Category Archives: Uncategorized

This actually happened…….today.

“The president touted the accuracy of the test to detect the coronavirus, which members of his administration have acknowledged is not available to all who wants it, declaring it was “perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.””
And
“But his messaging was more haphazard at the Atlanta-based CDC. Despite calling this week for bipartisanship during the crisis, he said he told Vice President Mike Pence not to be complimentary during his Thursday meeting with Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, where more than a dozen people have died, because “he is a snake.””
And
“Trump also said he talked on the phone with California Gov. Gavin Newsom about the 3,500 people stuck on a cruise ship anchored off the coast of California. Trump, at the CDC, advocated for the passengers to remain on the ship — in part so they would not count against the total number of victims in the United States. He did say he would defer to the medical experts.”
And
“The president, while touring the CDC, also boasted about his ability to understand the virus, even though he has repeatedly misstated how long it would take for a vaccine to be developed and available.

“You know my Uncle was a great — he was at MIT. He taught at MIT for a record number of years. He was a great super genius, Dr. John Trump,” the president said. “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. … Maybe I have a natural ability.”

Medicynical note: His look is that of a person on a day-pass from an institution.  His rants are those of a sick unbalanced intellectually limited individual. He is a national embarrassment.

“Fighting has resumed in Afghanistan after the Taliban ended a partial truce with government troops, casting doubt on peace talks scheduled for next week.”

“Dozens of incidents in more than 16 provinces left eight militants and six civilians dead, officials said. Eight security personnel were also killed.”

“Meanwhile Donald Trump says he had a “very good talk” with a Taliban leader.” (Emphasis medicynic)

Medicynical note: like everything that Trump chooses to involve himself with, he is at best poorly informed and at worst intellectually unable to understand.

Medicynical note: Trump’s fatal delay. After decapitating the government’s epidemic response team Trump’s appointees reacted too slowly to the risk that the epidemic would spread to here. No test kits were distributed for use by the states. No early diagnoses of the infection were made and now people are dying.

Trump’s hoax is Trump.

There have been two deaths in Washington State in the past two days from a hoax according to our out of touch president. The case count is increasing daily and sadly, despite the first occurrence of this disease in China in December and the fact that countries all over the world have experienced outbreaks, the United States has very limited testing capability.

Medicynical note: Asleep at the wheel, Trump cut the NSC division set up to respond to worldwide epidemic situations by the Obama administration. They also cut many millions of dollars (and proposed more this year) from the CDC budget dedicated to following and responding to epidemics worldwide………including experienced staff.

Complicating the lack of a competent response is our leader’s (sic) belief that it couldn’t happen here. Now he and his media minions including the recently beknighted Rush Limbaugh, are calling the concerns about the potentially serious epidemic a hoax…….just as they have deemed the problem of global warming from human activities a hoax.

And imagine, the US was once a world leader.

There is little doubt that Bernie is Trump’s choice for Democratic nominee.

“According to Eichenwald, the book includes damning material such as the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to Texas where it would be dumped in a poor Hispanic community, that he honeymooned in the Soviet Union, and that he appeared at a 1985 rally in Nicaragua at which Sandinista supporters chanted “Here, there / the Yankee will die.” And then there’s Sanders’ fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men.”

“After the Trump campaign and Fox News got through weaponizing this research, the usual conservative charges against Sanders – that his domestic program would cost nearly $100tn over the next decade, that he would ban individual health insurance, send taxes into the stratosphere, and sympathize with terrorists and leftwing regimes – would seem almost benign. “

Medicynical note: He’s really much too old and way too controversial–read that as left. In addition he’s never been a Democrat and has been an ineffective Senator. It takes great imagination to believe that at age 80 he’d be able to effectively implement his uber aggressive and extremely costly agenda. There must be better a better candidate.

Happening now. Unpredictable changes some of which will be catastrophic.

“In an event that is unprecedented in 40 years of record-keeping, temperatures over Antarctica rose rapidly, causing the polar vortex over the Southern Hemisphere to break down and even reverse direction. This had cascading effects on weather patterns: The westerly winds that blow across the Southern Ocean shifted northward. Cold fronts moved across Australia, bringing intense wind but little rain.”

And

“By turning forests that once absorbed carbon into flaming carbon sources, the wildfires are contributing to the very problem that makes them more likely. Satellite observations suggest that emissions from the fires may be on par with what Australia produces annually by burning fossil fuels.”

Medicynical note: Meanwhile the President of the largest economy in the world is unable to see past the short term. He thinks global warming from man’s activities is a hoax–he and his cabinet are under the financial influence of the oil and coal industry.

Whatever the long term consequences of his environmental heresy, his financial foolishness, his destruction of health care, his undermining of racial and social equality and his promotion of religious fundamentalism, at age 72 he seems to figure either that either through his supporters buying into his destructive policies and his limited lifespan he won’t be around to accept and to be held responsible. Our ruin will be his legacy.

“The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP.ORG) has done an analysis of 379 corporations and their tax burdens since the Republican Party and Donald Trump gave them the enormous tax cuts that most Americans were dead-set against. “Corporate Tax Avoidance In The First Year of The Trump Tax Law” is available here for viewing or downloading. The findings are what we have come to expect: Big companies got big returns from the tax cuts, and on top of that, most corporations still couldn’t resist exploiting loopholes allowing them to pay even less than the meager amount set out by the Republican Party.”

• The 379 profitable corporations identified in this study paid an effective federal income tax rate of 11.3 percent on their 2018 income, slightly more than half the statutory 21 percent tax
• 91 corporations did not pay federal income taxes on their 2018 U.S. income. These corporations include Amazon, Chevron, Halliburton and IBM. An ITEP study released in April 2019 examined 2018 Fortune 500 filings released to date and found 60 companies paid zero in federal income taxes. Now, all companies have released their 2018 financial filings, and this report reflects that.
• Another 56 companies paid effective tax rates between 0 percent and 5 percent on their 2018 income. Their average effective tax rate was 2 percent.

Medicynical Note:  And these companies who pay no or little taxes as our military and government to expend resources, defend their financial interests and us our government’s power on their behalf……..while they get a free ride.  Guess who gets to pay.

Price drop for imitinab?.

Originally priced in 2001 at $40-$50,000/year, By 2012, imatinib (a revolutionary medication for chronic myelogenous leukemia) was priced at $92,000, and then jumped to $132,000 in 2014, and then to $146,000 in 2016 when the generic version became available.”

There has not been much decrease in pricing as noted in the article with the release of generics.

“The US has the dubious distinction of having the highest expenditures in healthcare, but ranks far from the top in terms of improvements in life expectancy, explained Lyman. “Part of this is driven by the cancer drug experience, and healthcare costs have risen faster than gross domestic product.”

“Cost escalation began in the early 2000s, and eventually exceeded the median household income of a typical family. The price tag of new cancer drugs now exceeds $10,000 per month ($120,000 annually), Lyman explained, which is several fold greater than the median household income (around $63,000 in 2018, according to official figures).”

Medicynical note: Imatinab, (Gleevac), was largely developed with government research funds and taken private in the late 90s by Novartis. Drugs trials for this tyrosine kinase inhibitor were very limited because the positive effects of drug treatment were impressive and immediately evident. When the drug came to market in 2001 it was priced at the $30,000 to $50,000/year, an unprecedented price at the time. The original price and subsequent increases as outlined were based on the “your money or your life” concept not development and/or manufacturing costs. As most of the development costs were paid by you and me through NIH and other Federal grants.

So why the price increases? And why no major decrease with the release of generics? Because……..we (congress and our governing bodies) allow drug companies to financially gouge the most vulnerable in our society. That’s what capitalism is about.

In one case, Bevin pardoned a man convicted of homicide. That man’s family raised more than $20,000 at a political fundraiser to help Bevin pay off a debt owed from his 2015 gubernatorial campaign.

In all, the former governor signed off on 428 pardons and commutations since his loss to Democrat Andy Beshear, according to The Courier-Journal. The paper notes, “The beneficiaries include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.”

Medicynical note: one of the “values” people disrobes in public.

“There’s a gap between life expectancy for low-income people and for rich people, which, while attributable to a number of factors, such as overall diet, stress, and environment, can also be attributed to a lack of affordable, accessible, and quality health care.”

“Low-income people face higher rates of disease, including heart disease and  depression. Low-income Americans, statistically, die younger—and while affordable health care wouldn’t solve that structural problem entirely, it would be a huge start.”

Medicynical note: With BREXIT we’ll get to see if the British electorate are smarter than the American. A low bar but in the face of US rightist propaganda, a docile Tory party and a Trump-clone liar as Prime Minister, anything can happen.