Tag Archives: Pharma companies

A Dangerous ‘Promise’

Posted on by under Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Donald Trump makes lots and lots of ‘promises’ that he cannot keep about things over which he has little or no control.  He promised to “drain the swamp”, but brought in bigger, nastier alligators than we had ever seen before.  He promised to “build a wall” and that “Mexico will pay for it”.  Well, there are bits and pieces of a wall along the southern border, already proven easily scalable, and YOU paid for what’s been built so far, while Mexico sat back and laughed.  He promised to “make America great again”, but has only increased the divisiveness that already existed, driven off our allies, cozied up to dictators, caused the further destruction of the environment, botched the response to the coronavirus, increased racial tensions, and … well, you get the idea.  Thus far he has bungled every promise he made in one way or another, and frankly most of his promises were not things that would enhance our lives anyway.  His latest promise, though, has medical experts concerned.

In May, in one of his “Rose Garden press conferences”, he promised that a vaccine for the coronavirus would be ready by the end of the year.  This, despite the fact that nearly all the medical experts are saying that it’s a pipe dream.  The fear now, though, is that Trump will force rushed testing in order to push through his ‘promise’, which could be disastrous.  We could end up with a vaccine that doesn’t work, or one with devastating side effects.  Obviously, since Trump has made it perfectly clear that our lives do not matter to him, he won’t care, just so long as he looks like a hero to his base and wins the election on November 3rd.

Two professors at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Dr. Paul A. Offit wrote an OpEd in the New York Times on June 8th, where they imagined this scenario:

Oct. 23, 2020, 9 a.m., with 10 days before the election, Fox New releases a poll showing President Trump trailing Joe Biden by eight percentage points.

Oct. 23, 2020, 3 p.m., at a hastily convened news conference, President Trump announces that the Food and Drug Administration has just issued an Emergency Use Authorization for a coronavirus vaccine. Mr. Trump declares victory over Covid-19, demands that all businesses reopen immediately and predicts a rapid economic recovery.

Far-fetched?  Hardly.  Given Trump’s self-dealing and his lack of both intellect and empathy, I can certainly envision that happening.  And perhaps millions of people rushing to take the vaccine, without any guarantee of its effectiveness.  And, in a few years or less, I can picture a rash of new cancer cases or people suddenly losing their hair or having debilitating muscle spasms or brain tumours, all because the vaccine wasn’t well-tested.

Pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Astra Zeneca are planning to move forward with human (guinea pig) testing in July and August, as is the National Institute of Health (NIH).  They plan to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers (guinea pigs) on whom they will test the vaccine, but results will take many more months before the vaccine can be marketed to the public.  And where will these volunteers (guinea pigs) come from?  Would you volunteer?  I sure as hell wouldn’t.  According to Dr. Fauci, it will likely take months to line up the volunteers (guinea pigs), and then medical experts say it will be between 8-12 months before the efficiency of the vaccine can be determined.  The effectiveness trial for the rotavirus vaccines took about four years and the human papillomavirus vaccine studies to prevent cervical cancer took seven years.

Would Trump be able to force a drug company and the NIH to claim a vaccine was effective before they were comfortable doing so?  Well, remember last month when top vaccine official Rick Bright was demoted because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency” and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump as a possible cure for coronavirus.  Today, the FDA revoked the use of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, for emergency treatment of coronavirus patients, saying that “it is no longer reasonable to believe” that the drug has any effect on the coronavirus, but it is known to have serious side effects in some patients.

And remember how he has been purging the administration of those whose jobs was to provide oversight?  And remember how he’s planning a big rally in Tulsa on Saturday and telling people not to wear masks?  So yeah, Trump would try anything.  After all, come late October all he needs is a short-term fix … an October Surprise … just enough to boost his polls through November 3rd.  After the election, any vaccine can be recalled, scrapped, or people can start dying and he won’t care.  He only cares about one thing:  winning.  For himself, not for you or I.

Trump-Wants-You

Smart Pills, Dumb Criminals, and Mean Ol’ Auntie

Posted on by under Humour, Random

I am taking a hiatus from my usual political commentary … at least for today.  Who knows what tomorrow brings?  A headline caught my eye this morning and I thought I would have some fun this afternoon with some of the stranger headlines culled from recent news.  We all need a chuckle and a break from the world of politics, so ….

Aunt loses lawsuit against 12-year-old nephew who broke her wrist with a ‘careless’ hug

The Washington Post, 13 October 2015

A Connecticut jury sided against 54-year-old New Yorker Jennifer Connell after she sued her now-12-year old nephew for an incident several years ago in which he hugged her a little too hard, knocked her to the floor — and broke her wrist.
The then-8-year-old was pretty excited to see his aunt at his birthday party on March 18, 2011, according to the Connecticut Post. He had just gotten a two-wheel bike that day and was riding it around the home, the newspaper reported. He was so excited that he ran up to his aunt as soon as he saw her. “Auntie Jen! Auntie Jen!” he exclaimed.
That’s when things got a little dangerous.
“All of a sudden he was there in the air, I had to catch him, and we tumbled onto the ground,” Connell testified, according to the Connecticut Post. “I remember him shouting, ‘Auntie Jen, I love you!’ And there he was flying at me.”
Her attorney William Beckert told the New York Daily News that his client’s nephew “should have known better. We have rules for children. He was not careful. He was unsafe.” Connell sought $127,000 from her nephew, whose mother, by the way, recently died.
The reason Ms. Connell decided to sue fully four years after the incident? “I was at a party recently, and it was difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvre plate.” Awwwwww … poor woman …

 

Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed

The Washington Post, 05 February 2016

Noela Rukundo sat in a car outside her home, watching as the last few mourners filed out. They were leaving a funeral — her funeral.
Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband, Balenga Kalala, put his hands on his head in horror.
“Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.
Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days earlier, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime.
Turns out the hitmen didn’t believe in killing women, plus they knew her brother, so they set her free on the side of a road, gave her a cell phone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they had received in payment. The moral of the story? Do background and reference checks when hiring hitmen …

 

Big Pharma’s big push to get patients to take their meds

The Boston Globe, 03 February 2016

The pharmaceutical industry loses tens of billions in worldwide sales each year when patients don’t fill, or refill, their prescriptions. So drug makers from London to Tokyo to Cambridge, Mass., are pouring money into programs aimed at cajoling — or nagging — patients to take every last pill their doctors prescribe. The companies are investing in smart pills that will send alerts when they haven’t been swallowed at the prescribed time. They’re subsidizing gift cards to thank patients who remember to refill. They’re paying patients to go on talk circuits to tout the virtues of taking medication properly.
Japanese giant Otsuka Pharmaceutical is collaborating with Silicon Valley startup Proteus Digital Health on the first “smart pill,” embedded with an ingestible sensor that could send a patient or a doctor alerts when it’s swallowed — or when a dose is missed. They’re seeking approval for the technology from the US Food and Drug Administration. OH NO … that is beyond creepy, beyond “Big brother is watching”! Perhaps a better solution might be for the medical community to develop more integrity such that people would actually trust what the doc says??? Or for the pharmaceutical industry to make medicine affordable???

 

Father found not guilty after taking away daughter’s iPhone

The Washington Post, 31 January 2015

Ronald Jackson, a 36-year-old from Dallas, was ultimately arrested and charged with property theft because he had taken his daughter’s iPhone and refused to give it back. Apparently she had been texting offensive and derogatory language, so he took the phone as punishment. After Jackson confiscated the cellphone, the girl went to a friend’s house and called her mom. Police were sent to Jackson’s home and, while there, tried to get the phone back, but Jackson decided that “the police don’t interfere with my ability to parent my daughter.”  (While the mother bought the phone, the father pays the monthly bills)
Following a long legal battle, a Dallas County Criminal Court judge ruled last week that the state did not have enough evidence to continue the case and ordered a jury to find him not guilty. Good thing, too … can you imagine the lawsuits that would have followed by teens who had their cell phones confiscated by parents?

Her attacker forced her to make a phone call during a rape — so she called 911

The Washington Post, 30 December 2015

A woman who was told to call her boyfriend during a sexual assault instead contacted 911 where an emergency dispatcher managed to play the part of the boyfriend. The dispatcher pretended that the woman had done as she was told, and sent police to the scene, — a decision that authorities in Georgia say helped police track down the suspect and stop the attack. Yet another one for the annals of dumb criminals … luckily for the victim!