So The Drugnazi Says To The Addict.....

....."this was a 30 days supply filled 15 days ago. You're gonna have to wait a couple weeks for your next refill unless you can get your doctor to OK an early one."

Then the addict says to the drugnazi:

NO YOU'RE WRONG!!!!!! IT WAS A SIXTY DAYS SUPPLY!!!!!!

Ummm........you may want to change your line of argument there Perry Mason

Sometimes The Lab Rats Just Don't Cut It.....

....and finding people in the rich countries of the west to experiment on can be just a pain in the ass; getting their permission, following basic safety procedures, what a drag! Well Pfizer has come up with an outside the box solution on how to cut through the red tape involved with testing your chemicals on humans. Just use African children. From the Washington Post:

A panel of Nigerian medical experts has concluded that Pfizer Inc. violated international law by testing an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital.

The report concludes that Pfizer never obtained authorization from the Nigerian government to give the unproven drug to nearly 100 children and infants. Pfizer selected the patients at a field hospital in the city of Kano, where the children had been taken to be treated for an often deadly strain of meningitis. At the time, Doctors Without Borders was dispensing approved antibiotics at the hospital.

Pfizer's experiment was "an illegal trial of an unregistered drug," the Nigerian panel concluded, and a "clear case of exploitation of the ignorant."

Five children died after being treated with the experimental antibiotic and others showed signs of arthritis, although there is no evidence the drug played a part.

Exploitation of the ignorant is the bedrock upon which capitalism is built baby. Whatever gets that stock price up.....

Read the whole article here.

Drug Company Rip Off Of The Day Number 4

Black people have been given the shaft in this country for a long time. Brought here in chains to do all the backbreaking, menial jobs we didn't realize Mexicans would come here voluntarily to do, they and their descendants were held in bondage for over two centuries before being "freed" into the arms of Jim Crow, who made sure they wouldn't do things with their freedom like vote, get good jobs, or ever address a white person without using the word "sir." It wasn't until the late 1960's that you could even to begin to make an argument that a black person had a shot at achieving what a white kid takes for granted. The effects of discrimination continue today, as when we see that African-Americans are 30% more likely to die of heart disease, 1.6 times as likely to have diabetes, and 2.5 times more likely to have a child that will die before it's first birthday. Makes me proud to be a cracker. Not really.

The good folks at Nitromed are doing something about these numbers though. Their new drug, Bidil, is the first medicine specifically indicated for a particular racial group. This blockbuster combination of hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate has been shown to reduce mortality from heart failure in African-Americans by 43% over current standard therapy. Yay.

Except that somewhere out there a retired 120 year old pharmacist, nurse, or doctor just saw the words "hydralazine" and/or "isosorbide" and was taken back to the happy days of their youth. You see, neither one of the drugs in Bidil is new. The only breakthrough is the idea that the combination of the two might be of some benefit to black folks. If you're wondering why it took so long for someone to try this, read the first paragraph again. There is also a new and improved (for Nitromed) price. According to the New York Times, Nitromed has set the price for Bidil at $1.80 a tablet, meaning a months supply at the usual starting dose will set you back $162. You can buy a months supply of the two meds separately at drugstore.com for around $37. So while Nitromed may get some points for a rip-off disguised as good intentions, you can see Bidil is just another plot to keep the black man down.

Ever Have A Zit Reappear.....

....in the exact same place as one that just healed? Now I have to ride the zit-cycle all over again, with people thinking I'm the pharmacist of the eternal zit. Christ.

Dear Meth Heads. Your Competence Gives You Away

Crystal Meth is certainly the illicit drug currently in fashion. Ecstasy is just so 2000, and if you're still taking crack, you probably do things like the Macarana when you get high. Crystal Meth is in baby. I theorize it has something to do with our current workaholic, go-go culture that gives a drug that can keep you awake for a week it's appeal.

Or perhaps it's the do it yourself aspect. in case you've been living under a rock and don't know this, it's possible for a person to cook up crystal meth using the common OTC cold medicine Sudafed. This brings us to the worst part of the meth epidemic. It inconveniences me. Your nanny government has decided the best way to deal with the problem is to take products that contain pseudoephedrine and move them behind the pharmacy counter. To their credit though, perhaps they do realize that it is incredibly easy to divine the motives of someone wishing to acquire the magic red pills. Two conversations will illustrate:

CUSTOMER NUMBER ONE:

Ummmmmmmmm.....yeah......what's good for a cold?

Me: It's a matter of matching up the right medicine to your symptoms. What kind of symptoms are you having?

Customer: I've got that thing that's going around.

Me (Now going into what's known as "beat it out of them" mode): Do you have a cough?

Customer: I don't think so. (5 seconds of silence)

Me: A fever?

Customer: Noooo.......

This will continue until I figure out nasal congestion is their only problem right now.

Me: Do you have any heart problems? High Blood Pressure?

Customer: I take that white pill, from Dr. Smith.

I now trudge over to the computer to look at the idiot's drug profile. It checks out OK.

Me: Why don't you try this. (The irony being I am now more likely to recommend Sudafed since it is now right behind me as opposed to having to leave the happy pill room and go to the cough/cold section.)


CUSTOMER NUMBER TWO:

I need the 96 count package of psudo-gest. (Customer has the exact amount the purchase will total, including tax, laid on the counter next to the cash register.)

Me: Get out of the store.

The Drug Company Rip Offs Just Keep On A Comin'

Seriously, I don't look that hard for them, but they keep pouring in like the Vicodin down Rush Limbaugh's throat. From this morning's USA Today:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is accusing Abbott Laboratories of vastly inflating prices of its drugs as part of a fraudulent billing scheme alleged to have cost government health programs more than $175 million.

Abbott bumped up the reported price of the intravenous antibiotic vancomycin as much as 18 times what it charged health care providers, knowing that the Medicare and Medicaid programs would reimburse the providers based on the manufacturer's price, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit unsealed Thursday.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of whistle-blower claims against drug manufacturers. Settlements in other cases have totaled more than $3.1 billion in recent years.

Now let's go to the official Abbott web site:

Abbott's Patient Assistance Program is a physician-based referral program that offers free Abbott medicines to low income patients who do not have or do not qualify for prescription drug benefits through private insurance or government funded programs. In 2005, Abbott provided more than 229,000 patients with free medicines valued at $167 million.

Hmmmmm....$175 million in rip-offs and $167 million in free drugs. Quite literally giving with one hand and taking with the other.

From The Jihad Watch, Some Of Them Actually Are Clinically Nuts

Came across this gem today while waiting for my morning (2 in the afternoon for me) coffee. Through the magic of the Internet, we go to La Crosse, Wisconsin:

A former Wal-Mart pharmacist who objects to dispensing birth control was found guilty of obstruction for an incident at a store in Onalaska.

Neil Noesen was arrested after creating a disturbance while working briefly at the Onalaska Wal-Mart last July.

Police officers told Noesen to leave the store, but he refused to leave, telling customers about his religious beliefs about birth control. He had to be taken from the store in a wheelchair.

La Crosse County Circuit Judge Michael Mulroy fined Noesen 500 dollars plus court costs.

It's Noesen's fourth conviction on charges related to his objections as a Catholic to dispensing birth control prescriptions and devices.

Taken from the store in a wheelchair? WTF! Damn good thing this didn't happen where I work, as there are no wheelchairs to be found. I suppose I would have had to hit him over the head with one of the 500 count generic Vicodin bottles we go through every day, then drag his sorry unconscious ass out to the curb next to the homeless dude who comes in a couple times a week to ask me if it's safe to drink rubbing alcohol.

Speaking of the dregs of society, it would seem the judge missed a golden opportunity here. Since this clown seems so committed to proselytizing, what better place to get it done than among the downtrodden, lost, wayward souls to be found in the county jail? He could have told them all about his opposition to condoms as the Crips were making a deal to trade him for a carton of cigarettes. Ah well, maybe on conviction number 5.

Why I Would Make The Worst Teacher, Or Pharmacy Manager, Ever

You may have picked up by now that I'm not much of a people person. This extends not only to customers and my interactions with folks in day to day life, but to my fellow employees as well. I generally have 2 rules for the cashiers, techs, and other assorted staff under my supervision in the happy pill room:

1) Keep yourself busy.

2) Stay out of my way.

I can be flexible on rule number 1, but number 2 is written in stone. This usually puts me in pretty good stead with the people I work with, as I've been lucky enough to by and large have staff who knew their jobs well and appreciated the autonomy my anti-socialness gave them. Sometimes though I run into problems. Because of the way we fill prescriptions, the order in which labels print out is not the order in which they were entered into the system. This means at the end of the day we have to go through the day's prescriptions, sort them into numerical order, and put them away in the file cabinet. The other day I was working with someone who was attempting this for the first time. I gave her the day file box with the instructions "Just put them in order and file them by hundreds" , thinking this was about all the training someone would need for the task. I was wrong.

A few minutes later I was presented with a pile of prescriptions in what appeared to be random order. I think they were in a different order then when the job was started, but what system was used was beyond my comprehension. I said something like "No, you just need to put them in order"

I was then asked a bizarre question about what to do with the "ten twenty ones and the ten twenty twos"

It was then I realized. This person could not understand they were to put little slips of paper in order. That 10 was bigger than 9 was bigger than 8........and try as I might, I was unable to get the point across to them.

The moment I decided it would be easier to just do it myself was the same moment I decided to vote "yes" for the preschool funding initiative on next months ballot.

Old Medicare, Good, New Medicare Very, Very Bad

As you can tell from my last post, I like Medicare, mostly because it's a hell of a deal. For just short of $6100 per person per year, every single old and disabled person in this country gets complete health coverage. That's about $1000 less than Blue Cross/Blue Shield of California would charge to insure a healthy 64 year old with a policy they would cancel the moment the person actually got sick. More coverage for less money. So much for the myth of a bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy.

Let me be clear that I am not talking about the new Part D(isaster) drug benefit. For some reason (hint: $600,000,000 spent by the health industry in the political process over 3 years) "our" Congressional Representatives and members of Congress are married to the idea that private industry can always do everything better than the public sector. Go call your health insurance company right now. After you spend an hour listening to how "your call is very important to us" let me know what you think of the lean, mean efficiency of the corporate way of doing things. These are the people your government put in charge of the new Medicare drug benefit, and anyone who has been paying attention has seen the disasterous results. Confused, angry oldsters who simply wanted to sign up wading through oceans of information trying to figure out how not to get screwed. Worse yet, confused, angry oldsters bothering me expecting me to straighten them out when I barely have time to take a piss at work. The parents of the fucking Secretary of Health and Human Services couldn't figure out which plan was best for them, even with the help of their son, the SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES. Just mention the words "Medicare part D" to any pharmacy employee and enjoy the post traumatic stress disorder you'll witness.

But at least we got everyone covered you might be saying, and our seniors are getting some relief from crippling drug prices, and society is probably saving some money on our collective drug bill by buying in bulk, right? Um, no.

Almost 10 million eligible people missed Monday's deadline to sign up for coverage.

Twenty-three percent of seniors and people with disabilities are paying more for prescription drugs than they did before enrolling in a Medicare Part D plan.

Prices under the private drug plans in Part D are 75 percent higher than those negotiated by the Veterans Administration, 5 percent higher than at Drugstore.com, and 2 percent higher than at Costco. We would have been better off totally eliminating the "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" from the process and just having seniors go to a warehouse club and send in the bill.

Let me recap this because it goes so counter to the propaganda you'll hear from Fox news and the army of right wing hacks that dominate the AM radio dial. Old Medicare; completely government run. Costs less. Returns more. New Medicare; a public/private hybrid monster, bleeding the taxpayer dry and delivering shit for service.

This is what happens when your public servants are bought and paid for by corporations. This is what happens when they care more about how they'll fund their next campaign than what's best for the country. The corporations write the checks to the campaign committees, but we all pay the price.

Read more here and here if you want.

Fun Facts About Our Fucked Up Health Care System

Amount spent by the health industry on lobbying in 2003: $300,000,000

Amount spent on campaign contributions since 2000: $300,000,000

Amount of every dollar spent on private health insurance that goes to "administrative expenses": 15 cents

Amount of every dollar spent on Medicare that goes to administrative expenses: 4 cents.

Amount that would be saved in "administrative expenses" by shifting to a "Medicare for all" national health plan: $286 billion

Cost to cover everyone currently without health insurance: $80 billion.

Damn. 10 minutes on Google and I just solved one of the biggest problems the country faces. I'm more of a genius than I realized......

You can read more here and here.