The blockbuster model is dying a very slow and painful death and there will be more collateral damage before it's all over. Early morning brought news that Pfizer might buy Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, including its biologics division, for $60 billion. 

Will a short-term financial quick fix steamroll a vibrant company, with all the inevitable layoffs and culture issues that will result?

In the 1960s and 1970s, I was quite vocal about women's rights: equal pay, advancement opportunities, etc. What I found, in a large number of settings, was that the males agreed with me (mostly). Where I was amazed was the responses of a large number of women. Many made comments like, "that's a man's job" or "a woman's place is in the home." I was hoping that women were no longer their own worst enemies...then Denver happened.

Now, when a woman was made a vice-presidential candidate, her policies or experience didn't seem to matter to many people. Polls show a major swing in "white women" to the Republican ticket. I am especially warmed by the fact that the long-standing values of non-violence (gun control, especially) can be forgotten for a rifle-toting, moose hunter... as long as the person has two X-chromosomes.

Worse yet, her "home life" is out of bounds. However, I wonder what the "well-known" churchmen on the far right (silent on the matter) would make of Obama's daughter being pregnant and unmarried. I'm sure they would point out that it was the logical consequence of the promiscuous liberal ideals she has. [These would be the same people who claimed the flooding in New Orleans four years ago was retribution by God for the sinful lifestyles of the locals. Funny: I didn't hear anything of the sort this year when Iowa and several other WHITE, CHRISTIAN states (all who voted "correctly" in the last election) were flooded.] I know we all have faults, I just like to think we accept and work with others, not condemn them because they are different.

In any case, I would expect in the 21st century, that voters look beyond race and gender and actually read something about the accomplishments of each candidate. What a concept! While I'm not about to break into John Lennon's Imagine, I would like to see a little more kindness and openmindedness in our relationships.

Can we actually THINK for ourselves once in a while and not follow the pack over the cliff?

Watching the Olympics is amazing...even when Bob Costas interviewed our Commander-in-Chief. However, when Bob asked, "How can you seriously address the Russia-Georgia issue with so many problems at home?" I waited for a reasoned response. Silly me...after 7 1/2 years? When "W" answered, "What problems? We have no problems." I remembered a neat bumper sticker I saw the other day:

 January 20, 2009: the end of an error

Live long and prosper, y'all. GO, Team USA!!! What a great bunch of young people, no? Makes a future seem possible.

I have a neat idea: why don't we flood Beijing with fake tickets to the Olympics? Give them a taste of counterfeiting, eh? Maybe a blast of overbooking of seats will show the government our displeasure at them not doing a whole bunch to stop phoney drugs from being made and distributed to the world.

My idea is a prank, but a seriously ill person taking a placebo or, worse yet, a toxic chemical isn't very funny. It is difficult to put any pressure on a country from whom we are borrowing billions a day, I would guess. What would we threaten: that we will repay it faster?

Maybe it's time for a "food tester," such as royalty used in the Middle Ages. We ask the vendors to take the drug, eat the dog food, or brush with the toothpaste before we buy it. We could always employ "Dog, the Bounty Hunter" to go after the counterfeiters, but he might not easily move about in China.

Or, we could remember, if a deal sounds too good to be real...it isn't (real, that is...duh).

Most of us use fillers when we speak: uh, um, you know, clearly, like, and that's what I'm talkin' about. The latest insult to our collective mind is "It is what it is." (Duh!) I can only imagine Glog's mate complaining about how damp and wet the cave is...and his reply? "It is what it is!" That is not the attitude that gave us central heat, electricity in our homes, medicines that save our lives, and reality TV. [Three out of four ain't bad.]

The @#$%-ed saying is a "cop-out' (from my generation) for not bothering to try to improve the human condition. Crooked politics? "It is what it is." Higher and higher enegy? "I.I.W.I.I" Thanks to Pres. RR, we have the trickle down effect in play. Garbage can full? IIWII!

 Could we make an effort to stop with "like, um, er, IIWII, and you know?" PLEASE!?! I was just watching Brian Williams give the news; it was succinct, gramatically correct, without hesitation or fillers. It was beautiful (not the news, itself, but the presentation). I just had to say, "Now,that's what I'm talkin' about!"

Since (as I mentioned) the "cure" for drugs in groundwater is not going to happen quickly, there is something we can do right now. There are, approximately, 20 million people without healthcare in the US of A at the moment. That means they might be able to get medical attention at a hospital emergency room or free clinic. However, they may not be able to obtain needed medicines.

Since the first step in groundwater remediation is analyzing what is in the water at the various locations, anyway, we can use this information in the meantime to alleviate one other problem. Whynot publish the information of which drugs are at which location? That way, if someone needed Prozac, they could be sent to City "X" and drink the water. Need a "statin?" Why, just move to City "Y." We will know the levels of each drug, so the emergency room doctor can prescribe how much free water each patient should drink each day from the tap at any given city.

This will modify a common phrase to "drink two gallons and call me in the morning." But, it will be (as Ann Landers used to say) "when life hands you a lemon, make (highly diluted, in this case) lemonade."

Thus, we will be (pun intended) "killing two birds with one stone."

There have been reports lately about prescription drugs being found in our drinking water. The levels are relatively low, so no flares were sent up by the EPA. It is somewhat like the lead in toys from China: probably been there for some time, just not looked for until now.

The source of industrial pollution is somewhat easy to discover: air monitoring at an indistrial site, checking the effluent from a plant, looking for seepage from underground tanks are all standard procedues for state and the federal EPA/DoEP. But, where do these drugs come from?

Well, as I once pointed out to a friend, individual humans are a terrible source of pollution. [Imagine the formaldehyde from cemetaries, not to mention the plutonium in buried pacemakers because we didn't want to desecrate poor aunt Myrtle.] We excrete both unused drug entities and metabolies continuously. Multiply what we excrete by millions and you see where we are.

The problem is made more difficult by the huge number of chemicals, all physiologically active, we need to screen for in drinking water. Literally thousands of chemicals, not to mention industrial chemicals, need to be discovered and removed from or water supply. This will not be fast or inexpensive. New and better ways are going to be needed to bring our water back to where it is, once more, the elixer of life....and we can once again recommend drinking at least 6 glasses a day.

Bottled water is suggested as an answer to the pollution by drugs (by bottled water sellers, obviously). One minor problem with that idea: most commercial bottled water comes from the same municipal sources we all use right now. Obvioulsy, merely passing it through charcoal doesn't work, since that what many municipalities already do! (Forget for a minute the benzene found in Perrier a few years ago: that was an industrial accident.)

So the water bottlers want you to believe that paying $20/gallon for their water, pumped from the same sources you are already drinking makes them any safer? To answer Agnes' blog (On Pharma) question: Evian spelled backwards is Naive...what the bottled water people hope you are! Me? I'll stay with single malt whiskey for now. (After all, "whiskey" is an Irish word for water of life, anyway ;-D)

I just got back from Amsterdam where Europe was having some of the nastiest weather in many years. The winds were gusting to (at least) gale force and, in some cases, such as the UK, approximately hurricane force. Heavy rain was coming at me horizontally. So, while sitting in my 16th floor hotel room on an artificial island behind the Amsterdam train station (also on a man-made island), I thought of Katrina and New Orleans. Would I have been so calm there?

No one was panicing and there was absolutely no question whether Northern Holland, even further under sea level than NO, might flood. I guess that when the national, regional, and local governments are not corrupt and do care about the people, good things tend to happen. There are no inspectors being paid under the table to certify that defective seawalls are ok. There was never a question of how the residents voted in the last election. And the Dutch army was all in-country, able to help with any disaster. Of course, it helps that the government officials live below sea level, too.

So, let's see: competent government, enough resources allocated, top-flight engineers with a working budget, and everyone "in the same boat" (in case of a flood) adds up to a "perfect non-storm." Maybe the "old-fashioned" Europeans do have some things to teach us, after all

I'm in New Orleans for PittCon 2008. I was teasing a saleslady who was yawning at midday, when I learned something. She was tired from going out after work, buying as much bread and "fillins" as she could afford, making sandwiches and taking them to the 400+ homeless under the nearby underpass. She felt bad that she could only make 100 or so sandwiches, but was doing the best she could.

Now, I may be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that, since they have no homes, food, or clothing, they probably have no access to medicine, either.  

While PhRMA only sounds a little like FEMA, I fear they are doing about the same level of good works down here. My guess is that, in its (PhRMAs) rush to profit, there is little thought of the many homeless here. In fact, the "fabulous" mobile homes brought in by FEMA will be taken back by summer [while occupants are advised to open trailor doors and windows to allow the formaldehyde to vent, FEMA employees are warned not to even enter them!], leaving many, many more homeless. Apparently, insurance companies are shorting the people on refunds, demanding they repair their homes themselves, THEN they will reimburse them!

There are a bunch of St. John's University (NY) students down here volunteering along with Harry Connick, jr. and Wynton Marsalis...but I saw no government-funded work proceeding. [The new levees I did see looked weaker than some handball courts in NY.] One of the peple on the tour commented that maybe the NO residents shouldn't rebuild under sea level. I pointed out that most of the Netherlands was farther below the (North) Sea than NO, we build on earthquake faults in California (even, I understand, a nuclear reactor on the San Andreas Fault), rebuild Florida and the Carolina barrier islands after every hurricane, and, don't forget the mudslides and fires in California.

But, the poor African Americans in New Orleans shouldn't rebuild? Need I mention how most of the other cases I mentioned voted in 2004 versus how Louisiana voted? Hmmmm...coincidence? Of course, it might be easier if the Lousiana  National Guard weren't "busy" elsewhere, but that's another story...

Anyway, how about medicine for the people under the bridges? No? Shame, shame, rich companies! ("Heck of a job, Brownie," to quote another "big help" down here.)

As my wife and I were returning by train from "The City" last night (if you need to ask "which city?" you don't live on the east coast), we were listening to a group of teenagers. It was satisfying to actually hear them discussing the presidential election. Some of their comments on positions were simplified to the "bumper sticker" (a.k.a., "Karl Rove" slogans) level. One lad stated thet the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans was that the GOP wanted less regulations a' la smaller government. (He backed his claim by saying "liberals" wanted more because they are on the left and, if you move all the way to the left, you get communists...who want total control. Wonderful sophistry...]

I wanted to comment on that idea, but they got off the train before I could speak with them. The "fine tuning" would have been that the GOP wants less laws affecting business. Hence "RR" gutting the FDA staff and firing all the air traffic controllers... and "W" cutting staff such that there is one person in one lab checking all the imported toys (now, are you still surprised by the lead in toys?). The idea is free enterprise should be allowed to lead to monopolies (check out AT&T now as compared with before it was broken up...see any differences?), not to mention thiose pesky USDA inspectors that just slow down the meat to our tables. And, who cares that Exxon-Mobile makes obscene profits while the economy goes in the can?

Less government is a noble idea...except, in a complex modern society, citizens can't test for tainted meat, lead in toys, counterfiet drugs, and drug safety, in general. Just as we can't build our own roads and install sewage lines; some government is a necessity! The choice of which laws are passed and enforced is the crux of what we should be watching... we could just need more FDA inspectors...

Of course, when it comes to personal liberties, "father knows best" is the theme of the "small government crowd. Can't have laisse faire in our lives, can we? We need to be told what forms of sex to have and with whom, who we can and can't marry, and whether a woman can control her own body. Oh, by the bye, if you check the government website, it will tell you the proper way to dispose of an American flag is to burn it. Screws that amendment, no?

And, to think I believed water-boarding was a summer sport...