I Try Again For A Decent Cup Of Coffee And Fail.

At 5:30 my eyes opened and would not re-close. I thought maybe they were trying to tell me something, that maybe there was a reason I should not be wasting away in bed. I tried to think if there were any possible reasons I should get up.

I had to pee, and I could take a shot at working this morning's crossword in the newspaper. That's all I could come up with.

The paperboy, who I think is actually a man in his mid 30's, was late, so I put on some Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam always makes me happy. This was their latest album, and it had been sitting on my "to listen to" pile for quite awhile now. The blasphemous thought crept into my mind as I listened.

Van Hagar. That is the comparison that came to mind. Workmanlike. Competent.

I stared at my speakers and tried to remember Eddie Vedder in flannel. The Eddie Vedder who once saw an outfit  for sale in the window of a department store based on one he wore in a music video and promptly went home and burned the original. I tried to remember when our generation was tarred as a pack of slackers destined to have a life that was a faint echo of our parent's. Our parents had Vietnam, we had Gulf War I, they had Watergate, we had Lewinsky, they had Woody Allen, we had "Clerks"

We were cool with it. "Clerks" was a great movie. Perhaps the last remnant we have of what we were before the internet came along and changed our stereotype to that of the dot-com millionaire.

I was snapped out of it by the sound of the newspaper hitting the door. On one level it made me happy to be starting my day with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Pearl Jam was teaching me that attempts to hang on to the coolness of your 20's are as pathetic as the exclamation point Yahoo! insists on keeping on the end of its name. Or "Clerks II."

My age starts with a 4 now and I find myself listening to more and more jazz. I can't come up with a 5-letter word for "fur wrap" that starts with an "S." My new coffee maker makes my java taste like plastic and in a few hours I'll have the joy of starting a long work weekend.

I thought about my last work weekend and smiled, but my last work weekend is gone. Sometimes the decision to get out of bed can be the wrong one. What I wouldn't do for a chance to start over.

The End Of Medical Marijuana.

Indianapolis, IN- (Drugmonkey News Service)- In a stunning move aimed at reversing what has appeared until now to have been a losing fight in the war againt marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that a supplement to recently passed health care reform legislation would allow the federal government to partner with insurance giant Wellpoint to provide full coverage for the once illegal drug.

"It's true that earlier I made a decision that this department would no longer enforce federal marijuana laws in states that allow its medicinal use" said Holder. "I don't have to. I am confident that the people at Wellpoint can limit access to marijuana far more effectively than the DEA ever could."

"Bwwwwooohhhhhaaaaahhhhaaaaa" he added.

Reached outside a medical marijuana clinic in Los Angeles, a patient who could only identify himself as "Scooter" reacted with confusion:

"Dude.....like... what's a.....Prior Authorization?" he asked. "How am I supposed to get my back medicine with this form thingy? Or maybe it's my headache medicine. I don't remember. I miss Honcho. Back in the day all you had to do was give Honcho a call and he'd be at your door in like half an hour with all the weed you needed. You just don't get service like that anymore man"

"I was given a contract from Wellpoint that barely covered my costs" said Honcho from his farm in Mendocino. I got out of the business and started making pornography instead. I just hope to hell they don't start classifying that as some sort of sex therapy insurance will cover next."

At  least 50 marijuana producers as well as 350 medical cannabis dispensaries  have gone out of business since singing agreements with Wellpoint, who calls the contracts "A win-win for everyone, but mostly us."

"We're excited to expand our business of caring into the exciting world of medical cannabis treatment" said Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly. "And we are honored to have been selected by the federal government to be the exclusive insurance provider for its new medical cannabis program. Let me assure you, Wellpoint will bring the same level of commitment to patient care to this cannabis program that we have shown to the customers who have relied on us for years"

"Bwwwwooohhhhhaaaaahhhhaaaaa" added Holder.

Oh The Ways Of Karma.

A little chuckle in a crappy weekend, courtesy of News of the Weird, the best newspaper column ever.

Timing Is Everything: Guido Boldini (and his mother Constance Boldini) pleaded guilty last April to soliciting a hit man to take out Guido's ex-wife, Michelle Hudon, after a contentious child-custody battle in Keene, N.H. The "hit man" was, of course, an undercover cop, and the son and mother are now serving a combined 12 to 35 years in prison. However, unknown to the Boldinis, Michelle Hudon had been diagnosed with cancer, and in September, she died.

I just had to share. Carry on...

It's Not So Bad.

It kills about a third of the people that do it. One in three. That sounds better than the numbers the health care establishment will throw at you.

Of which I am a member.

But, if you didn't do it for 20 years, your odds are lower, right? And if when you did do it, you did it less than average, than surely the chances of it catching up with you are down somewhere in the teens I bet.

It's amazing what kind of rationalizations you can come up with in the depths of night. I'm on a roll. I'll keep going.

Mickey Mantle did it, and he was one of the great athletes of his generation.

It didn't kill Mickey Mantle. If I remember right, Mickey Mantle blew out his liver with a river of booze.

Wait. Aw crap.

I won't go into the reasons. I understand relationship drama is of very little interest to those not involved. And actually I'm lucky. It went down at a time when it just kinda sucked, as opposed to a few months later when it could have torn me up.

I don't think I could take getting torn up again.

So I fell off the wagon and hit the dust face first into the world of tar and nicotine and filters. Here's something a health care professional should never tell you; if you give a little scotch a running start and your body is relatively nicotine-naive, the combination is a nice little buzz. Nice I tell you.

It can even make you forget all about crying like you want to. Which is good, because men don't cry unless they're pansies like Glenn Beck.

It doesn't last very long though. So you light another because you don't want to be a pansy like Glenn Beck. Then another. Then you're chasing. Chasing chasing chasing.....

Chasing what? And my God what if I ever caught it?

By the way, for what it's worth, Mickey Mantle was a corporate whore:

So chasing the buzz and chasing whatever I thought she could give me leaves me...here. At almost one in the morning on a Friday night, here I am.

I'm not sorry.

It was a nice buzz and she's awesome and I suppose I'm just gonna have to dust myself off and find a way to tuck my memories in a happy place and get on with life. On Monday I'll just throw myself into my work for awhile.

Wait. My work. Oh mother of mercy.

I'm doomed.

It Did Launch The Hubble Telescope, Which Is Cool, I Guess.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida- (Drugmonkey News Service) The impending retirement of America's space shuttle program has posed a problem for the country's broadcast news organizations. What to do on slow news days when you need a story in between the really important ones and the one at the end designed to grab attention and serve as a lead in for the next program?

"Every few months we've just been repeating the same thing about another launch" said National Public Radio's senior vice president for news Ellen Weiss. "It was pretty much the same bullshit. One day we'd say something about how the weather looked for tomorrow's launch, then the next day we'd say how the launch went. Every once in awhile we'd say the launch was delayed because of a storm or something. Then a couple weeks later we'd run a story about the shuttle's return. Every couple years we'd ask an intern spending spring break down in Florida if they could go over to the space coast and make sure it was still actually there."

"Imagine our shock when we got a fax from NASA headquarters checking to see if we wanted extra credentials for the last shuttle flight. We were beside ourselves to think that this great national asset would be lost."

Ms. Weiss said she thought the last flight would be in November or early December. "I've got that fax around here somewhere, but I've been really busy coordinating our coverage of the Goldman Sachs fraud lawsuit."

"We've also got a great piece cooking about a cat who can play piano. I'm sure we'll work in a space shuttle retrospective sometime this year. Probably in August. August is always the slowest news month. More than likely we'll need some timekillers in August"

While NPR was widely recognized as the go to source for coverage of space shuttle takeoffs and landings, ABC was the leader in zero-gravity stories.

"Oh yeah, whenever it was supposed to be up there we'd say something about it doing zero-gravity experiments, if there was nothing really going on that day" said veteran ABC news reporter Gina Sunseri. Over the years Ms. Sunseri recalled filing stories about zero-gravity experiments involving fish, ants, soldering of electrical circuits, mushrooms, ants, mucus, the growth of fingernails, ants, and the effectiveness of weightlessness as a contraceptive method.

"At least that's what the astronauts called it." She said with a chuckle.

The end of the shuttle era, which was actually announced more than 5 years ago, will also mean the end of the occasional story of a junior high school science class that communicated with astronauts using some sort of ham radio, which was indicative that ham radio still exists.

Asked what type of story might replace the space shuttle beat, NPR's Weiss suggested they might start in depth coverage of New Zealand politics.

"I'm sure they have an election coming up in the next few years, and the issues that that election will turn on probably have more of an effect on the average American than that thing flying around in circles ever did."

When asked if anyone at ABC had contacted NASA to get their take on the end of the shuttle era, Ms Sunseri said she thought about it, but decided she really needed to get some laundry done that day.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes.....

One of the things I miss about the Midwest are the thunderstorms of summer. How just when the oppressive heat and humidity of a July afternoon seemed to be about ready to make you crack, you would hear it, that soft rumble on the horizon. When I lived in the flat part of corn country you could see it as well, towering thunderheads off in the distance with sparks of lightning jumping from cloud to cloud and cloud to ground. It was beautiful. When you heard that rumble though, you best not stop and admire the beauty for too long. Because those thunderclouds were coming at you, and soon all hell would be breaking loose. Rain and wind and ear-piercing thunder and sometimes even a little hail and a funnel cloud or two would be all around. Lightning strikes. Scary stuff. You would have no excuses to get caught in it though. You were warned. You totally saw if coming if you made even the slightest effort to open your eyes.

Today I heard a rumbling of thunder far off in the horizon. A storm is brewing in our profession.

I'm talking about a post over at Jim Plagakis' forum by a pharmacy student named Davey. Davey had the pleasure recently of attending California Legislative Day held at the Sacramento Convention Center. Most of you know how these things go. For those of you that don't, I'll let Davey set the stage:

There is always a sense that these organizations beef up their meetings by inviting a ton of students who have no idea what's going on or why they are there. I looked around me and saw my student colleagues talking to each other, on their cell phones texting, or just flat out not paying attention to the speeches. Some were studying their class notes since they were missing their Wednesday classes.

...Questions came from industry leaders, members of the CPhA Executive staff and foundation, and other non-descript people in suits who asked obvious, unchallenging, and most likely staged questions. Not one student made a peep.

Yup. That's the general gist of these circle-jerk sessions. Suits masturbating each other with students in white coats in the background to show just how happy the future of pharmacy will be. Meanwhile various graphs and icons and little clocks on chain pharmacy computers all across the state were turning from green to red to let pharmacists know they weren't moving the prescriptions along nearly fast enough.

What surprised me most about Davey's post was how much the man taking the questions, California Assembly speaker John Pérez, seemed to have a grasp of the problems of our profession during his speech. What delighted me though, was what Davey decided to do:

Meanwhile, from my seat, my heart raced. I realized I had a chance to do something here. To stir shit up. I like to stir shit up. I looked around me at the stoic faces of students, some stuffing the house tiramisu into their faces, then I looked at a piece of paper I had scribbled the beginnings of a question to Mr. Pérez on. After responding to the second or third time a reimbursement question came up, he announced he was taking one more question, and suddenly, I was having an out of body experience. I watched myself literally push my seat out from under me, and stand on my own two feet and bear towards the back of the convention center where the mic was in the hands of another industry leader asking an obsequious question. I quietly asked the mediator of the mic, a CPhA employee, if a student could ask a question. He showed hesitation, but after the pharmacist with the floor was finished, the CPhA employee asked for one more question of Mr. Pérez, and it was allowed.

Cue the nerves. Tachycardia, positive inotropy, body and brain in overdrive. I looked back at the area of the room where all my classmates were sitting. One of them had a worried, quizzical look on his face as he looked me in the eye from 45 feet away. Some others were whispering discretely to each other, glancing periodically at me. I wasn't thinking---only doing, an adrenaline storm giving me some involuntary control over my brain to dare to do something completely taboo in a setting like this.

It was my turn. I took the mic and thanked Mr. Pérez for the opportunity to ask a question. I was incredibly nervous. Having no lab coat on, I identified myself as a second year pharmacy student. I heard the echo of my voice in the mic, but proceeded to ask the assemblyman in so many words:

"How do we as pharmacists expect to push for these new legislative measures (adding immunizing to a pharmacist's workload without extra staffing), when, in your experience as a protectorate of laborers, and knowing that pharmacy is primarily run on a for-profit model, you've just addressed that this is likely to increase medication errors not reduce them because it just adds to the pharmacist workload without the pharmacist getting that added coverage it needs from its employer. Do we ask you, assemblyman, for this right, or do we ask our employer? Thank you."

The assemblyman addressed my question after intermittent nods during my 45 seconds of speaking. Time stood still. A few tables away from where I was standing, which was in the very back of the room, I saw my District Manager.

Out. Fucking. Standing. Let me tell you something Davey. The next time you ask that question to someone in power, you will not be nearly as nervous. And somewhere down the road, one of those students who spent the day texting on their cell phone will repeat that question, or one very much like it, to someone above them, their inhibitions lowered because they saw you do it already. At some point, the tenth or twentieth time you ask that question, you will be tired of it not being answered, and you will not let the person you asked it to off the hook until they do.

And others will not be letting the person they asked their questions to off the hook until they do. And those people in power will have to do something. Because rain and wind and thunder will be all around them.

And if those people in power make the slightest effort to open their eyes, they see it coming. They probably won't for awhile though.

Keep asking.

I Decide To Build A Bridge Across The Partisan Divide That Threatens To Engulf This Nation.

Because people that know me, they know that I'm a pretty non-partisan kinda guy, willing to reach across the figurative aisle and work with those on the other side that have good ideas for the benefit of this nation.

It's just that I've never really found anyone on that other side that had any good ideas. Until now.

I'll set this up with a kind of blog post mash up kinda thing combining an article I came across in my daily news surf with a report from the Heritage Foundation, a group I may have at one time called "The shoehorn responsible for shoving the policies of the corporate right wing of this country up the ass of the rest of us without even so much as the courtesy of lube"

I might have said that. But that was in the past, and this is a new day. here we go:

Ground was broken Tuesday on the latest "shovel ready" project on the Peninsula, with construction starting on a $6,675,000 classroom at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Debates about how to improve public education in America often focus on whether government should spend more on education. Federal and state policymakers proposing new education programs often base their arguments on the need to provide more resources to schools to improve opportunities for students.

The 6,000-square-foot, two-story structure next to Ingersoll Hall on the campus will house classes for the NPS School of Business and Public Policy, and will release 12,000 square feet of space for other campus departments, Dausen said.

While this view may be commonly held, policymakers and citizens should question whether historical evidence and academic research actually support it. This paper addresses two important questions:

How much does the United States spend on public education?

What does the evidence show about the relationship between public education spending and students' academic achievement?

The answers to these questions should inform federal and state policy debates about how best to improve education.

Keep talking Heritage Foundation. You have my full attention.

What Federal and State Policymakers Should Do:

Federal and state policymakers should resist proposals to increase funding for public education. Historical trends and other evidence suggest that simply increasing funding for public elementary and secondary education has not led to corresponding improvement in academic achievement. Instead of simply increasing funding for education, policymakers and school leaders should implement education reforms that improve resource allocation.

(Congressman Sam Farr, in whose district the Naval Postgraduate School lies) said the classroom building is "shovel-ready — and they are gold shovels!" before taking one of several gold-painted shovels for the groundbreaking ceremony.

The school, Farr said, is more than a postgraduate school; it is a federal research institute charged with "researching the future"

A research institute huh? Hmmmm.....I've got a research project for them then.

Subject the education of the future Thugs of the Empire to the same fiscal constraints we are currently forcing upon the civilian education system. Because my friends at the Heritage Foundation seem to think it would have no measurable effect on their performance. What a wonderful opportunity for them to be proven right. I'm sure they are just as excited about my proposed project as I am.

Unless they're full of shit that is.

Looks like I just forced a group of Republicans to agree with me or admit they are full of shit. Wow. I should have started this bipartisan stuff a long time ago. So many children stand to benefit.

Highlights From Friday's Pill Counting Action.

The specter of the upcoming inventory loomed heavy in the air, the way I imagine radioactive radon gas would. Those of you in any of the retail trades know exactly of what I speak. Preparation starts early for the big day. Warnings are issued weeks in advance. Instructions from corporate build like a mighty river, a tiny stream at first, merging into a greater and greater flow until the current is ready to wash away the unprepared.

Let there be no mistake. People are coming to count your stuff.

I decided to break the mounting tension by playing a little game throughout the day. I would periodically call my local Walgreens on one phone line and CVS on the other, and have them unwittingly compete to see who would answer the phone first.

The first time I reached for the phone to play I looked up and saw a man walk by whose face was covered in shaving cream. He didn't look homeless. I mean, I guess I could understand if one of the local homeless dudes wanted to take advantage of our bathroom to catch up on a little hygiene, but this guy looked fairly affluent and was wearing a shirt with that guy above the breast pocket riding a horse, the kind you pay way too much for at Macy's. Perhaps shaving cream is a new fashion statement or something. I put off the first round of competition so I could mull over what I just witnessed.

A customer told me he was glad to see Easter come because he had given up Vicodin for lent. I looked at his profile and sure enough, his once weekly allotment hadn't been filled since Fat Tuesday. I'm sure he felt the smile of Jesus upon him at home that day, or at least the pleasure of downregulated narcotic receptors.

Opening round winner, CVS, 12 minutes.

I then answered my phone on the third ring and heard, "Yeah, I was just there and I think my belt fell off. Did anyone turn in a belt?" I wondered if she would have waited 12 minutes to ask that and if it had anything to do with shaving cream man.

Enough silliness. There were patients to take care of. "What do I use for this?" said the lady at the counter, who then proceeded to just kinda wave her hand around various parts of her body. I looked to see if her belt was on and waited to see if I would get any kind of clarification. Nope. I was gonna have to play 20 questions. Goody. I like games. Turned out she had ringworm and a belt in the proper position.

Second round went to Walgreens. Eight minutes.

When they picked up I asked them if they had any Deconamine, an old-time antihisamine/decongestant combo. The tech assured me they did, so I faxed a prescription over. The fax was returned half an hour later with the words "What is this med?" scrawled in big black letters.

My keystone tech became very upset that a bottle had been placed on the shelf without the required pen marks on the label to show it had been opened. My other tech seemed to be getting really spooked about this whole inventory thing.

"Don't worry" I assured her. "We're in good hands. Keystone Tech has been through a million of these things. She's been here so long the first time she worked one the total was $500."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. A nickel was a lot of money back then. The average prescription probably cost like a dollar twenty five."

I love my number two tech. But she can be a bit gullible at times.

Back to work as a customer at the counter once again needed my help. I went through their symptoms and spat out some Claritin-D. It was pretty cut and dried really, but still the kind of thing you would have paid your doctor $50 for ten years ago.

"But she saw Advil on TV" was the customer's reply. And another part of the profession died.

The tiebreaker was shaping up to be a real battle royale. Both outposts of their respective national drugstore empires took their reputation seriously, and was not about to cede any ground to the other. Five minutes passed, ten....15....and no signs of life on either phone line. I started to come to terms with the fact that I might be hearing a blend of  odd classical and bland pop music for the rest of the night.

"HEY!!!!!" a mother yelled at her offspring from the drop-off counter. "WHAT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY YOU THINK?"

20 minutes. This was a true slug fest between two champions. They both wanted it.

I noticed most of the people walking by had no trouble keeping their belts on.

And finally, at 35 minutes, I heard it. "Thank you for calling Walgreens, may I help you?" A few seconds later CVS picked up their line. And hung up without saying anything. Those two corporations made more money today than I will ever see in my lifetime. Yet for some reason I still make sure the phone gets answered when it rings. Perhaps I am as gullible as my number two tech.

Wish me luck with the inventory. I guess.

From The "Our Leaders Are Wise And Just" File.

The man doing the questioning here is an actual member of Congress. This is an actual Congressional hearing concerning the deployment of military personnel to the island of Guam. I shit you not.

There is very little to add here.

Sometimes, At The End Of A Brutal Workweek, I Find it Helpful To Think Of One Small Thing To Be Thankful For.

So tonight, I shall declare that I am thankful that Procardia XL isn't nearly as popular as it used to be.

For those of you not in the profession and/or not quite as long in the tooth as myself, I'll tell you Procardia XL was once a wildly popular blood pressure medication. We used to say we should install a keg of it in the back of the store where I interned and thinking about that just now reminded me that there was once a time when I was not a cynical soul-scarred retail burnout.

Sigh.

Around the time the world started to crush my spirit though, the Procaria XL and its kin started to get their clock cleaned by Norvasc. Once the toast of the town, the life of a Procardia tablet these days must be a lonely one. And for that I can sleep better at night, because that means I have probably escaped the poop bag.

You see, Procardia XL used a rather ingenious extended-release mechanism. In a nutshell, water diffused through the shell of a Procardia tablet at a controlled rate, which pushed out the active medicine contained inside through a tiny hole drilled into the tablet with a laser. Very high tech stuff. Osmotic coating, laser drills, true cutting edge health care my friends.

That osmotic shell though? It never dissolved. It didn't have to. The drug shot through the laser hole and left the rest of the tablet behind. Now, if you don't know where I'm going with this, I want you to think about what happens when you combine this pharmacokinetic wizardry with the mindset of an average pharmacy customer with too much time on their hands.

Every pharmacist my age or older has taken concerned customer questions about a Procardia XL tablet found in their stool. And more than a few have been presented with a poop bag containing an empty shell. Thank God I never got a poop bag.

It's nice to end the week on a positive note.

One More Bit Of Blasphemy To Round Out This Holy Weekend.

So...let me see if I have this straight. God sends his only son down here because he has to die for the sins of humanity. Which somehow makes Christianity a monotheistic religion.

OK, fine. But is there any reason this son had to be such a drama queen about it? Any reason he couldn't have just lived to a ripe old age and then died of a tragic heart attack? I think Jesus was being a bit selfish by provoking his own crucifixion the way he did. After all, didn't he pretty much end up robbing us of 40 or 50 more years of teachings with that little stunt of his?

Yeah, it was all about you, wasn't it Jesus? Can't help but notice how you made sure you got the cross in the center.

If I remember correctly, Gautama Buddha inspired one of the world's major religions while living to be 80 years old. Evidently The Buddha got by on talent, and not on cheap theatrics like some deities.

None of this will stop me from eating a ham tomorrow though. While I think Jesus has a lot to learn from The Buddha, I also think the idea of having a special meat to mark your holidays is a good one.

It's Easter Weekend. What Better Time For A Little Blasphemy?

Came across this pic in my daily web surfing:

RUN LITTLE BOY.....RUN!!!!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T EVER GET THAT CLOSE TO SOMEONE WEARING THAT GETUP UNTIL YOU'RE AT LEAST 18!!!!!!!

Actually, he does look kinda scared. I wouldn't be too surprised if "The love of God" is what the priests call it.

I Just Might Start A Tradition Of Posting This Every Year. Because Good Friday Really Is My Favorite Day On The Calendar.

Blogpost original air date, March 20, 2008.


"What a day. I have never had so much fun as we did that day."

"You said it. I wish we could have broken his legs though."

"Stop with the broken legs already. Two thousand years you've been going on about the broken legs. "

"Crown of thorns? My idea...."

"Yeah we've heard about that a few times too, enough already, Jesus."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, sorry"

An awkward silence then descends over hell's premier after hours club. Everyone takes a drink.

"It was pretty fucking awesome......that weekend ruled!!!!"

"HUZZA!!!" Shout he demons in unison. And glasses come together to toast the memories....

The Latest Approach To Cure An All Too Common Disease. Fat Wallet Syndrome.

Do you get out of bed in the morning and go about your normal business? Work a certain number of hours, perhaps followed by a bit of recreational activity and then return to bed? Do you seem trapped in an endless cycle of waking and sleeping, eating, inhaling and exhaling, with nothing at all interfering with these basic life functions?

If so, you may be perfectly healthy. And you should talk to your doctor about Crestor.

Crestor is a medicine used to treat high cholesterol, but even if your cholesterol is within the normal range, the people at AstraZeneca think you might want to take it anyway. To treat inflammation. Specifically, Crestor is about to be marketed to people with an abnormal C-reactive protein test, which measures the level of inflammation in the body and is on the verge of being declared a risk factor for heart disease.

According to a story in yesterday's New York Times, the inventor of the C-reactive protein test, Dr. Paul M. Ridker, originally went to the National Institutes of Health with a proposal to study how C-reactive protein ties into risk for heart attacks and strokes. And was turned down. Pfizer and Bayer also rejected his ideas. But like Christopher Columbus, that maverick explorer who persisted because he knew he was right, Dr. Ridker persisted and was vindicated. He eventually found a patron to sponsor a study, led by him, that showed that yes, there was a significantly significant link between an abnormal C-reactive protein test and cardiovascular events.

"Significantly significant" however, does not mean "large." There is a statistically significant correlation between living in California and getting bitten by a rattlesnake, but would you spend $1500 a year to lower your lifetime risk of a rattlesnake bite from 0.37% to 0.17%? Or would you just take precautions to avoid surprising a rattlesnake when you're outside?

AstraZeneca would probably tell you it would be ridiculous to cough up $1500 bucks every year for some high-tech rattlesnake repellent. Because the money isn't going to them. When you and your insurance company are writing checks to cover your daily Crestor when you are not sick however, I'm sure AstraZeneca would tell you you are being proactive and smart about your health. At a cost of $638,000 for every heart attack prevented.

Until you get that weird muscle pain, and your urine gets really dark. Then maybe you weren't being so smart about your health. Not to mention there's also some indication statins may increase your risk for type II diabetes. I'd be really pissed if I spent $1500 a year on some rattlesnake repellent that made me more attractive to mountain lions.

Oh, and Dr. Ridker receives "undisclosed amounts" of royalties from the C-reactive protein test he invented. Which totally made him the best person to lead the study that found the link betwen C-reactive protein and heart disease. You always get the best science when the lead researcher can make a shitload of money by proving a specific conclusion.

Remember this when you see the upcoming ad blitz for Crestor, and the commercials for my new rattlesnake repellent.

I think I'll call it Rattenov™