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 Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Biotech and F.D.A.: Blame Game. New York Times Dec 16 2002 2:33AM ET [Moreover - moreover...]
The problem we may see in the coming years will come from placing protein based therapeutics in the same review group as chemical therapuetics.Chemist think differently than biologists because of the nature of their work. A defined process in chemistry is usually well-defined. If you follow the process you always end up with the same yield. Not so with many biological systems. So, it is easy to make generics from chemical compounds. It is not for protein based ones. J&J is dealing with a small change in their production of a proprietary drug that has a ver large impact on its safety profile. This is from a company that really knows what it is dealing with. What is likely to happen from a generic manufacturer who is more concerned with lowering costs? It could be very easy for the living cells that make the drug to make a slightly altered form that could have devastating effects. Biologics are much more complex than chemicals, at least in their manufacture. 11:02:34 PM 
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Genomics Revolution Actually Happens. Forbes Dec 17 2002 9:05AM ET [Moreover - moreover...]
This is a reason that Merck may be one of the smartest pharmas. It bought Rosetta for many things but one is that it can now make a huge number of DNA arrays for itself while everyone else has to contract out to get that many. It is using this approach to rpaidly find out why some drugs fail and why some people respond to treatment. Or rather, it will find profiles that match people who respond to the drug. We probably won't really know why cetain patterns of expression are good or pab for quite some time. 10:51:11 PM
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Diuretic as good as newer drugs for blood pressure [Reuters Health eLine]
This sounds like a study that needs to be widely read. The most effective treatment for high blood pressure, the one that resulted in the fewest fatalities, was also the cheapest, a diuretic. Why would anyone take any of the other drugs? This is where pharmaceutical companies live or die - marketing. Many doctors only learn about new treatments from the sales reps of the pharmas. The best doctors read the literature but it is often difficult. od blog would be helpful. 10:24:30 PM
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Study finds cholesterol drug does not cut deaths [Reuters Health eLine]
Somehow lowering cholesterol is the only thing that matters. Yet, this study showed that even though the drug was quite successful at lower cholesterol, it had little effect on the death rate. For people with severely high cholesterol levels lowering the levels does have a significant effect on the death rate. But for the majority of those with 'high' cholesterol, it may well ne that there is little real benefit. Much of what the doctors say here is to emphasize that the drug is a success - it does lower cholesterol But the study would seem to indicate that this really has little effect on the survival of the patient. I am not in favor of taking a drug like that unless there are clear benefits to the patient. Maybe the full report details some of these since this report does not. 10:19:22 PM
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Colour - ' no guide to ancestry '. BBC - Physical characteristics associated with race - such as skin or hair colour - do not necessarily reflect a person's genetic ancestry, a new study suggests.
Scientists prove that race does not exist Independent Online
Brazil study on race, genes finds no link Boston Globe
Yahoo Headlines - CNN Asia - CNN - Biloxi Sun Herald - and 14 related » [Google Technology News]
Well, I would not say that they have proved that race does not exist. What they have shown is that the visible, physical characteristics of race are not linked in any fashion to genes derived from a select population of people, such as Africans or Portugese. That is, we generally define race by characteristics that do not have any real validity and are not accurate genetic markers for the origins of a people. Skin color is a good example. Someone with very dark skin may actually have more genes from their European ancestors than from their African. And the reverse is also true. The best thing for a species is for it to have good gene flow, so that important and useful genes can spread throughout the population as rapidly as possible. It looks like Brazil is such a place. America also has a well mixed population at least genetically. We just need to get it through some people's heads that any correlation between the way you look and the race you belong to actually has very little to do with genes and very much to do with social contructs. 9:55:51 PM
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ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty. In the first major test of the criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a jury finds ElcomSoft not guilty of creating a tool to steal eBooks. [CNET News.com]
This is great news. It turned on the phrase 'willful'. Simply offering a program that some people could use for unintended purposes was not deemed illegal, as the government and Content Cartel want. 11:32:19 AM
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Study Finds Blood Cells Able to Switch Identity [Science Blog]
This is really interesting. Macrophages and B cells are usually found on separate arms of the charts detailing lineages of hematopoeitic cells. For them to change from one to the other means that novel pathways must be at work. Novel pathways always get scientists excited. 12:09:56 AM
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Physicist Says Market Crashes Predictable; Major Decline Due in 2003 [Science Blog]
Every day, the financial news tries to have some top-down reason for the day's events. This scientists takes a more bottom-up one, examining the trajectory of stock market bubbles and collapses. He believes that the emergent behavior from these complex systems can be observed and quantified. He may well be right. If so, it may then be easy to tell when a bubble is occurring and take steps to prevent it. This could be the biggest deal in economic theory since the Keynsians had their day. If it is true. Let's see in 2004. (Maybe this is the foundation for the work that leads to Hari Seldon's research. Pun intended.) 12:07:40 AM
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