Farewell Amy Winehouse
From my bedroom in Cockfosters, I could see Southgate School, which Amy Winehouse would attend many years later.
I can also remember my sister and the other girls at the school coming and going innocently in the road in front of the house.
Now, after a later life of abuse, the obviously talented Amy is gone. How many of the other boys and girls in her year have gone the same way? Probably only a handful, if my feelings are correct. This is based on the fact that most of my late son’s school friends are still here. And some have not been without drink and drug problems.
So when we remember Amy, let’s remember the good things, like her music and her success. And never ever think that her drink and drug problems are something to be admired.
Sadly, it seems that if you’re in the music industry, you attract those criminals, who want to sell you drugs, so they can have a large slice of your money.
Does Cannabis Help Period Pains?
I wouldn’t know for obvious reasons, but according to The Times today, Queen Victoria was prescribed cannabis for this purpose. But it wasn’t illegal until 1928. There’s more here on the BBC Panorama web site.
What a naughty old Queen she was! Did she roll it herself or did she ask that nice Mr. Brown?
Will LulzSec Target the UK Legal System Over Jailing of Joanne Fraill?
LulzSec are a group of hackers, who have broken into various computer systems all over the world, including a web site linked with the CIA.
I do wonder whether the jailing of Joanne Fraill for discussing a case where she was a juror on Facebook, will get a response from LulzSec. Especially, as some reports say all jurors who use Facebook to discuss cases will be jailed.
How long before the idiots on Facebook start a “Free joanne Fraill” campaign?
I can’t help feeling, that this one will run and run and in a direction that the government and the judges won’t like.
What Joanne Fraill did was wrong, but then it was also incredibly stupid. So are we now jailing people for doing things, they don’t have the intelligence to realise are wrong? In Joanne Fraill’s case, she should have been given a community sentence. Perhaps one working with the victims and problems of drug addiction, that her actions have inadvertently made worse, by stopping a trial of drug dealers.
INR Test – 23rd May 2011
Result: 2.3
Dosing Recommendation: 4.8 mg/day
Next INR Test interval: 56 days
Repeat INR Test on 18th July 2011 at 11:00.
Be Nice To Nanny and You’ll Get Your Warfarin!
As I’ve said before Warfarin testing in this country and I suspect most of the world is complicated and it may be prone to error. Two respected doctors have told me that.
Today, I took a prescription to Boots to get some more Warfarin tablets. They wanted to see my yellow book, which I hadn’t got with me. So I got the third degree! I wasn’t rude, but as a scientist who understands the way Warfarin works well, I resent being treated like an idiot. It’s not the pharmacist’s fault, but the person, who made up the new rules.
Now, my INR has been spot on for months and the dosage has only changed marginally since December last year. That change was when I changed surgeries and the new one now does the tests themselves on a small monitor, whereas the previous surgery did it by blood tests that were analysed by the hospital. The change is that previously, I was on 5 mg. a day and 4 mg. at weekends, and now it’s 5 mg. a day and 4 mg. on Saturdays and Mondays. Or as the computer printout says, one 3 mg. and one 1 mg. on Saturdays and Mondays. I don’t like the inference that I can’t work out how I can give myself a 4 mg. dose, with 3 mg. and 1 mg. tablets.
Thev pharmacist indicated that next time if I didn’t bring the book, I wouldn’t get the Warfarin.
I actually think the next time I go, I might not take it, as I prefer to keep it safe at home. After all suppose I dropped it, I would then have to go back to the doctor for another book. But I would take a photocopy of my last INR test result. To me that is much more important as it carries the date of my next test.
One thing that is worth noting is that testing method one using blood tests and analysis at the local hospital, said I should be on 4.8 mg. per day. On the other hand testing method two using an electronic monitor in the surgery, said the dose should 4.8 mg per day.
In other words, both methods carried out in a correct professional manner gave exactly the same result.
Repeat Prescriptions
I have several drugs on repeat prescriptions from my doctor.
Having once been caught out, on Wednesday, I took the form in to get some more. I wanted to pick the actual prescription up at lunchtime today, but it looks like I won’t be able to get it, without a special trip today, until Monday. The surgery is shut on Saturday.
At my previous surgery, I just e-mailed the dispensary and 48 hours later I just went in and picked up the drugs. I could even do that on a Saturday.
It’s not important and I’m not complaining, as I have enough until the end of next week anyway, but it makes me wonder if some of the problems in the NHS are caused by simple procedural problems.
If we had a central drugs database, then on production of suitable identification, I should just be able to walk into any pharmacy and pick up the drugs I need. Obviously, the system would make sure, I wasn’t taking out more drugs than I was entitled too or needed!
One point that should be said, is that I’ve had some drugs on visits to private hospitals. Where the drugs only cost a few pence, they often give you three months supply, rather than the 28 days that seems to be normal in the NHS.
Another is that the repeat prescription form doesn’t say what the drugs are for, so in one case I ticked the wrong box and got the wrong ones.
It strikes me that we could have a much more customer-friendly system, that improved the efficiency of the NHS.
But then I’m not a doctor or a pharmacist, so what do I know about healthcare?
I’m only a patient and our needs are at the bottom of the NHS’s priorities.
Drugs in Prisons
A prison officer has been sentenced to two years in jail for conspiring to smuggle mobile phones and possibly drugs into Feltham Prison.
Read about it all here.
The report quotes a Prison Service report which says.
The unpalatable but inevitable conclusion is that corrupt staff constitutes a significant supply route for drugs into prisons.
As many people end up in prison because of a drug problem, surely we should have a major rethink about crime and punishment. Prison should rehabilitate and not be a place, where drugs are freely available.
INR Test – 11th April 2011
Result: 2.2
Dosing Recommendation: 4.8 mg/day
Next INR Test interval: 42 days
Repeat INR Test on 23rd May 2011 at 11:10.
The Virtual Beagle
The headline of “It might look like a dog’s dinner; but this artificial stomach will save (canine) lives” caught my eye as I read The Times this morning.
Apparently, AstraZeneca have virtually replaced dogs with an artificial stomach for drug testing. So not only is it good for drug development, it’s good news for dogs. I’ve always felt that animal testing was wrong from a scientifically correct point of view as keeping animals is expensive and the in vitro and computer alternatives are cheaper and much easier to scale up.
The Times article doesn’t say who is behind this development, but it does quote Troy Seidle of the Humane Society International as saying.
This new use of the intestinal model in drug testing is a fantastic example of how innovative technologies can replace animal experiments and improve medical research at the same time.
I have searched the Internet and it would appear that the company behind this wonderful development could be SimCyp, based in Sheffield.
But why is everybody being so coy about this development? This British company should be on page one of all the newspapers.
On a personal note, I was involved in computer simulation of processes for several years in the 1970s, when I worked at ICI. We always felt that computers had a large part to play in modelling the body, but little seems to have been heard over the last four decades. These are two pictures of the PACE 231R analog computer, I used for simulation of chemical processes.
In my view, there are computers, good computers and the PACE 231R.
The 231R was built in the 1960s and it was all valve or vacuum tube, if you are from the United States. It was a formidable beast for solving differential equations and I have a feeling that there isn’t one left even in a museum. These pictures taken by a colleague at ICI seem to be two of the only ones of a 231R in a working environment. Hopefully the Internet will preserve them for ever!
The biggest claim to fame of the 231R was that two of them were used in tandem to solve all of the mathematics and differential equations of getting the Apollo spacecraft to the moon. They were actually linked to virtually a real spacecraft to test everything out.
So when Apollo 13 blew up and they had to use the Lunar Excursion Module to bring the astronauts home, it was these two computers that were reprogrammed to try to find out how to do it. They wouldn’t have stood a chance with a digital machine, but the engineers, programmers and astonauts were able to get the two 231R’s to find a strategy. I’ve never seen the Apollo 13 film, but I suspect that the role of the 231Rs is downplayed or ignored.
So when you ask me, what is the greatest computer ever made, there is only one answer. The amazing PACE 231R.
Dr. Rosemary Recommends Aspirin
Research published today, says we should all take aspirin. The sane Doctor Rosemary Leonard on the BBC this morning, has said that she probably will and recommends you talk to your doctor about it.
Aspirin is a remarkable drug, that was known to the ancient Egyptians according to the definitive book on the subject.
The Anonymous Widower 