Tasty Idioms

 

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

OxyKidone

The maker of OxyContin is trying to get FDA approval to label their painkiller for use by children as young as six.  Because children get really bad play pains, right?

Purdue Pharma has paid dozens of clinical testing sites to document what happens when children get OxyContin.  Hmm, I think it would look something similar to this.  What possible reason could they come up with to do that?  The company says its motivation is to help doctors who currently prescribe the drug off-label to children, "a common practice in the treatment of pediatric conditions that involve moderate or severe pain", but I don't see how selling your brand of opiate... makes a difference to doctors.  Oh, that's right, it helps your company's bottom line.

A trio of physicians working with Purdue on the trials said the company appears to be doing the research to get a six-month extension on their patent for the original formulation of OxyContin, which expires next year.  Ah, another noble reason!  The pharmaceutical earned them close to $2.8 billion in sales revenue last year, and exclusivity in the drug world  is huge.

Most critics are citing addiction woes and their fear of abuse by younger recipients, but that is really irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.  Kids can't hock enough baseball cards to get the coin to buy the script, so that's out as a way to sustain abuse.  And pharmacies don't give prescriptions to minors, so that alleviates that.  Prescription drugs legally dispensed to and for adults have the same potential for abuse regardless of what they are - and that's on the recipient to keep those safely out of children's access.  Plus they're already giving off-label versions to kids...where's the current data on that "abuse"?

I'm bothered by this because it's a clear instance of a drug company trying to squeeze more profit out of a product in unscrupulous ways.  You've got to have a little more morality when you're making that much money on meds.

Quite The Sales Pitch

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What Doesn't Die

It was a shock to many that television and broadcast pioneer Dick Clark died today at 82.  It was his third death.

Clark was best know to your parents and grandparents as a rasio personality and the guy who brought them "American Bandstand”.  My generation also remembered him as the guy from  "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes", and many of you probably know him as "is that Ryan Seacrest's grandfather on New Year's Rockin' Eve?"

What was supposed to be a simple outpatient procedure (rumored to be his bi-monthly injection of newborn's blood) ended with Clark having a massive and fatal heart attack.  His first death was in 1966 when his car careened off an icy road in Pittsburgh.  The paralysis reportedly caused by a stroke in 2004 was actually due to his being dead for six days and the delay in resuscitating him.  Ed McMahon, who hid Clark's body in 2004, is not being considered a person of interest this time around, since he's dead, but all eyes are on Ryan Seacrest, who openly admits Clark's role as mentor - and the only thing standing between him and a multimedia monopoly.

Though Seacrest has all but modeled himself after Emperor Clark in his career, those close to the veteran personality say Clark's legacy will stand.  Dr. Lester, a close associate of Clark, called Seacrest "a perfect host", but could not tell much more than for people to wait until his 44th birthday. I'm guessing that's when we may find out how Clark his nickname "America's oldest teenager".