You are right on #10. Wrong is the incorrect word--it should be most of the facts are wrong, out of context or pure speculation. Thanks for helping me clarify the point.
HPV causes two specific types of cervical cancer. This is fact and why this vaccine works.
By taking the vaccine you prevent the person from getting the certain types of HPV (#6, 11, 16 and 18) which cause cervical cancer. These types cause cancer. By preventing someone from getting these types you are preventing them from getting the cancer. It is DIRECT cause and effect.
There are many types of HPV (there are over 100 types) and not all types are harmful. But the ones which cause cancer are stopped cold when the vaccine is taken.
The problem with this is that once a girl (or boy) has been exposed to the virus the vaccine doesn't work. You have to administer the vaccine before they are exposed at all. And once vaccinated studies so far (on 8 1/2 year data) show they will not need any more shots.
By mandating in Texas it allows low-income families to get the vaccine without insurance. And by mandating the vaccine it forces insurance companies to pay for it so your out of pocket cost is now lower.
And if someone doesn't want to get vaccinated they can opt out.
p.s. The large sum of money was $6,000 out of the $24 "million" of his campaign contributions. And there is bills in 20 other states which are going to require girls to get the vaccine. And if his brother worked for Merck why isn't is printed in all the news articles? That would be great at selling more papers.
The vaccine got approved for girls first. There is already safety data for boys in the drug's label; the boys will be vaccinated as well as soon as it is approved.
Actually all states require Hepatisis B, which does not fall into the "outbreaks of contagious illness". Also, mandates force insurance companies to pay for vaccines where they might not be normally covered and mandates allow low-income families to be protected.
You know anyone can just opt out from receiving the vaccination right? It's in the executive order that you can opt out at any time. Just like all the other required vaccines...
And the information on the 10 things you might know is wrong.
1. The blog states the vaccine only decreases the chance--that's wrong. If you have not been previously infected with HPV then there is a 100% effective rate.
2. In 2007 the incidence of cervical cancer went up.
3. Yep, it is the most expensive, however it is the ONLY vaccine which prevent cancer and DEATH. (And yeah it made $70 million, chump change for a company which made $22 billion in 2006).
4. Wrong. Gardasil is already a part of this program. Having a mandate will not change liability at all.
5. There is 5 year data now with another 3 1/2 year data prior to the launch of the drug; that's 8 1/2 years of data now.
6. This is true, however, in the current data there has been no wane in the immunity; and vaccines typically never need booster shots due to the way vaccines work.
7. Yes, neither was any other drug on the market.
8. Pure speculation. There has been no proof that aluminum is harmful. Gardasil was tested with Hepatitis B because it has the same aluminum compound and has been on the market for 19 years.
9. There are currently studies going on with boys and safety data is already available for boys in the label. Also, the EU and Australia are already using on boys.
10. It's ironic that the blog ends with making an uninformed decision when all the facts are wrong on the site.
Yeah, this seems like a shrill for Gardasil but I have personal knowledge of this drug and sometimes setting the facts straight on a drug which is saving lives need some truth out there among the free range blogs which aren't providing accurate information.
So, requesting to meet with the officer in emails rises to the level of "for the purpose of harassing and intimidating"? If I write to you "I would like to meet with you to discuss the speeding I saw you doing" that would "intimidate" you.
I am not bashing the police force at all. Far from it. But if you look at the language of the statute their actions do not rise to the level of stalking--it's not even close. And yes, I was a trial lawyer who did this stuff for a living once (and I worked for a prosecuting attorney's office charging people with crimes).
A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person.
The key phrase here is "for the purpose of harassing and intimidating". The statute goes on to define this:
"For the purposes of this article, the term "harassing and intimidating" means a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person which causes emotional distress by placing such person in reasonable fear for such person's safety or the safety of a member of his or her immediate family, by establishing a pattern of harassing and intimidating behavior, and which serves no legitimate purpose."
In order to convict the people in this case the state of Georgia would have to prove they were causing the officer emotional distress and "establish a pattern" of behavior. From what is shown the office got caught once, and that does not constitute a pattern, therefore there is no harassment and no stalking. (There are also several other problems if you apply the facts to the law such as the emotional distress--is the officer suffering from depression because he got caught speeding? And you have the defense of legitimate purpose; the couple could easily argue there is a legitimate purpose).
This is just a case of the police force trying to intimidate someone who caught an officer doing something maybe they should not have been doing. The problem is that when this hits big in the media it is going to be a larger embarrassment than if the police department just told the people the truth or lied and said it was official business.
Your right, I wasn't clear in my post. I was using "they" as anyone who would sue me, not necessarily the MPAA in a humorous manner. Me bad. But it still raises the possibility of a defense based upon this.
So, when they sue me for music sharing I can use the following?:
1. No html links were ever pointed to my music 2. My music was never assigned a domain name 3. The music was never advertised to the public in any way (only privately) 4. The music in the file sharing program was a proof of concept and never moved into production 5. The music in the file sharing program was only used for testing purposes 6. Should I have decided to make the move to production, then I would have paid the appropiate royalty fees
"By law, a generic drug product must contain the identical amounts of the same active ingredient(s) as the brand name product. Drug products evaluated as "therapeutically equivalent" can be expected to have equal effect and no difference when substituted for the brand name product."
How that active ingredient is made up or processed does not have to be the same. The test is whether the generic is "therapeutically equivalent" which means:
"Drug products classified as therapeutically equivalent can be substituted with the full expectation that the substituted product will produce the same clinical effect and safety profile as the prescribed product."
The definition goes on to what the minimum standards are. However, this leaves leeway as to how the generic is processed and manufactured. And, it does vary from company to company.
>>In lots of states it is illegal for a pharmacist to even offer a generic drug (let alone secretly replace the drug as you suggest)
Check again, this happens a lot more than you think. Two states off the top of my head--Texas, Pennsylvania allow substitutions unless the MD specifically demands the brand name.
>>Second, the insurance companies pay far far less for generic drugs than the brand names
Insurance companies pay contracted rates on everything, which is lower than the normal lay person buying.
>>And the pharmacies are not getting rich either from generics
You are completely wrong here. This makes up the bulk of their profit. Research this.
>>Third, generic drugs are the exact same substance as the brand name drug
Not all the time. The molocule is the same but the individual parts which make up the molocule might be different.
>>No one is getting sick or dying from using generic drugs instead of brand names
See my post above with some problems with generics. Not all generics are bad, but the companies making them tend to have cheaper production processes which do lead to problems.
The point was about brand names, loyalty and quality control among generics. It really does not have anything to do with the initial patent, only dealing with issues after patent expiration.
And no, never seen an Aspirin commercial. I got Tivo.:)
Seriously, drug companies don't promote patented doctor prescribed drugs (not over the counter stuff) beyond patent expiration. Generally they pull most marketing efforts a year "before" patent expiration.
Brand name drugs don't advertise after a drug goes off patent and all major costs have already been recouped. The only expense left is manufacturing.
If you think there has not been a problem about generic quality control check out this statement from the Commissioner of Food and Drugs a few years back:
"Finally, FDA has also uncovered evidence that some generic drug firms have violated the good manufacturing practice regulations that govern overall production procedures and techniques that help guarantee the safety and effectiveness of drug products."
>>>Consider this: if you knew of 3 companies making the same new drug, who would you trust more? The company who spent years in clinical trials, showing you that their ingredients is safe, or the 2 companies who attempted to copy said drug through reverse engineering it -- possibly incorporating something unsafe?
This does not hold true. Today when a drug goes off patent the maker of the drug continues to sell the drug along with the generics (at close to the same price). Even though the generics do not have the same quality control as the maker of the drug generics are used instead because the cost is slightly lower. The cost is the only thing that matters to some HMOs and insurance plans. (And yes, there is a difference in manufacturing and quality control).
There is no brand loyalty for drugs because of the outside influence exerted by the insurance companies and pharmacies. Did you ever wonder why there are laws that say pharmacies can substitute a generic drug for a brand one? The end cost most of the time is exactly the same, however, generics sell the generic brand to pharmacies for a lower price than the brand name. So, when a pharmacy substitutes a generic for a name brand they pocket the difference in price while they bill the insurance company nearly the same as the brand name. That's the outside influence. So why doesn't the brand name drug just lower the price to the pharmacies? They usually can't because their manufacturing costs are higher because they have the quality control issues that generics generally don't. This is not to say generics don't care about quality control, but there are large differences.
Some patents are needed, period. Gene patents are not because I believe you should not be able to patent nature. It's a prior art thing. Just wait, someday God is going to come down and sue for his patents back.
You have to remember this -- there is no guarantee of free speech from any corporation. The US Constitution guarantees that "government" shall not infringe the right to a citizen's free speech. Any time you have a non-governmental agency "it doesn't apply".
Amazon can cut off anyone they wish, so can Google. Google is not obligated to do a damn thing concerning free speech. They can censor anyone they want because they are a corporation, not the government. The law/Constitution isn't going to protect someone from posting in a forum/newsgroup ran by Google. Too bad, that's what you accept when you post in Google's forum/newsgroup; a place owned by essentially a private party.
The only repercussions from something like this (private censorship) is the free market system. Boycott, attention getting, etc. But you can't force them to make them accept your free speech.
>>>t has been interesting to see a number of long time Windows users in hard core sciences with entrenched work flows that made them very dependent upon Windows to make the switch.
This is why Windows is going to lose market share. In the past these processes were embedded in apps which needed Windows to run (run on the desktop). Now that these work flows are being replaced by browser driven apps Windows is not so much a requirement anymore as you just need a browser to run them.
The process of changing will not happen overnight and it will be slow, however, it will take place.
>>However you could possibly sue them if they broke the employee handbook, that is generally considered a contract
If an attorney working for the company has ever looked at the handbook they have inserted a clause which states that the handbook does not constitute a contract between the employee and the company. While this used to be the case (handbooks are contracts) I doubt you can find any handbook which does automatically disclaim any possible contract nowdays. Handbooks now are nothing more than "this is how we would like to run our company, but we don't have to abide by it."
Slashdot Mirror
Because only those few types of HPV cause cervical cancer. When you stop those types you stop the cancer.
You are right on #10. Wrong is the incorrect word--it should be most of the facts are wrong, out of context or pure speculation. Thanks for helping me clarify the point.
They gave $6,000 dollars, not hundreds of millions. And there is no booster shot. The vaccine requires three shots taken over six months.
HPV causes two specific types of cervical cancer. This is fact and why this vaccine works.
By taking the vaccine you prevent the person from getting the certain types of HPV (#6, 11, 16 and 18) which cause cervical cancer. These types cause cancer. By preventing someone from getting these types you are preventing them from getting the cancer. It is DIRECT cause and effect.
There are many types of HPV (there are over 100 types) and not all types are harmful. But the ones which cause cancer are stopped cold when the vaccine is taken.
The problem with this is that once a girl (or boy) has been exposed to the virus the vaccine doesn't work. You have to administer the vaccine before they are exposed at all. And once vaccinated studies so far (on 8 1/2 year data) show they will not need any more shots.
By mandating in Texas it allows low-income families to get the vaccine without insurance. And by mandating the vaccine it forces insurance companies to pay for it so your out of pocket cost is now lower.
And if someone doesn't want to get vaccinated they can opt out.
p.s. The large sum of money was $6,000 out of the $24 "million" of his campaign contributions. And there is bills in 20 other states which are going to require girls to get the vaccine. And if his brother worked for Merck why isn't is printed in all the news articles? That would be great at selling more papers.
The vaccine got approved for girls first. There is already safety data for boys in the drug's label; the boys will be vaccinated as well as soon as it is approved.
Actually all states require Hepatisis B, which does not fall into the "outbreaks of contagious illness". Also, mandates force insurance companies to pay for vaccines where they might not be normally covered and mandates allow low-income families to be protected.
You know anyone can just opt out from receiving the vaccination right? It's in the executive order that you can opt out at any time. Just like all the other required vaccines...
And the information on the 10 things you might know is wrong.
1. The blog states the vaccine only decreases the chance--that's wrong. If you have not been previously infected with HPV then there is a 100% effective rate.
2. In 2007 the incidence of cervical cancer went up.
3. Yep, it is the most expensive, however it is the ONLY vaccine which prevent cancer and DEATH. (And yeah it made $70 million, chump change for a company which made $22 billion in 2006).
4. Wrong. Gardasil is already a part of this program. Having a mandate will not change liability at all.
5. There is 5 year data now with another 3 1/2 year data prior to the launch of the drug; that's 8 1/2 years of data now.
6. This is true, however, in the current data there has been no wane in the immunity; and vaccines typically never need booster shots due to the way vaccines work.
7. Yes, neither was any other drug on the market.
8. Pure speculation. There has been no proof that aluminum is harmful. Gardasil was tested with Hepatitis B because it has the same aluminum compound and has been on the market for 19 years.
9. There are currently studies going on with boys and safety data is already available for boys in the label. Also, the EU and Australia are already using on boys.
10. It's ironic that the blog ends with making an uninformed decision when all the facts are wrong on the site.
Yeah, this seems like a shrill for Gardasil but I have personal knowledge of this drug and sometimes setting the facts straight on a drug which is saving lives need some truth out there among the free range blogs which aren't providing accurate information.
To put it in perspective Rick Perry had $24 million in contributions the same year Merck gave him $6,000. If you really think he was motivated by such a small donation you haven't seen what it takes to get things done in government.
So, requesting to meet with the officer in emails rises to the level of "for the purpose of harassing and intimidating"? If I write to you "I would like to meet with you to discuss the speeding I saw you doing" that would "intimidate" you.
I am not bashing the police force at all. Far from it. But if you look at the language of the statute their actions do not rise to the level of stalking--it's not even close. And yes, I was a trial lawyer who did this stuff for a living once (and I worked for a prosecuting attorney's office charging people with crimes).
A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person.
The key phrase here is "for the purpose of harassing and intimidating". The statute goes on to define this:
"For the purposes of this article, the term "harassing and intimidating" means a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person which causes emotional distress by placing such person in reasonable fear for such person's safety or the safety of a member of his or her immediate family, by establishing a pattern of harassing and intimidating behavior, and which serves no legitimate purpose."
In order to convict the people in this case the state of Georgia would have to prove they were causing the officer emotional distress and "establish a pattern" of behavior. From what is shown the office got caught once, and that does not constitute a pattern, therefore there is no harassment and no stalking. (There are also several other problems if you apply the facts to the law such as the emotional distress--is the officer suffering from depression because he got caught speeding? And you have the defense of legitimate purpose; the couple could easily argue there is a legitimate purpose).
This is just a case of the police force trying to intimidate someone who caught an officer doing something maybe they should not have been doing. The problem is that when this hits big in the media it is going to be a larger embarrassment than if the police department just told the people the truth or lied and said it was official business.
Your right, I wasn't clear in my post. I was using "they" as anyone who would sue me, not necessarily the MPAA in a humorous manner. Me bad. But it still raises the possibility of a defense based upon this.
So, when they sue me for music sharing I can use the following?:
1. No html links were ever pointed to my music
2. My music was never assigned a domain name
3. The music was never advertised to the public in any way (only privately)
4. The music in the file sharing program was a proof of concept and never moved into production
5. The music in the file sharing program was only used for testing purposes
6. Should I have decided to make the move to production, then I would have paid the appropiate royalty fees
No, they don't have to be identical. From the FDA website:
E
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drugsatfda/glossary.htm#T
"By law, a generic drug product must contain the identical amounts of the same active ingredient(s) as the brand name product. Drug products evaluated as "therapeutically equivalent" can be expected to have equal effect and no difference when substituted for the brand name product."
How that active ingredient is made up or processed does not have to be the same. The test is whether the generic is "therapeutically equivalent" which means:
"Drug products classified as therapeutically equivalent can be substituted with the full expectation that the substituted product will produce the same clinical effect and safety profile as the prescribed product."
The definition goes on to what the minimum standards are. However, this leaves leeway as to how the generic is processed and manufactured. And, it does vary from company to company.
http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=6038706
From the mouth of a pharmacist:
"...at least 30 percent (profit) on a generic medication as opposed to eight or nine percent on a brand name"
"65 to 70 percent of his inventory is made up of generic drugs"
>>In lots of states it is illegal for a pharmacist to even offer a generic drug (let alone secretly replace the drug as you suggest)
Check again, this happens a lot more than you think. Two states off the top of my head--Texas, Pennsylvania allow substitutions unless the MD specifically demands the brand name.
>>Second, the insurance companies pay far far less for generic drugs than the brand names
Insurance companies pay contracted rates on everything, which is lower than the normal lay person buying.
>>And the pharmacies are not getting rich either from generics
You are completely wrong here. This makes up the bulk of their profit. Research this.
>>Third, generic drugs are the exact same substance as the brand name drug
Not all the time. The molocule is the same but the individual parts which make up the molocule might be different.
>>No one is getting sick or dying from using generic drugs instead of brand names
See my post above with some problems with generics. Not all generics are bad, but the companies making them tend to have cheaper production processes which do lead to problems.
The point was about brand names, loyalty and quality control among generics. It really does not have anything to do with the initial patent, only dealing with issues after patent expiration.
:)
And no, never seen an Aspirin commercial. I got Tivo.
Seriously, drug companies don't promote patented doctor prescribed drugs (not over the counter stuff) beyond patent expiration. Generally they pull most marketing efforts a year "before" patent expiration.
And if you think that was too old, here are some recent problems:
/ genric_drug_problem_raises_questions_on_quality.as p
g i?artid=1128727
_ v31/ai_20097793
Oct, 2004: (problems when customers switched to generics because of quality control)
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/editorial
Jan, 2000 (generic company lost license because of quality problems, it served 10% of market in GB)
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fc
Dec, 1997 (generic company hit with record fine for among other things falsifying records to cover up deviations from approved manufacturing processes)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1370/is_n7
Brand name drugs don't advertise after a drug goes off patent and all major costs have already been recouped. The only expense left is manufacturing.
t ml
If you think there has not been a problem about generic quality control check out this statement from the Commissioner of Food and Drugs a few years back:
"Finally, FDA has also uncovered evidence that some generic drug firms have
violated the good manufacturing practice regulations that govern overall
production procedures and techniques that help guarantee the safety and
effectiveness of drug products."
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/CONSUMER/CN00080b.h
>>>Consider this: if you knew of 3 companies making the same new drug, who would you trust more? The company who spent years in clinical trials, showing you that their ingredients is safe, or the 2 companies who attempted to copy said drug through reverse engineering it -- possibly incorporating something unsafe?
This does not hold true. Today when a drug goes off patent the maker of the drug continues to sell the drug along with the generics (at close to the same price). Even though the generics do not have the same quality control as the maker of the drug generics are used instead because the cost is slightly lower. The cost is the only thing that matters to some HMOs and insurance plans. (And yes, there is a difference in manufacturing and quality control).
There is no brand loyalty for drugs because of the outside influence exerted by the insurance companies and pharmacies. Did you ever wonder why there are laws that say pharmacies can substitute a generic drug for a brand one? The end cost most of the time is exactly the same, however, generics sell the generic brand to pharmacies for a lower price than the brand name. So, when a pharmacy substitutes a generic for a name brand they pocket the difference in price while they bill the insurance company nearly the same as the brand name. That's the outside influence. So why doesn't the brand name drug just lower the price to the pharmacies? They usually can't because their manufacturing costs are higher because they have the quality control issues that generics generally don't. This is not to say generics don't care about quality control, but there are large differences.
Some patents are needed, period. Gene patents are not because I believe you should not be able to patent nature. It's a prior art thing. Just wait, someday God is going to come down and sue for his patents back.
You have to remember this -- there is no guarantee of free speech from any corporation. The US Constitution guarantees that "government" shall not infringe the right to a citizen's free speech. Any time you have a non-governmental agency "it doesn't apply".
Amazon can cut off anyone they wish, so can Google. Google is not obligated to do a damn thing concerning free speech. They can censor anyone they want because they are a corporation, not the government. The law/Constitution isn't going to protect someone from posting in a forum/newsgroup ran by Google. Too bad, that's what you accept when you post in Google's forum/newsgroup; a place owned by essentially a private party.
The only repercussions from something like this (private censorship) is the free market system. Boycott, attention getting, etc. But you can't force them to make them accept your free speech.
>>>t has been interesting to see a number of long time Windows users in hard core sciences with entrenched work flows that made them very dependent upon Windows to make the switch.
This is why Windows is going to lose market share. In the past these processes were embedded in apps which needed Windows to run (run on the desktop). Now that these work flows are being replaced by browser driven apps Windows is not so much a requirement anymore as you just need a browser to run them.
The process of changing will not happen overnight and it will be slow, however, it will take place.
>>However you could possibly sue them if they broke the employee handbook, that is generally considered a contract
If an attorney working for the company has ever looked at the handbook they have inserted a clause which states that the handbook does not constitute a contract between the employee and the company. While this used to be the case (handbooks are contracts) I doubt you can find any handbook which does automatically disclaim any possible contract nowdays. Handbooks now are nothing more than "this is how we would like to run our company, but we don't have to abide by it."