May Fools’ Day

May, 3, 2012 | 2 Comments

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  1. […] In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the factories around cities like Sheffield were belching out so much smoke that the sun was blocked out and children famously developed rickets. The factories of industrial post-modernism are also belching out vast amounts of smoke and people are developing diseases from pediatric bipolar disorder to osteopenia as a result that will only clear when the smoke clears. These factories also contain a production line that turns out “North Koreans”, whose job it is to defend the system (see We’re all North Koreans now). They have a department whose brief it is to work out new initiatives such as the colonization of May Fool’s Day (see May Fools’ Day). […]

  2. I recently encountered a document from the European Medicines Agency that has me still trying to understand just what is believed can be achieved and how. I have to wonder what government functionary wrote this material and anyone read it objectively. Perhaps it was meant as a joke?
    Among some staggeringly uninformed statements are the following:
    “New pharmacovigilance legislation adopted in the European Union (EU) in December
    2010 will promote and protect public health and save potentially thousands of lives each
    year by:
    • strengthening the European system for monitoring the safety and use of medicines;
    • clarifying and simplifying tasks for the parties involved;
    • improving decision-making procedures and reducing administrative costs;
    • strengthening communication and transparency on the safety of medicines.

    No medicine is inherently safe, and all can potentially have harmful side effects, known as
    adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Currently, some 197,000 people in the European Union (EU) die
    each year as a result of ADRs. It is estimated that these measures could save up to approximately 5,000 lives, while providing savings to society of some €2.5 billion, per year in the EU.”
    Are we concerned about the remaining 192,000 deaths?
    “Phased implementation from July 2012 As a result of budget and resource restrictions, implementing the new pharmacovigilance legislation, which requires a major revision of existing activities and/or the creation of new ones by pharmaceutical companies, national regulatory authorities and the European
    Medicines Agency, will be done in a step-wise approach over the coming years.”
    So, this Utopia will come about at some point in the future, as yet undetermined, while hundreds of thousands continue to die needlessly. Right. And yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

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