The passing of Steve Jobs has been an opportunity for just about everyone (okay, maybe everyone) to assess his significance and ponder the lessons he taught. Blogs (like this one) seem to see it as an obligation to weigh in. And it's safe to say that every company, in every industry, is today looking at itself through the lens of Steve Jobs: If he were in our shoes, what would Steve do?

It's a healthy obsession: How would he innovate? How would he fix our problems?

EFPIA's annual report on the pharmaceutical industry in figures is now available, a 40-page, chart-filled conglomeration of data on the industry within the EU and how it compares to the global drug industry. After a thorough scan, here are some of the more interesting tidbits:

For those adamantly opposed to the burgeoning market for purchasing meds over the Internet, here is more fodder for your arguments: FDA has issued a warning that cybercriminals posing as FDA "special agents" are contacting people that have purchased drugs online, and targeting them with the following scam:

University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School regularly publishes insights into how the pharmaceutical industry is faring, and its most recent article is the naively titled, "Rx for the Pharmaceutical Industry: Focus on Innovation, Not Marketing." As you'll read, the article does not offer any revelations, but affirmations that the blockbuster model is dead and that marketing practices will have to change.

I thought the whole "Rost for FDA Chief" that surfaced after John Mack's recent poll was a joke, but then read that Dr. Rost, who emerged as the favorite candidate in that poll,  has received the backing of at least two members of Congress.

Shire Development (Wayne, PA) has received a warning letter from FDA for what the agency says are overstatements of the efficacy and understatements of the risk of Adderall XR, the firm's popular ADHD medication. The claim's were voiced in a testimonial by none other than Ty Pennington, host of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," on its own web site and on a popular Internet video site.

A few years ago the American Cancer Society used vanity to help women stop smoking. Apparently, cancer, stroke, and heart disease weren't convincing them to quit, so the ACS used vanity: it disclosed that nicotine caused capillaries to constrict. Now, that didn't matter when it came to lung disease, but it caused crow's feet, too! In other words derath wasn't as scarey as looking older.

Now, last night, I saw a commercial for ED. Plenty of those around, you would say. However, this one was pushing a cholesterol lowering product. Seems that when your arteries clog (forget heart attacks and stroke), a certain organ doesn't get enough blood. Seems that men care more about sex than health. So, vanity is not the property of women...both genders seem to care more about appearances than their health. (Ask any body-builder about his steroid use and see what I measn.)

 Good thing Proscar grows hair, too, otherwise we'd all have enlarged prostates!

Are health costs too high? Yes! Are the pharmaceutical industry-types to blame? Not so much. The "cost" of health care that includes drugs is only a small fraction of what we spend. The far greatest cost, from knowing a number of doictors, is the "cost of doing business."

The reason we are losing OBY-GYNs in this country is that, no matter how much a pregnant mother smokes, drinks, uses drugs, and makes other unhealthy life choices, whan her child is born with any type of infirmity, there is a lawsuit against the doctor who delivered the baby. Insurance is so high, trauma  to the doctors' families so bad, most either opt out of the practice or forego entering it, in the first place.

In so many cases, when a patient dies during an operation, there are "ambulance-chasers" there to sue the anethesiologist. Insurance for anethesiologists was over $100,000 a year in 2000. Lord knows what it is up to now.

To avoid lawsuits or be given cover in the inevitable ones, doctors order many, many more tests than are warrented for all patients. The appearance that "we did all we could" needs to be maintained...for the inevitable court appearance.

Do doctors, nurses (underpaid and understaffed), and pharmacists make mistakes? Of course. Last time I looked they were still human. Part of the problem is that hospitals are overcrowded because the "Emergency Rooms" are the only place many millions of (uninsured) people can get any type of care. The result? Crowded hospitals, stretched personnel, pressure on facilities and equipment. The end result? And mistakes by harried health care personnel.

We don't seem to care that the massive American embassy in Iraq will cost $2+ billion a year to maintain or that the war has cost (directly) $400 Billion (so far... plus the rehab costs for Vets in the future and replacement of all the equipment left behind), why should we fight so hard not to spend a few hundred million to insure all Americans? If all people had access to yearly exams and preventative medical care, there would be fewer "emergencies." If we get dental check-ups and fillings, there would be fewer emergency extractions with resultant complications.

Remember the old commercial: "Pay me now or pay me later"? 

The "whipping boy" in the title is the pharmaceutical industry. They make a profit, so they are bad! Hey! Could we start with "Big Oil" who is, after all, merely "passing along costs" and scraping by with $40 billion/quarter profits? Whatever the faults of Big Pharma, they are still saving millions of lives. Or, have we forgotten Malaria, Small Pox, Polio, etc. already? 

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...