Pepin’s Pharmaceutical Prattle for 09-22-2003
	You can only cure retail but you can prevent wholesale. Brock Chisholm

Good morning! Prevention IS more cost effective than treatment. A "flu shot" that costs $10 retail can prevent 5 days of lost work (or death). Controlling your weight makeit you less likely to get diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke (all could lead to death). Not smoking.... ditto! So why do "we" do so little in the way of prevention? Denial and hedonism are the most likely culprits. Not checking our appetities in the mistaken belief that "other" people get these afflictions. NEWS FLASH: "them" is "us" to "them" and vice versa. If you smoke, gain too much weight, and don't exercise....don't say you weren't warned. Take care of yourself (I need the readership!)

1) Mork from Ork would suggest "Nuke Away" which "takes the worry out of being radioactive".

The Government is searching for manufacturers of an antidote to a "dirty" bomb. Apart from taking iodine to protect the thyroid gland… plutonium, americium, or curium can be eliminated from the body faster by using these compounds. If the government will indemnify me and promise to purchase a minimum amount I'll set up the facilities myself. (ie Don't look for many companies to run out and do this without incentives!) …Click here for full text of story. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00944.html

2) Anthrax antibody found.

This is not the Antrax Vaccine that was offered but refused by many health workers. This would be the "ANTIDOTE" to be given if someone actually CATCHES Anthrax. Right now it works in rats, rabbits and monkeys. Will be awhile before anything like this would be ready fo humans. This is ONE good thing to come from the human genome project. (This is EXCITING NEWS…but then I AM a science geek). …Click here for full text of story. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/humangenomeanthrax.html

3) Common "water pills" can prevent hip fracture.
	This one is from the Annals of Internal Medicine so I tend to believe it. (More prevention stuff!) …Click here for full text of story. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&ncid=594&e=10&u=/nm/20030915/hl_nm/hips_drugs_dc

4) One way to have something you can't afford….pass a law REQUIRING employers to provide it..
	California (you remember…Davis,,,35 Billion…recall…Arnold…) is likely to require businesses to provide health care coverage for every working person. This should increase the cost of a CALIFORNIA BIG MAC by about 20%… Do YOU think this sounds like a good way to address the uninsured problem? …Click here for full text of story. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/national/17CARE.html?th

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5) Tobacco as a gateway drug….
	Smoking teens 14 times more likely to try Marijuana than non smokers. War on Mr Butts may have positive effect on war on drugs. …Click here for full text of story. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3455362

6) Seniors scared "spitless"…

that retirement plans could drop their company provided drug benefits. I think that they have justification. Most companies that still offer retirement benefits (pre-401 K companies) are trying to get out from under the HUGE burden of health care for these aging FORMER workers. These costs have contributed to the demise of some very large companies in recent years….and noone wants to be next. If Congress passes this, look for companies to bail out of retriree drug plans faster than a burning airplane.(Prevention of BANRUPCY) …Click here for full text of story. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/politics/16MEDI.html?th

7) The Cranberry!…you pick it…you wash it…you bake it in a pie…it makes better apple pie than the blue berry!.

(something said in jest by one old French-Canadian I knew... try it again with a corny French-Canadian accent and see if it sounds funnier) Cranberries may help in stroke recovery (or so think some researchers). Better yet… do the things that prevent strokes in the first place: control your blood pressure, do not smoke, and keep your weight under control. (and you thought this would be unusual.) …Click here for full text of story. http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/73/88876.htm

Have a GREAT week!

Disclaimer: "Pepin's Pharmaceutical Prattle" (AKA "The Prattle") is the property of PHARMWORKS, LLC and Steven M. Pepin, Pharm. D, BCPS. The opinions expressed are those of the bald-headed author. To start or stop any drug without the advice a supervision of you physician would be stupid. So don't do anything based upon what you read here without professional advice. To be added to or removed from the distribution list please e-mail your request to spepin@pharmworks.com . All insightful comments from readers are thoughtfully considered (the rest are callously discarded). Copyright 1998-2003 PHARMWORKS,LLC all rights reserved.