APPROVED BY FDA

    Announcement of FDA approval of a new drug by a pharmaceutical firm, invites, as a minimum, a revealing of the conditions under which approval was gained. Presumably, there was full disclosure of all development  and testing results, the benefits of the drugs for treating specific ailments, and the side effects of the drugs resulting from  the testing phase on the public. Approval is assumed to be accompanied with caveats, otherwise, why would the advertising that ensues, first describe benefits, and then follow with a litany of possible negative or side effects, including such calamatous events  as onset of blindness, loss of hearing, kidney failure, heart failure, dizziness and  could even be fatal?
    The mindset that leads  to approval must be centered  on concluding that the benefits of the drug far outweigh its shortcomings, so the latter can be considered acceptable noise level nuisance. For the unfortunate individual who is afflicted by the side effect, however, it is certainly not noise level.
         The machinations at play are more likely based on potential for profit as opposed to doing what is best for the patient. There are many cases, but one that is recent and is pertinent to personal experience is the Bristol Myers Corp. activity in producing blood thinners. The first was warfarin, which costs only a few cents a day. It requires periodic monitoring at the doctors office for efficacy. This was followed by Plavix, which costs a lot more, and has numerous side effects, and in my case caused a permanent numbness down the left side of the body, which Bristol Myers chooses to ignore, but does warn as a possible side effect. The company then  went after its own product, warfarin, bad-mouthing it while promoting a new pill, Equilis, which does the same thing as Plavix, has similar side effects, and costs up to eighteen dollars a day. It is hard to see all this as anything but manipulation in order to gain more profit.
    All of which begs the question: How could thiings be improved? One way would be to follow up FDA approval with another level of approval within the medical community. A panel of physicians with no ties to the pharmaceutical industry would review the product and recommend whether it should be used in light of their previous experience in the profession. However, it might be futile, if, as commonly suspected, physicians enjoy a little income from the pharmaceutical industry in exchange for their promotion of a drug.

ELECTRIC CAR ADVANCEMENT

     Gratifying, if bittersweet, is news that General Motors will be producing the Chevrolet Volt II, a leap into on-board electricity generation that follows a concept that I have been promoting for more than a decade, as outlined in previous blogs.  In the Volt II, a gasoline engine powers a generator which keeps a modest bank of batteries charged. They have only to  take one more step.... substitute a biodiesel engine, and they will then  have the first near-zero carbon footprint car.
    It’s not such a new idea. Diesel electric locomotives have been in service for over a hundred years. On board power generation...a design waiting to be adapted to the automotive industry. True, Diesel-electric locomotives don’t need batteries, but that is incidental. Start-up and acceleration requirements are quite different, and in a car it is advantageous to have ability for short range commute on battery power and ability to reach the next fuel station if one runs out of “gas.” (even so, in a pinch, that bottle of olive oil in the grocery bag is  really reserve fuel)
    The Germans are somewhat ahead of American manufacturers. Their cars will sport biodiesel engines, and are already making an appearance.
    This is not good news for all-electric cars that plug into the grid, like  Leaf and Tesla. But these cars offer no reduction of carbon footprint and have limited usage in regions where storm damage leaves citizens without power for days or weeks at a time.    Moreover they have a very low thermodydamic efficiency. All but two states operate coal fired power plants, providing about half the nation’s electrical power, so the odds are high that a plug-in electric car will be a coal burner.
    Efficiencies of Leaf and Teslas that obtain power from coal burning power plants are under twenty-five percent, whereas a bio-diesel electric, described above, could reach forty percent.

MORE ON CHEAP OIL

Since greed rules, one can interpret the reduction in the price of oil
as a maneuver on the part of corporate and national (Saudi Arabia)
entities to suppress progress  in renewable energy field. Of course, they sense an undermining of their future. A testament to how little they care, or even believe in climate change. Then, in the course of time, maybe as little as a year, we'll see oil prices rising again.