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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: THE ANT who wrote (155850)	4/3/2020 11:28:39 PM
From: sense	1 Recommendation Recommended By carranza2 Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218877

I ask as dementia is one key focus in my drug discovery interests. Find it fascinating that new drugs for Alzheimer's like Namenda... operate on the same principle we're considering... as the drugs function by blocking particular receptor sites that otherwise will remain open... to be engaged by other things that aren't helpful... so blocking them helps... leaving them open doesn't... But, when working to validate the drug function, they compare the drug's function to other "blockers" to validate and quantify its effects. And, what do they compare it with ? Magnesium... which is the "gold standard" they seek have new drugs live up to ? So... why not just prescribe magnesium ? It's literally dirt cheap... and it works BETTER ? Dietary deficiencies are an under-studied risk factor ? And, the cause of recent increases... is most likely to be tied to recent changes... like the changes made during the Clinton Administration that altered quality standards for water systems... So, now we strip the minerals out of the water in our water systems ? No. Not quite. The two choices you have in solving "water quality problems" are "flocculation"... precipitating the minerals... or else... you add other things as "clarifiers" that instead make the minerals better dissolved... so they don't precipitate ? All that junk that used to deposit on the pipes and clog them over time ? That's not a problem any more. But, that means that instead of depositing on the pipes... it's depositing whatever is in that crust... in your head ? Worse, the chemicals used as clarifying agents... are phosphates... so the mineral phosphate complexes formed... might tend to preferentially find their way into.... cellular energy metabolism ? But, you don't make money from solving problems... you make money from selling drugs... when the incentive structures are broken... and markets are dominated by a lack of good faith... that reverses "first do no harm"... to "first ensure a profit"... as a poor proxy for the ability to do good. Capitalism... makes no demands of market participants... in relation to good faith or good will ? Free markets... instead... require as an entering argument... no fraud, no monopoly, and no obstruction of others market participation. The concept of free markets.... requires that basic understanding that competition is a form of cooperation... and that the cooperation required is required of all participants, who must agree to abide by the rules of the game... and ensure others do as well as a part of self interest... so that good faith and good will are made inherent to the system, and both are enabled and enforced by the participants... If you don't have that... you don't have good faith and good will inherent to your system... so it should not be a surprise that the lack of any grounding in principle... delivers results we object to in their practical impact ? The problems resulting from drug company's being focused on "discovery for profit" in a monopoly model... to the exclusion of problem solving... is an artifact of non-free market intervention that prevents free market functions...

To: THE ANT who wrote (155850)	4/4/2020 10:21:39 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218877

some folks are reported lost to the virus in Brazil the virus seems egalitarian, democratic and allows no class distinction theguardian.com Brazil's super-rich and the exclusive club at the heart of a coronavirus hotspot Connection between Covid-19 and country’s globe-trotting elite highlights gulf between rich and poor in one of world’s most unequal societies Last modified on Sat 4 Apr 2020 At least 60 of the exclusive Rio de Janeiro Country Club’s 850 members have reportedly been struck down with Covid-19. Photograph: Nicoló Lanfranchi/The ObserverIt is Brazil’s most exclusive club – a beachside sanctuary of privilege and power to which just 0.00041% of the country’s citizens have the keys. But the Rio de Janeiro Country Club – founded by British executives in 1916 and frequented since by the crème de la crème of carioca society – has been thrown into mourning by the coronavirus pandemic, sparking a nationwide debate about class and inequality in one of the most economically lopsided societies on earth. At least 60 of the club’s 850 globe-trotting members have reportedly been struck down with Covid-19, while one – the septuagenarian businesswoman Mirna Bandeira de Mello – has died and been laid to rest during a funeral attended by no one but her son. “In normal times there would have been millions at her burial,” Christiano Bandeira de Mello lamented in an interview with the Brazilian magazine Época. Anna Maria Ramalho, a society columnist who had known the victim since school, said she had been forced to say goodbye by logging on to an online mass. “I’ve lost a life-long friend,” she said. “She was such a special person, so very down-to-earth.” Coronavirus appears to have breached the country club’s white wooden gates – just metres from Ipanema beach – on the afternoon of 7 March – although exactly how is now a topic of bitter dispute. Ipanema beach is deserted after Rio de Janeiro’s governor ordered residents to stay away from the beaches. Photograph: Nicoló Lanfranchi/The GuardianHours earlier, descendants of Brazil’s former royal family had gathered at a nearby mansion to toast the engagement of 31-year-old Pedro Alberto de Orléans e Bragança – the great-great-great grandson of Brazil’s last emperor, Pedro II – and his 26-year-old partner, Alessandra Fragoso Pires. Guests included Pires’ mother and stepfather, who had jetted in from their home in London, and others from Belgium, Italy and the United States. More than half of the 70-or-so people at the lunch have since tested positive for Covid-19 including the bride’s father and grandfather and the groom’s aunt. Three remain in hospital, in serious condition. “It’s just horrible,” said one family member who attended the celebration and asked not to be named. “Nobody could have imagined the virus would strike with such devastating force.” After lunch, several guests spent the afternoon at the “country” – sparking speculation they had caused its coronavirus cluster – something strenuously denied by one friend of Brazil’s former monarchy. “One thing has nothing to do with the other,” they insisted. “Nobody knows what happened – who brought it [the virus] and who didn’t. They were surprised by this.” Whatever the truth, two days later on 9 March, coronavirus continued to contaminate the club’s illustrious membership. At a packed assembly – reportedly convened to thrash out a dispute between its old guard and a new generation of associates who lack the traditional surnames of past members, but not their deep pockets – cross words, and then kisses and hugs were exchanged. “Lots of people lost their fortunes in the financial crisis – people who were stinking rich and ended up with nothing – so they had to sell their membership,” one prominent Rio socialite said of the generational tug-of-war at the club where members are chosen by secret ballot and it costs around £70,000 to join. The 270-strong audience also included people who were at the imperial family’s commemoration – further fueling suspicions they were to blame for the outbreak. “It was a tense meeting, big names in business were there,” the high-society source said. “Several people left the meeting infected.” The country club is not the only oasis of Brazilian prosperity and influence touched by coronavirus. A pop star, an actress and the daughter of a top government official were infected during a celebrity wedding at a beach resort that boasts of being “conceived with the philosophy of exclusiveness”. Some affluent guests had reportedly flown in from holidays in Europe and Aspen, Colorado. Brazil’s presidential palace has also been hit, with more than 20 members of a delegation that flew to meet Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate testing positive for Covid-19. The president, Jair Bolsonaro, claims he tested negative but has refused to make those results public. The connection between the spread of coronavirus and Brazil’s super-rich has sparked discussion over their role in introducing the ailment to Brazil – and the gulf between rich and poor in one of the most unequal societies on earth. Many fear that while the first coronavirus wave has crashed over Brazil’s largely white political and economic elite, it is the poor and mostly black masses who will eventually suffer the most – without the luxury of being able to self-isolate at home or resort to expensive private hospitals. One of the first deaths recorded in Brazil was that of Cleonice Gonçalves, a 63-year-old domestic helper who was reportedly infected by her wealthy employer when she returned from holiday in Italy. “It goes without saying that the most vulnerable will always be the most affected, irrespective of whether there is a pandemic or not,” the black feminist intellectual Djamila Ribeiro wrote in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper recently. “These are structural issues.” Others, including some country club members, wonder whether some of Brazil’s mega-moneyed coronavirus patients exposed others to the illness by failing to properly isolate or quarantine themselves – perhaps believing their economic status meant they were above such mundane measures. One Brazilian tycoon is reportedly being investigated by police for allegedly flying his private jet to the beach last month despite having tested positive for Covid-19. The man – an investment banker who denies the charges – is accused of infecting at least two locals in Trancoso, a glamorous seaside town in Bahia state. Rio de Janeiro – which has so far suffered 1074 coronavirus cases and 47 deaths – has been in lockdown since late March, forcing a succession of high-society soirées to be scrapped. Among the aborted events was a bash for 1,000 people at the beachfront Copacabana Palace hotel to celebrate the marriage of Alexandre Birman, a multi-millionaire footwear designer who makes crocodile and snakeskin shoes for Hollywood stars. Police officers patrol Ipanema beach, amid the coronavirus lockdown. Photograph: Lucas Landau/ReutersA confidant of the Orléans e Bragança family said they had more pressing concerns with two relatives still in intensive care. “They feel sad, apprehensive and worried … They are frightened with all this repercussion,” they said. Some have pointed an accusing finger at Brazil’s jet-setting elites for importing the illness after eye-wateringly expensive overseas adventures, with one left-wing website last week announcing: “The rich and famous have spread coronavirus around Brazil.” Another blog declared: “The rich have contaminated Brazil.” But a guest at the royal family’s fateful lunch said it was wrong to scapegoat the wealthy for a sickness uninterested in social class. “Both poor and rich are dying all around the world,” they said. “People who travel more might have caught it first but the virus doesn’t choose its victims. It can attack anyone.”