Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/28/billionaire-pharmaceutical-fou.html
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Given the choice, I’d prefer a nice dry prosecco, really.
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I kinda want to volunteer to do free proofreading, and I’m not even being facetious.
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Been there…
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Coincidentally, The Curbsiders Internal Medicine podcast just covered a paper that shows “sub-dissociative doses” of Ketamine are just as safe and effective for pediatric pain relief as fentanyl nasal spray.
I was not sure what to make of that, but I guess the main benefit it is at least Ketamine is non opiod alternative.
ETA: They also discussed how important pain relief was in their context, which is GPs and hosptitalists I think. Effectively relieving and controlling pain is shown to significantly impact finishing courses of treatment, attending follow up appointments, physical therapy completion, and life long attitudes toward health care so it is worth making pain relief a priority for patient care, especially in kids, but effectively and sensibly.
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Imagine being so dissatisfied with your lot in life that you’d conspire to get more people addicted to drugs just to boost your shareholder value even though you were already a 70-something Billionaire.
What could Kapoor possibly want to do in the time he has left on Earth that requires more money than he already has?
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Yeah, “Just as” safe and effective is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I feel like the opioid crisis has left me both eager to hear about new pain control options but also extremely skeptical of claims about their safety.
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Yeah, but did you make the prose cuter?
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As I understand it, ketamine is remarkably safe, for a powerful painkiller. Which, as you note, is an important caveat.
Like, in the party scene here, there’s been quite a rise in GHB overdoses because of the success of the crackdown on ketamine - you can’t get ketamine nowadays, so folks are taking GHB instead. Except GHB is way more dangerous, and if you liked high doses of ketamine and transfer your habit over to your GHB use you’re likely to get in a lot of trouble.
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I’m hoping it’s not a typo. That’s the kind of serious consequence that might make these drug CEOs think twice about pushing opioids. I’d settle for murder charges, though.
We’re assuming it’s about the money - maybe he just wanted to kill some people?
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Thank you for my new grindcore deaththrash band name.
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Ketamine is becoming popular for pain relief bc it is non-addictive and does not cause respiratory depression or complications at the doses used for pain. So your risk of accidental death bc you stopped breathing from your pain medication is very low.
Actually, that’s pretty much the gold standard for new pain medications. They must work as well as current offerings, and be at least as safe as current offerings, or they will not be approved. it started with tylenol, which is just as safe as aspirin…
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Money is its own reward. Got to drive that high score up, because the one with the most when he dies wins!
Ketamine tolerance builds up pretty fast, and used long enough, it makes you piss out chunks of your insides.
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From a news site used by physicians, this:
Vox weighs in:
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“Could we get you to murder a few people for a nice dinner out? Don’t worry, the link between your actions and their deaths won’t feel visceral.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/28/business/gimme-an-rx-cheerleaders-pep-up-drug-sales.html
ETA: too tired to dig up The Daily Show footage but here’s a ref to it from WBUR…
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I read the same earlier today on a completely different thread (Hacker News thread on an article about the Thai cave rescue, IIRC). Ketamine is commonly glossed as a horse tranquiliser (somewhat unfairly, as it’s apparently also used on e.g. dogs), but it seems that the reason why it’s used on horses is not just its strength but its safety: it’s tricky to weigh a horse, so you want something where you don’t need to be too precise with the dosage.
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