Merck Has Better Things To Do With Its Cervical Cancer Vaccine Than To Make A Serious Effort To Stop The Deaths Of Poor Women From Cervical Cancer.

I want to begin my talk with you this afternoon by sharing with you two covers from Time magazine.....

This first cover, from Time's August 18, 1952 edition, pictures a kindly looking George Merck, the modern-day founder of my company. His intelligent blue eyes gaze benevolently toward the future. In the background, a mortar and pestle, an ancient symbol of the pharmaceutical arts, is superimposed over a birds-eye view of Merck's modern research and production facility in Rahway, New Jersey. Under this picture, a George W. Merck quote: "Medicine is for people, not for profits."

Remarks of Raymond V. Gilmartin,
Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer,
Merck & Co., Inc.
at
Town Hall Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
July 29, 2004

For people. Not for profits. Let's keep that in mind as we take a look at what Merck's been up to this week:

HPV vaccine can prevent genital warts in men

Study results bolster drugmaker’s plan to market shots to boys

ATLANTA - For the first time, an expensive vaccine aimed at preventing cervical cancer in women has proven successful at preventing a disease in men, according to a study released Thursday by the vaccine’s maker.

The disease is genital warts — sexually transmitted, embarrassing and uncomfortable — but not life-threatening.

Huh. Because you know what is life threatening? Cervical cancer. As a matter of fact, 260,000 women in the developing world die from cervical cancer every year. All it would take to make that number of deaths fall through the floor is an effort to get girls in the third world together with a physician, nurse, midwife, witch doctor, or pretty much anyone who isn't a total fuckup to administer a vaccine. Hell, even a pharmacist could do it. The result would be nothing short of a revolution in health care for the world's impoverished women. 

Instead, Merck chose to aggressively market Gardasil, its cervical cancer vaccine approved in 2006, not to the women dying of cervical cancer, but to the affluent women of the west who already had the means to prevent the disease. Now it wants to convince you to fork over almost $400 so your boy won't get bumps on his schlong if he's not careful where he sticks it.  

“This opens the door to a wonderful opportunity to prevent illness,” said Anna Giuliano, a researcher at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla.

Great, but you know what's even better than preventing illness? PREVENTING DEATH. Or at least that's what I would think if I were making medicine for people, and not for profit.  Maybe they see things differently at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. Maybe they could rename it the H. Lee Moffitt Center To Prevent Schlong Bumps. 

Reached for comment in the oncology ward of Uganda's Mulago Hospital, 28 year old cervical cancer sufferer Efia Matovu said, "I am so grateful for the nurse who paid for a bottle of alcohol out of her own pocket for me to use. It is such a relief at times to feel its coolness when my fever burns. My nurse shows me yet again the goodness that is in every human heart. It is just a shame that I have had the misfortune to be stricken by a disease for which nothing can be done. I can only hope that one day science will progress to the point where the suffering I have endured can be prevented in others." 

I don't have to tell you the quote from the cancer sufferer is made up. Because you know in the real world no one would care enough what a woman dying of cervical cancer in Africa thinks to make an effort to ask her for a comment. Or to stop her from dying. In the real world corporations like Merck serve up heaping plates of bullshit about people and profits, cover the bullshit in steak sauce, and tell you you've got a ribeye.

I am glad I don't have any bumps on my schlong though. Maybe my perspective would change if I did. 

I Think The Better Question Is Why Does It Take So Long For You To Pick Up Your Prescription?

Seriously. All you have to do is give me your goddamn money and walk away. Those are the only requirements you have to meet. Which means you have a hell of a lot of chutzpah asking what took me so long. There's no law that says you must take 5 minutes to make out a check. As a matter of fact, it's perfectly legal for you to make out most of your check ahead of time, before you even approach the counter. If I tried to do your DUR before you even presented me with a prescription, you might have a case for putting me in jail. So back the fuck off. 

You are also under no obligation to answer your phone the second it goes off. I however, am expected to take calls not only from your sorry ilk through the beginning, middle, and end of the prescription filling process, but from unimportant schleps like nurses and doctors with questions of the type that can't be answered by reading your prescription label. 

Which seem to be the only type of questions you can come up with. I love the "grab the bottle while simultaneously asking a question that can only be answered by looking at the bottle" maneuver. That speeds things up. Making both of us wait for you to put the goddamn bottle back down so I can tell you how many refills you have left after you realize you can't read the label that's been in front of your face for 30 seconds makes things nice and quick. Your commitment to speed in your own life only serves to motivate me to ask myself what I can do to make the prescription filling process faster.

Nothing. That's what I can do you fuck. You however, could speed things along quite nicely by not treating me telling you your copay amount as the beginning of a negotiating session. I am not a car dealer.  When I tell you how much your insurance company has determined your share of the cost of your prescription will be, you have two choices. 1) Accept it and pony up or 2) Don't pay it and go away. If you choose #2, I can return your prescription to you, but haggling will only rob us both of time we can never get back, and will never, ever, result in you paying one penny less. I don't care if it was $5 last time, I don't care what the status is of your deductible, and if I did, which let me say again that I don't, I would be powerless to change how much you owe me right now. 

It also helps when you decide you have insurance only after you hear how expensive your prescription will be. Nice and quick that'll make things.

Have you finished making out that check yet? Didn't think so. 

Yes. It was a bad day. I'll be back to my cheery self tomorrow. Maybe. No guarantees on that. 

You Were Good About Putting Up With My Politics Posts. You Were Better In Picking A President. Have Some Highlights From Friday's Pill Counting Action

First question of the day: "My doctor told me to take some aspirin for my heart. What should I get? Tylenol?"

Second question of the day: "Do you sell aspirin here?" The person honest to God wandered into a drugstore and wasn't sure if the drugstore would stock aspirin. 

Which is not Tylenol by the way. I went to school for 5 years so I would be prepared to clear up confusion like this. 

My employer thought it was time to dress us all in new lab coats. They showed up 2 weeks ago, but today was the first day I had one of them on.  When my tech showed up, 15 minutes late, her first words were "Oh you're wearing the new coat! You look like a girl!" Great. 

That may have been why a couple hours later a customer invited me to "suck some cock," because I looked like a girl. Or maybe because when we told him his prescription would take about 20 minutes, and he said "I'LL BE BACK IN TEN!!" I said " you'll be waiting for another ten then" 

Good thing Proposition 8 passed in California, or the angry customer may have asked me to marry him. Unless he thought I looked like a girl. 

An actual question from an actual doctor's office around hour 5. "Why did you send me this prior auth? I'm just the prescriber!!"

For those of you not in the profession, I'll tell you it is the prescriber's responsibility to obtain a prior auth from your insurance company. 99.999% of prescribers realize this. Your insurance will not take a prior auth request from me. Even if I whine and cry like a girl.

A man at the cash register called his wife and talked for 10 minutes discussing the best way to pay his $5 copay. They decided on a debit card. Then changed their mind to cash. Then back to the debit card. The lesson to be learned; technology is vital to the functioning of a modern economy. God forbid we go back to 1990 when he just would have given me a fucking Lincoln and had 9 extra minutes in his day. And not had a cellphone bill.

The guy in line behind cellphone douche asked "Do you need a prescription to buy a pill cutter?" 

5 years to be able to handle these questions my friends. 

About an hour later a customer had a complaint. The sign above the pet aisle read "Dried Cat Food, Cat Food, Cat Litter, Dog Food" Cats were mentioned three times, dogs once. That's what the customer felt the need to complain about.

You know why you shouldn't bother your pharmacist with stuff like this, other than the fact that he's busy filling your goddamn prescription and stuff like this doesn't have a thing to do with your goddamn prescription? Because the pharmacist labor shortage frees me up to say things like "I couldn't care less about the pet food signs ma'am" to your face when you bother me with stuff like this, which is exactly what happened. You're way better off finding the community college dropout assistant manager who might actually get fired for calling out your odd obsession with equal time for dogs. Just a tip. 

At hour 10 a customer told my keystone tech "you've had a long day." Hour 10 for me I should say. It was hour 8 for my keystone tech, who was about ready to go home. I got to stick around for 2 more hours and ponder how much people appreciate my actual real long days.

Tylenol is not aspirin. Goodnight. 

So The Beginning Of My Professional Blogging Career Turns Out To Be A Lot Like When King Missile Got A Job Driving A Cheesecake Truck

So then I got this idea about driving a cheesecake truck,

Because I figured at the end of the day I could take some of the leftover cheesecakes home,

And I love cheesecake.

So I went to the cheesecake company,

And they asked me if I could drive a truck,

And I said yes and they said you're hired.

So the next day I got in the truck with all the cheesecakes,

And I drove about a block and I just had to have a cheesecake.

So I pulled over and I opened the trunk and I got a cheesecake,

And I also took one for later,

And I took one for my friend Farmboy,

And I took one to bring home,

And by that time I had eaten one of the cheesecakes.

So I took another one.

Then I figured I might as well stop at my house to drop off all the cheesecakes.

So I take five cakes to eat on the way,

And I drive another block and a half to my house.

Now it's lunchtime so I eat ten cheesecakes and a cheesecake for desert.

I should point out by the way that all of these cheesecakes were very delicious.

Anyway, I decided that the only thing to do would be to eat all the rest of the cheesecakes and hide the truck somewhere and leave town.

And I miss everybody a lot,

But I'm not really sorry,

Because they were very delicious cheesecakes.

I completely understand. 

For my non-regular readers out there I'll explain my good friend Katie The Jewgirl recently held what she called the "McCunt Essay Contest." Thanks to your votes, I won a set of Bojamacakes. You can take a look at my essay here if you are so inclined. 

I'm not sure how many Bojamacakes there were, because I started eating them before I could count. I've eaten a lot, and these are the only two left. They will probably be gone before I'm done typing this:
 

And I'm not really sorry, because they were very delicious Bojamacakes. 

You can get your own from Uniquely Yours Pastry Shoppe. You cannot have any of mine, because as predicted, they are now gone. 

I am glad I don't have to leave town though.

If You'd Like To Make An Extortion Threat, Press 5. Thank You For Holding. All Of Our Representatives Are Busy Taking Other Extortion Threats.

Through the magic of the Internet, we go to the AP business wire:

WASHINGTON – Express Scripts said Thursday it has received a letter demanding money from the company under the threat of exposing records of millions of patients.

The threat was made in an anonymous letter that the company turned over to federal investigators. 

In the letter, the extortionist expresses frustration with his earlier efforts to contact the company via telephone.

"After repeated calls to your headquarters, the shortest of which resulted in sitting on hold for 45 minutes, I have concluded a letter may be the only hope I ever have of establishing any contact with your organization.  I will therefore raise my demands by 1 million dollars as compensation for my lost time" says the unknown letter writer.

 Not really. I made that part up. I'd be willing to bet if you call the Express Scripts help desk on a regular basis I may have had you going though. 

  

The letter, received in early October, included personal information on 75 people covered by Express Scripts, including birth dates, social security numbers and prescription information.

A company spokesman said Express waited to reveal the breach "to give the investigation time to proceed and get under way."

Uh, yeah. Again, being painfully familiar with Express Scripts customer service and claim payment track record, I'll put up a twenty that "to give the investigation time to proceed and get under way." means "we never got around to opening the letter until yesterday" 

Good luck Express Scripts cardholders. Enjoy yet another benefit of  privately run, for profit health care.  

Election Wrap Up. The Al Franken Millennium On Hold, Voters In Florida Do What Al-Qaeda Cannot, Iowa Increases Its Electorate By A Factor Of 10,000

It'll be back to the pills soon my friends, I promise, but first some loose ends to wrap up from the election night that turned hope loose once again in the country. 

Hope that will be needed in Minnesota, where Al Franken's bid to unseat a United States Senator who has never denied being a member of Al-Qaeda goes to an automatic recount. Unofficial election night results show Norm Coleman, who has never denied being a member of the organization that carried out the attacks of 9/11, even when directly asked by me, ahead by 477 votes out of over 2.8 million cast. Despite a state law that automatically triggers a recount in elections closer than 0.5%, and despite cases, like the 2004 Governor's race in Washington state, where election night results were indeed reversed after such recounts, Norm Coleman  plastered the word "VICTORY" on his website, and told the press with a straight face that he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position. Proving that while his connection to Al-Qaeda may be unknown, there is no doubt Coleman is a world class douche bag. 

I don't have to tell you that Norm Coleman never denying membership in Al-Qaeda, while technically true, is written with tongue firmly in cheek. In Florida though, there really was a lunatic running for Congress who thought that Al Jazeera might be trying to kidnap him by luring him to a fake television interview. Allen West thwarted that terrorist plot, but was unable to stop the vast conspiracy that delivered an electoral ass-kicking.

Back to Minnesota quickly, where Elwyn Tinklenberg came sooooooo close to winning that state's 6th District Congressional race, in the end though, he came up a little short, thereby depriving me of many, many jokes that would have involved the name "Congressman Elwyn Tinklenberg." Dammit. 

Voters in Arizona, Florida, and California passed anti-gay marriage measures, ensuring a continuing healthy sex life for gays and lesbians in those states. Seriously gay people, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it one day. 

In Colorado, South Dakota, and California, draconian restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion went down to defeat. Again. Ensuring that the Christian lunatics will be back next election with something more obnoxious so they can waste all our time by making us kick their ass. Again. 

In what I'm sure is a blow to my good friend, and by "good friend" I mean "person I've never met but who was like the 2nd human to ever read this blog," Romius T,  South Carolina amended its state constitution to eliminate language that set the legal age of consent for unmarried women at 14 years old.  The constitutional clause conflicted with South Carolina statutory law, which set the age of consent at a much more responsible..... 16. 

By far my favorite nugget of the night though, comes from the state of Iowa, I'll let Time magazine set the stage:

Iowa Public Measure D, also known as "Idiot Amendment," will change the language of the constitution, which currently prohibits an individual from voting if he or she is deemed an "idiot or insane."

"We decided it really wasn't fair to let the same 5 people decide everything election after election" said Des Moines resident Wally Dunlap, one of the 0.00002% of Iowans eligible to vote under the original Constitutional language. "And once we saw that dumbass plumber get his 15 minutes of fame this year, we really thought the trend just wasn't worth fighting anymore"

I still would have voted to keep the idiots away from the voting booth. It'll make re-electing Obama so much easier if we can keep the idiots away from the voting booth.

Disclaimer- Wally Dunlap isn't real. Everyone and everything else mentioned is.

A True Story About John McCain I Can Tell You Now That The Election Is Over.

I don't have to tell most of you that John McCain was a fighter pilot in the Navy during the Vietnam War. I don't have to tell you that he was shot down, captured, held prisoner and tortured by the Vietnamese for 5 and a half years. 

And I don't mean the kind of torture that we do in Guantanamo where we're careful not to leave any marks. The Vietnamese didn't care anything about leaving marks. They beat the living piss out of John McCain and then would hang him from the ceiling in his cell by his broken arms when they were done. That's why you never saw him raise his arms during the campaign. He can't. At one point during his captivity he weighed less than a hundred pounds. That's not the story I want to tell you though. The story I want to tell you starts in that prison cell, with the voice of a person named David Ifshin.

Ifshin was president of the National Student Association, and in 1970 he went to Hanoi to urge American troops to turn against the war. His words were broadcast over Radio Hanoi repeatedly and into the cell that was John McCain's living hell. 

You might expect that the two men would have gone on to become bitter lifelong enemies. You would be wrong. Ifshin went on to be general counsel of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, a fact that didn't sit very well with many of the veterans of the war Ifshin had railed against. Some of these veterans heckled the president during his first Memorial Day speech, waving signs that read "Tell us about David Ifshin" 

John McCain gave a speech on the floor of the Senate that day. “Let me tell you about David Ifshin…" McCain said. "David is a friend of mine.”

"I wanted the protesters to know that they were bearing false witness against a good man." McCain said later."His friendship honored me and honors me still."

 You see, although both McCain and Ifshin came to radically different conclusions, both men passionately believed in doing what was best for the country. Both men came to see that in the other and to respect the others' commitment. 

I was going to write a tongue in cheek post tonight about kicking the Republicans when they were down. It would have been really funny. But after hearing Obama's victory speech tonight, I decided to tell you this story instead. Because my friends, I can't help but feel there was a tectonic shift in this country tonight. A much welcome shift in the tone we are going to get from our leader over the next 8 years. After hearing the man I had hoped so long for, finally making the speech that I so longed for him to make, well, a post about kicking the Republicans when they were down just seemed so.........Bushy. 

And Bush already seems like ancient history, doesn't he?

I'll be dammed if there isn't a little hope in the land tonight. 

  

Four Years Ago Tomorrow.

Was the night I discovered scotch. I had made myself a promise, almost 2 years earlier, that at the end of election day, 2004, I would be able to look myself in the mirror and tell myself I had done everything I could to stop the Bush war machine. My knees hurt. My legs were fucking tired. It was the end of a long road and I looked myself in the mirror. My promise was kept. There was nothing else to do except finally sleep. I didn't watch the results come in because there was nothing left in my tank that would affect them. 

It's hard to describe what it feels like to commit yourself to a political campaign to someone who's never done it. It consumes you. For every hour you have to give it gladly takes five. You meet good people working for exactly what you're working for. You can't let them down. So you walk one more block. You plaster on one more smile. You listen to another little old lady discuss her strategy for a winning campaign because you want to make sure she casts her ballot. You phone, you walk, you pass out leaflets. Because you believe in what you're doing and you can't let the others down. You're a team, and for 2 years, you've almost been like a family. 

I have wished for so long...
How I wish for you again

Will I walk the long road?
I cannot stay
There's no need to say goodbye

Oh, the friends and family...
All the memories going round
Round, round round...

I have wished for so long...
How I wished for you today

I woke up and had to know. It was the wee hours of the morning now, and that was the song playing at the volunteer headquarters downstairs. One look around and I knew. We fought so hard, for so long, and our long road was a dead end. 

To cap it off a snowstorm was closing in on Reno. Ever cognizant of the history of the Donner party, I decided it best to consider myself stuck in the Biggest Little City In The World. 

And the wind keeps rollin'

And the sky keeps turning grey
And the sun is set......

That night I wandered into the hotel bar and discovered Laphroaig. 

.....The sun will rise another day

Sure. Maybe sometime in the next generation we'll realize what a fuckup George The Lessor was. For now though, we are screwed. Guantanamo. Wiretaps. Torture. Many, many gallons of blood on our hands and we just blew our chance to stop it. Barkeep....another shot......

I have never been so happy to be so wrong. We're on the verge of the sun coming up tomorrow my friends. You know there are no guarantees though. It doesn't happen if the ballots are not cast. Cast yours. Please. 

Because honestly, I'm ready to put away the scotch for awhile. 

Pre-Election Picture #2. You Know, When Bill Clinton Did This It Was With A Human, And The Republicans Thought It An Impeachable Offence. Just Sayin'

Suit on the left: "Once again Mr. President, on behalf of the American Poultry Council, I'd just like to say how happy we are that you took some time out of your busy schedule in honor of National Turkey Farmer appreciation week."

Turkey: "I'll do anything for one of those Presidential Thanksgiving pardons........anything.

Bush: "Ahhhhh....ugggghhh....ohmygod get it off!!! Wait.....don't"

Suit in the middle: "Uh....Bob...seriously....I think there might be something wrong"

Both the suits are now in Guantanamo. The turkey has often been seen in the vicinity of the Lincoln bedroom. 

Thanks to the alert reader who sent in the pic. 

One More Time Before The Election, Just Because I Love This Picture So Goddamned Much

Oh man I'll miss this picture after Tuesday:

I mean, I hope I'll miss this picture after Tuesday. 

Because I hope, after Tuesday, these two men will be quickly forgotten.

This is the season of hope you know. Do the right thing in the voting booth my friends.