Pfizer Strikes Back
Vast amounts of spam are advertising one of Pfizer’s products; Viagra. On a spam list, I’ belong to, there has been a lot of discussion, about how the company has gone for a guy in the UK, who has been faking Viagra and selling it on the web. Here is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald.
I applaud Pfizer for what they are doing here, although others think that the company is acting outside of the law. But in the UK, if you do go outside the law, you’ll receive the proverbial ton of bricks.
It’s All Down to the Cyclists Now!
With Murray bowing out of Wimbledon, England failing in the World Cup, the cricket winding down after an England victory against the Aussies, it’s getting quiet on the sporting front.
But the Tour de France starts today and Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish should give us something to cheer about. I’ll be watching. Let’s hope that the victor of the Tour does it unaided by chemists!
Warfarin
I don’t know whether I said, but I’m on warfarin now.
It’s a complicated regime with regular blood tests, the need to be careful with certain foods and alcohol, and avoid getting cut or bruised. But it obviously works, as there wouldn’t be so many people on it.
It strikes me though that it’s a big opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry, in that if you could create a new and much better drug and regime, which was less hassle and avoided the expensive blood tests, you’d laugh all the way to the bank.
If you search the literature, things are stirring, so let’s hope.
Going on Rat Poison
I’m being put on Warfarin to thin my blood. Some might say appropriate.
Drug Problem in Egypt?
The Times yesterday reported that hashish was in short supply in Egypt.
I feel very sorry for them. Not! They could always drink a nice bottle of Obelisk!
Mephedrone
There has been a lot of talk about mephedrone or meow meow in the news lately.
Can anybody tell me, why anybody is stupid enough to experiment with crap like that?
I’m dubious of legal drugs, let alone illegal ones.
The Death of Akmal Shaikh
Akmal Shaikh was a man, who was caught smuggling drugs into China and has now been executed by the Chinese authorities.
But what makes Shaikh’s case even worse, is that he appears to have been a man with all sorts of mental problems, who was exploited by criminals. As the BBC report says.
Mr Shaikh’s family said he suffered from bipolar disorder.
They said he had been delusional and duped into a carrying a suitcase that did not belong to him when he was found with 4kg of heroin in Urumqi, north-west China, in September 2007.
His daughter Leilla Horsnell has said he was approached by drug smugglers in Poland and they convinced him they would make him a popstar in China.
Whether this is true or not actually makes no difference in my mind, as I am totally against the death penalty, as I feel that it is something that should be consigned to our more violent past. We just have to be a lot more civilised.
At least in Shaikh’s case the Chinese authorities haven’t harvested his organs for transplant, as is their normal practice.
If You Don’t Like the Message, Shoot the Messenger
Professor David Nutt‘s sacking by Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, is a classic case of, “if you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger”.
I should say now that I have never knowingly taken any illegal drugs. I say knowingly, as I might have had some cake with cannabis in it in the 1960s or 70s. On the other hand in those days, I rarely ate cake, so probably that route of illegal imbibing was closed.
I don’t smoke, although I’ve had perhaps a hundred cigarettes in the past, but I do drink some alcohol. I wish sometimes I do drink less. But at least since my wife died, I’ve probably only been near the drink-drive limit once. And that was on my birthday. And at home too!
Now, I’m very much an anti-smoker and don’t let anybody smoke in my house, cars or office. I’m also pretty much against illegal drugs and a lot of legal ones too. As a coeliac, I know how ill a banned substance can make my body. And that is only the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye.
So I think the best advice is to avoid anything that has a negative affect.
But I still drink alcohol. On the other hand, if a doctor, said to me that I mustn’t drink it, I would find something else like Belvoir Ginger Beer to waste my money on.
Read Professor Nutt’s bio and research history and you’ll see that the word eminent was designed to be used for him. So when Johnson sacks him for speaking the truth, we should all take note. On the one hand, we should read and take action on what the Professor says and on the other we should distrust even more what Prudence and his wretched Government, try and bambozzle us with.
Dangers in Mexico
One would have thought, that with swine flu, that this was the main reason not to go to Mexico. But they do seem to have their fair share of drug-related killings too.
Perhaps it is best to stay home or get attacked in Naples.
I think it probably illustrates though, that drugs and not global-warming, terrorism, Afghanistan, Iraq or swine-flu is the most pressing difficulty facing everybody.
Ritalin, ADHD and a Gluten-Free Diet
In my previous post on Tamiflu, I found the Electronic Medicines Compendium.
The EMC is very comprehensive and contains all of the details you need to know about a drug. Type something as simple as Cough into the search and you get a list of proprietary cough products, with cough in the title. This sort of search is very useful, as finding a gluten-free cough mixture is very difficult. One of the Boots ones is gluten-free, but I’m not sure which. Many use glucose as a soothing agent. And where does the gluten come from. Wheat!
Out of curiosity I used one of the advanced search features of the EMC to search for wheat. I got ten hits and one of them was Ritalin. The tablets contain wheat starch.
Ritalin is used to control ADHD and similar problems in children.
As someone who follows the gluten-free literature, I have come across many references to using a gluten-free diet with ADHD, autism and Asperger’s.
Now I don’t know how much wheat starch Ritalin contains, but it does strike me as surprising, that one method of treatment might be undermined by another.
Update – It is three hours since I posted the original. If you type Ritalin gluten into Google, this post is now second. Does that mean that the connection is not spoken of commonly. I’ve also found that Ritalin is a pretty old drug and this may account for the wheat starch filler. Now, drug componies know more about coeliacs.
The Anonymous Widower 