NYT: Democrats say no to cost cap for drug manufacturers

Botox in the deal
for Nancy?









"Ms. Pelosi, many House and Senate Democrats and most of the administration’s liberal allies had assumed that the $80 billion was more of a starting point than a firm commitment.

“We know we can squeeze more from the system,” Ms. Pelosi told a Washington Post blogger a few weeks ago. “The minute the drug companies settled for $80 billion, we knew it was $160 billion.”

“The president made the agreements he made,” she added. “And maybe we’ll be limited by that. But maybe not!”

After Mr. Waxman’s committee approved a House bill last Friday allowing government negotiation of drug prices and requiring additional price rebates, the drug lobbyists began demanding public reassurances from the White House — until Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, confirmed the lobbyists’ understanding of the deal in a Wednesday night e-mail message. (A White House spokesman said Thursday that the confirmation was unrelated to the lobbyists’ pressure.)"

LINK

UPDATES: William Greider in The Nation says this deal stinks.
Huffington Post reveals an internal memo about deals the White House cut with Pharma.

NIDA: Coming Up Empty

Looks like the US government does not think that prescription drug addiction is much of a problem - there's hardly anything on it at their site.
As long as pharma profit margins are high, no problem....? Perhaps the government has a drug problem, too.



Image from http://www.investmentu.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/20051103b.GIF

"Every door is the right door" - Ontario, Canada releases paper on mental health treatment

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

We're reading it now; you may like to download it and have a look yourself. Link

Many thanks to FAME for Families for alerting us to this new release.

Wyeth's Ghostwritten Documents to be Unsealed

Pirates from Stevenson's KIDNAPPED by N.C. Wyeth
Wyeth's Ghostwritten Documents to be Unsealed
NYT article - PDF
Judge's order to unseal
And here is a news release regarding $22 Million payouts to doctors by Lilly: Link

Our Widget

It worked! You can get one too - click at bottom.

New Report Examines the Effect of Severe Mental Illness and Capital Punishment on Families

ACLU releases details on and links to a new report from NAMI which tells the stories of the effects of lack of proper treatment and inappropriate criminal conviction on the mentally ill and their families. Great - but we'd like them to go further....

"The report details several examples in which people who were clearly ill murdered someone and were found incompetent. It also tells the stories of those who were still tried, convicted and eventually executed, despite their mental illness.

For example, Larry Robison was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His parents checked him into a few facilities. Each time he was about to be released, his parents asked the physicians to retain him. One psychiatrist stated that Robison needed long-term care, but when the hospital learned that Robison was not covered by insurance, his parents said the hospital "could not wait to get him out of there." His parents were told he could not get help because he was not violent, but if he became violent, he would be placed in a mental hospital.

Robison began to self-medicate and was admitted to a rehabilitation center for his drug use, but was not treated for schizophrenia. Robison was arrested for the murder of five people just four years after his first diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His first violent act was murder. Robison was executed, without ever receiving the treatment he needed."

Link

Pharmaceuticals Anonymous comments:
We wish that the mentally ill would get justice, but we know that won't happen without proper diagnosis and treatment. Schizophrenia can be reversed when proper examination for its 29 medical causes is done, and other disorders that cause antisocial and criminal tendencies can similarly be screened and treated, generally with supplements and appropriate foods. We wish NAMI had led the way on this, but they have made many deals with Big Pharma so it is unlikely that proper screening and diagnosis will be allowed on their agenda. Link
Until proper diagnosis and right treatment are common, suffering will continue, and enforced, often damaging drugging which curtails cognitive and personal freedoms will continue.
See PDF.

Link - Wikipedia on orthomolecular/nutritional treatment of mental illness

Total Cure for Fungal Infections (Candida) Found

This just in... and welcome news indeed, because Candida/yeast infections are a cause of malfunction of the neurological system, resulting in brain fog, fatigue, irritability and schizophrenia.

..fungal infections can be deadly for people with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients or those undergoing treatment for cancer or organ transplantation.

Doctors say Candida albicans are the fourth leading cause of hospital acquired infectious diseases.

But the researchers have now found a way to fight fungal infections by knock out its associate protein, a Toronto University statement said Friday. Link

The researchers say that compromising Hsp90 protein makes the fungal-fighting drugs (known as echinocandins) more effective in killing fungal germs or Candida albicans.

"Our results suggest that interfering with Hsp90 function provides a powerful and much-needed strategy to render existing antifungal drugs more effective in the treatment of life-threatening fungal infections,'' the statement quoted Cowen as saying.

The researchers discovered that impairing the function of germs' protein Hsp90 by using potent drugs or genetic techniques made the fungus much more prone to killing by echinocandins.

They said this strategy was found effective in both lab experiments and mouse models.

The researchers said treating patients with a drug that inhibits Hsp90 along with an echinocandin will have major benefits for people with life-threatening fungal disease.

The study was published Friday in the journal PLoS Pathogens.

University of Toronto
Times of India
Insciences

As fungus may cause cancer, these findings are likely to have implications far beyond what these news releases suggest. Link


Will this also help in the bat die-off? Link