by J T Junig on 2013/05/11
The forces of nature appear intent on reversing mankind’s progress toward better health. An example is the ever-increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. A timeline of the existence of humans and bacteria shows that bacteria have been around for a very long time— much longer than mammals, and much, much longer than humans. In fact by the dawn mankind, bacteria had been thriving, relatively uninhibited, for over 2 billion years.
Modern humans have been around for 40,000-200,000 years or so, depending on the definition of ’modern.’ Bacteria have had the upper hand during all of mans’ existence, save for the past 100 years after penicillin and other antibiotics were discovered. Only the most self-centered of species would look at a timeline and conclude that humans have won the battle with bacterial diseases. There are always reasons for optimism, but a fair assessment of our current struggle with antibiotic resistance suggests that someday, people will look back on the current sliver of time, when humans can treat most bacterial infections, as a golden era of medicine that wasn’t appreciated as such at the time.
Viruses adapt to mankind’s health efforts too, with new variants arising from the sludge at the bottom of the food chain to infect birds, swine, or other creatures before moving on to human hosts. The CDC and other scientists work to predict the vulnerabilities of the next super-virus, hoping to reduce the severity of the next pandemic. As with bacteria, we are enjoying an era without smallpox, polio, or other dreaded viral diseases that used to kill otherwise-healthy people. We take the victor’s position for granted to the point that our children don’t know why chlorine was first added to swimming pools. Gone with the last generation are the fears associated with iron lungs, orange window-signs, and leg braces.
by J T Junig on 2013/05/04
A few weeks ago I described Reckitt Benckiser as a ship returning to port, after the FDA ‘bitch-slapped’ the company for a bit of trickery that was intended to block generics from making Suboxone.
As an aside… I wondered if ‘bitch-slap’ would be an offensive, misogynist term, or whether it was a fair way to describe what happened to Reckitt. I looked it up on Urban Dictionary and found a number of definitions for the term, enough to convince me that the phrase is appropriate enough. I also found the description of a movie by the same name that sounds pretty stupid:
Three girls, a down-and-out stripper named Trixie, a drug-running killer and ex-convict named Camero, and a corporate powerbroker nicknamed Hel, arrive at a remote desert hideaway to extort massive riches from a ruthless sword-wielding killer named Pinky, who is also a notorious underworld figure.
Amazing what one can learn on a quiet Saturday morning.
If RB was a ship returning to port, then Titan is the little train that could… but couldn’t. Last week the FDA denied Probuphine, the six-month buprenorphine implant designed to tap into the opioid dependence market. The FDA questioned whether the implant yields blood levels of buprenorphine high enough to block cravings for opioids, causing the stock price to fall by 74%. Hopefully, employees of Titan have diversified IRA’s– not just shares of company stock!
I realize that I’m just a solo-practice psychiatrist. living in Wisconsin… but I have written to Titan a number of times over the past few years. asking for a discussion about efforts with Probupine. Other pharmaceutical companies usually write back when I reach out to them, sometimes even engaging in discussions about pipeline products related to opioid dependence. Titan didn’t respond until a couple weeks ag0, when they asked me to correct my description of Probuphine as an ‘injection’ by instead calling it an ‘implant.’ Small potatoes… but missing FDA approval is a big-enough disaster to wonder if the people at Titan really understand the issues.
by J T Junig on 2013/04/28
I’m always impressed by the power of our ‘unconscious.’ I realize that people have a range of models for conceptualizing how our minds work; my own combination of education, analysis, and observation has led to an understanding that ‘works for me.’
My conscious mind works in series, holding one or two thoughts at a time and proceeding in a somewhat-linear fashion. The unconscious, on the other hand, is an amalgam of countless processes that never end, epiphenomena of the constant barrage of sensations, emotions, and memories that are sorted, compared, associated, and recorded.
At least that’s how I see it.
The unconscious is not something that can be figured out, no matter how much insight a person may develop. During treatment for addiction I thought that if I could discover my unconscious motivations for using, my desire to use would cease. I don’t see it that way now. Even after more than a decade of sobriety, I am aware that my unconscious mind remains intertwined with the addictive parts of my personality, forever inseparable.
My unconscious mind protects me from unpleasant emotions. Some insights are deemed, by whatever determines my conscious experience, as too painful. But even when I’m not allowed to have a certain awareness, I can sometimes infer what is going on beneath the surface using the clues evident in my behavior.
For example, I’ve been struggling to write for several weeks now, since my dad’s death. I don’t know for certain what unconscious thought or emotion is getting in the way, but I’m aware that something has changed. The ideas that arise as potential topics seem unworthy of my attention and uninteresting to readers. I sit down to type, but the words don’t come.
