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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IRWIN JAMES FRANKEL who wrote (14853)	12/21/2004 10:03:33 PM
From: John Metcalf	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

"Statins are seen as essential to health care. Pain relief is optional." Relief from pain is essential to quality of life. Zeta-esque, I must stand as witness for my late friend David, whose life became un-wantable, for chronic post-stroke pain. He tried therapies and medicines, and meditation. He adjusted to communicating in slurred speech and being rolled about in a wheelchair. He switched his art from sculpture to drawing to words. He moved to a wheelchair-friendly city. He tried and tried and suffered. In the end, begging his wife to forgive him, he chose to die, and self-administered the ironic pain-killer that did the job. On Dave's behalf, I challenge: is the risk of having a CVA, as he had, so great as to remove treatments for the pain that follows survival of it? Let's have less litigation and more wisdom. {Sorry. Soapbox off.}

To: IRWIN JAMES FRANKEL who wrote (14853)	12/22/2004 1:39:15 AM
From: BulbaMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

I don't doubt virtually all docs currently believe the risk/benefit picture for statins looks great. But it's expected that many millions of people will be taking statins for decades and my fear is major problems with the drugs will show up before long. For example, there's already evidence that statins deplete Coenzyme Q10, but very few docs recommend CoQ10 supplementation to their patients on statins. Statins are being mass-marketed to consumers (and docs) by the big drug companies (just like the Cox-2 inhibitors), and it's a certainty many are being convinced to take the drugs when the benefits are marginal and don't outweigh the potential risks. Advertising generally does work. P.S. I totally agree with Zeta that for many pain sufferers relief is not optional.