently. If I don't write soon about me calling bullshit on APhA and the spawn of Lloyd Duplantis of Gray, Louisiana again rearing their ugly heads please start prodding me to do so. For now though I only have time for this quickie. This is the actual first sentence of an actual story that appeared in The Wall Street Journal I was perusing  through on the flight home:

Exxon Mobil Corp Chief executive Rex Tillerson received total compensation valued at $33 million last year, up 18% from $28 million given in 2013. 

 Hold on though, 'cause you don't get the whole picture until you read the last sentence:

In February, Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, the largest and richest U.S. oil company reported that its quarterly profit dropped 21% as production declined. 

Read that first and last sentence again. Do it.

And so it goes my friends. Sigh......