Pharmaceuticals

Figure 1

In a desperate attempt to lure more readers into my blog (There are three of them, with my current effort there might be three more), I will start some of my blog entries with pictures of women. For instance, Heidi Klum can be seen on Figure 1.

Now to more serious matters... Phenylephrine, the alleged decongestant, was found effective in an FDA study. Take it from me, this stuff does not work at all. After Pseudoephedrine was restricted because of its usage in meth production, this stuff was introduced. Of course, many people objected to it, citing its inadequate efficacy. Now FDA is saying that it is effective - so much for their common sense.

In another news, Pfizer announced Lyrica, which treats fibromyalgia (a fancy term for being achy all the time). The genius in this lies in the idea that if you don't have a drug to treat a condition, you create a condition instead. Like in the example below:

Suppose that you have SDD, Symptom Deficit Disorder. In this disorder, there is an eerie lack of symptoms, you are completely symptom-free. No sleep disturbances, no aches, feeling good all over. But you think that you should have some symptoms, after all, we all have ailments here and there, a perfectly healthy person is rare (and perhaps impossible) indeed. Why don't they show up in your body? Something is amiss in this picture - you have SDD, a rare condition among healthy adults. So what do you do? You start taking "Symptoma", which gives you dry mouth, dizziness, nausea, and some insomnia. You start feeling worse, successfully eliminating the underlying condition (which was a lack of symptoms). At your next doctor's appointment, if you are perfectly fine, talk to your doctor about "Symptoma," the only FDA approved drug for SDD treatment.