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Technology Stocks : eDrugstores: Drugstore.com, PlanetRx and Soma -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom D who wrote (90)	6/16/1999 12:13:00 PM
From: Tom D	Respond to of 254

Addendum. I should add that this casts a new light on PlanetRx's disease chat groups. I thought the chat groups were intended to foster a sense of online community, and create loyalty to their website and store. I wondered why Drugstore.com was not doing this. Now it appears that the chat groups are actually intended to create herds of naive patients that can be showered with overt and subtle ads and promotions from Big Pharma to generate advertising revenue for PlanetRx. Pretty cynical. It looks like PlanetRx really does not respect their customers very much. Tom D

To: Tom D who wrote (90)	6/16/1999 2:43:00 PM
From: Firenze	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 254

Tom D Your information related to the drug Rezulin is inaccurate. Rezulin does not increase insulin levels, it reduces them. Twenty-five (25) deaths have been associated with Rezulin. Avandia, is an excellent drug, but there have been no reported cases of liver failure in Rezulin patients after the initial 8 months of therapy. There really is no complelling reason to actively switch a patient to Avandia, unless the patient requests it. You should also note that all patients with diabetes will gain 5-7 pounds in the initial phases of treatment, if they are achieving glycemic control. The UKPDS study showed that weight gain did happen with Glucophage. Amaryl is a sulfonylurea increases insulin levels. Rezulin and Avandia are the only approved drugs in their class and would never be interchanged with Amaryl and should not be. That being said you are completely correct regarding PlanetRX, they will not have a chance at entering the networks of big MCOs and PBM, as a matter of fact, those companies look at PlanetRX as a competitor. Let me know your thoughts. Firenze