Coaxial wrote:
that smiley looks crazy. or something.

 meower wrote: 
Is that "crazy pill" an antagonist or a protagonist?

From what I've seen of the population here, I suspect that there's a lot of "crazy pill" popping, loco weed smoking, excessive liquor drinking etc. etc.  That would explain a lot.

 hippiechick wrote: 
The collusion is one thing.  That has been going on for decades.  But the Reagan-era deregulation that allowed drug companied to direct market their prescription drugs to the general public is just plain criminal.  One might think from the sheer volume of TV ads that most Americans are afflicted with restless leg syndrome, bladder problems and other things that are ironically considered to be too grotesque to put into actual TV programming.  When I was shown the numbers of real RLS patients, literally one in a million, that laid bare the scope of the fraud that the drug industry is perpetrating on the American people.


To be fair, no pharmaceutical medicine is completely free of side-effects.  Drug therapy is a trade-off — one necessary evil over an unnecessary evil.  Except when that "necessary evil" cure becomes worse than the disease, that is.

Returning prescription drugs was never permitted (at least not in my lifetime).  Before the Tylenol Murders, it was primarily about infection control (you wouldn't want to get a bottle of pills that some ill person coughed all over, would you?).  But now it's all about liability.

The real bugger is that A.) the price of the Lipitor would be much less if Pfizer hadn't been permitted to spend massive amounts of money on TV advertising, and then pass those costs along to the patients; B.) if Pfizer hadn't waged their extensive ad campaign, you might have gotten the better drug on the first try.


  Caveat emptor.

The thing is that there's no need to have to be so vigilant when it comes to prescriptions.  We know this because before the 1980s it wasn't this way.  There were laws to protect us!  The laws that forbade the direct marketing of prescription drugs directly to the patients were there for a very good reason.  That reason for those laws has remained completely valid throughout.

It's the crooked politicians who caused the Great Deregulation who are squarely to blame.  They should be held accountable, criminally if applicable.  At the very least they should be disgraced and their misdeeds should be recorded into history in bold type.  Ronald Reagan's name should be removed from the monuments that were built for him, and every other place, to remind us of the massive damage and suffering that Reaganomics has caused.

After a tough 22-month election "year", it's hard to think about getting motivated for more political battles.  But people like you and I are the ones who have the power to bring about badly-needed change.  It is our right to petition our representatives (both House and Senatorial) in government to bring about that change that will protect us from predators once again.  But if we remain silent, then only Big Business will be heard.  It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.  Please, light that candle, for your own sake, and for everyone!

 Xeric wrote: 
Dude! I didn't even know I had started this thread! Fixed now!

Crazy Girl...that's me

 meower wrote: 

A CRAZY GIRL IS HARD TO FIND

I'm sorry you're so crazy
I'm sorry you're so blue
I'm sorry that this sad old song's for you

Just when we had a good thing going
You had to go and lose your mind
Sane girls are so easy

But a crazy girl's hard to find

You see rabbits in the mirror
And you cry at puppet shows
You laugh at me when I take off my clothes

But underneath the dusty covers
Your madness almost shines
Well those sane girls, they come so easy

But a crazy girl's hard to find

Just when I think I got ya figured
You leave me way behind
Just when I think I see your shadow
I see it's only mine

So you can see why I get nervous
When you say you're gonna go
'Cause you could leave forever and never know
So stay here in this mad house
We'll lose it together this time
Well those sane girls, they're so easy

But a crazy girl's hard to find
Yeah, those sane girls, they come so easy

But a crazy girl's hard to find.

  ~ John Hiatt ~

 

 meower wrote: 
Crazy girls are hard to find...

 Xeric wrote: 
or lack of, she said she wasnt taking her "crazy pill" (you oughta see me without MY crazy pill.

 meower wrote: 
And HC apparently not only typed "Ohter" but likes it that way!

Maybe it's another med side effect. . . .

 Xeric wrote: 
It's the fish... the fish makes them high...

 Xeric wrote: 

or typing.  when i first typed they, i wrote tehy

 meower wrote: 
Nope.  But they are having minor dyslexia difficulties. . . .

 Xeric wrote: 
are they having medical problems? 

 oldslabsides wrote: 
  Small, cute mammal; lives near water and eats fish.  Swims very well.  Extremely smart and social.  "Ohter" pronunciation more common in Minnesohta and Alaska, by golly.

Ohter.....is that a pharmaceutical company?

 Servo wrote: 
I am totally aware of the drug company-physician collusion and what it can turn into. I have thus far avoided taking any kind of meds, except for my crazy pill and this, which I have also avoided taking.

The Lipitor did that toe-curling thing, but the replacement one doesnt. I was really pissed b/c I took exactly one lipitor, had that side affect, got a new Rx for something different, and couldn't get a refund. $65 out the window (and that was the copay)

We need to be wise consumers, in all areas of our lives, in order to keep getting screwed down to a minimum.

 hippiechick wrote: 
I don't take any medications like that, but according to the television, you must be one of the 0.001% of people who have Restless Leg Syndrome.  Go to your doctor and demand another prescription.  And when you have side-effects from that, get more pills for your pills, and so on and so on...

  My grandmother died 5-10 years before she needed to, and spent the last years of her life in horrible condition, due to massive over-prescription of pharmaceutical drugs.  At the time she went into a nursing home, she had over 100 active prescriptions.  That was before deregulation, and the gigabuck direct marketing campaigns from drug companies.  You know, the companies that "can't afford" to develop drugs that treat real medical conditions, but spend 90% of their profits on advertising, not research...

Here is some information on medical stuff that is rare, but devastating...

Wobblers Anonymous  — "WOBBLERS are people who have been damaged by gentamicin.  Gentamicin is a very powerful aminoglycoside (antibiotic) than can have devastating side effects.  It can cause deafness, severe kidney damage, and can completely wipe out the vestibular system... the system that you use for balance..."

the biggest risk for gentamicin is overdosing...  it can destroy a person's vestibular apparatus, which are sensory organs for the balance system that are three semicircular canals in the inner ear... one canal detects movement in the horizontal plane, another in the vertical plane, and another when we are moving forward or backward... the signals for the vestibular apparatus go along a nerve to a specialized clump of neurons in one's brain called "vestibular nuclei" which send commands to muscles to adjust balance...

 romeotuma wrote: 
I sure miss smoking...

 romeotuma wrote: 
Hmm...no kidding!

I would love to be eaten 

I've had to give up all my favorite foods: steak, ice cream, diet coke. it's ok; i've gotten skinnier than i have been in at least 30 years, i'm healthy as hell, i have lots of energy, i'm looking forward to cutting the rug with you. And I promise I won't step on your heart or your kidneys!