#Pharma company usa

[tinyredpoppies]

What's the damn point of having medical insurance if it doesn't cover everything and also has a several thousand dollar deductible?

[hellouniversehowareyou]

Every single time I see the prices of insulin in the US I want to puke, like what the actual fuck, I get my insulin, sensors to check my glucose and all that jam for fucking free, as it should be everywhere, jfc

God the prices of tvs have changed so much let me get my graph

[makpharmausa]

Pharmaceutical packaging is an essential aspect of the pharmaceutical industry. It plays a critical role in ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of medicines. In this beginner's guide to pharma packaging, we will cover the basics of pharma packaging, its importance, and how a pharma packaging company is helping to protect your products.

[kashikaoberoi789]

Acies Pharmaceutical Pharma Company in USA, USA Pharmaceutical Companies

Acies is one of the top pharma company in USA supplying high quality and affordable medicines to their customers

Acies Pharmaceutical Company in USA Private Limited, Best pharma company in USA is a young, dynamic and emerging pharmaceutical company, with the vision of “making everyone healthier” where we believe in providing quality new generation medicines everywhere in the world. Acies is one of the top pharma company in USA supplying high quality and affordable medicines to their customers. When looking for the best USA Pharmaceutical Companies in USA, Acies is one of the acclaimed and leading pharma medicine manufacturer.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Trump gave Moderna all the patent-waivers it needed to make a vaccine

There’s a lot of competition for the title of “Most On-The-Nose Symbol of Late Stage Capitalism,” but I think there’s a strong case for awarding the crown to “Vaccine Apartheid” — the decision to deny covid vaccines to billions of poor people in the Global South.

Here’s how that went down: countries in the poor world were arm-twisted into signing the WTO agreement on pain of being shut out of global trade (these former colonies had all been forcibly converted to export crop economies that relied on rich-world countries for seed and Big Ag tech, so opting out of trade wasn’t an option).

Part of the WTO is the TRIPS (AKA “Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights”) — a treaty that binds WTO members to respect each others’ patent rights. This is an inarguably bad deal for poor countries, which is why the USA didn’t respect foreign patents until they became a net patent exporter.

One way this can go horribly wrong? Pharmaceuticals. The marginal costs of producing most drugs are very low, but Big Pharma wants to charge all the traffic can bear — markups of tens of thousands of percent! They say this is to recoup R&D, but R&D costs are largely borne by public institutions, with pharma giants privatizing the gains from those public expenditures.

Once a drug is invented and tested, it can be made very cheaply, so poor countries could benefit from it, even given their very modest means, and poor countries can’t afford to pay rich world prices. Cheap drug prices for the global south won’t cut into full-price sales for the poorest 3 billion people. They��re not ever gonna pay US prices.

But this still would be bad for pharma’s business model, which is predicated on raking in those five-figure margins from people in the rich world, some of whom are quite poor (thanks, inequality!). If there’s a low-cost source of pharma’s products somewhere else in the world, then desperate people in the rich world will figure out how to import those low-cost drugs, and a giant pharma company’s stock buybacks and dividends will be reduced from hella-billions to mere umpty-billions.

So if you’re a poor country, signing onto the WTO and the TRIPS means that nearly everyone in your country just won’t have access to lifesaving drugs. This is such an obvious bad deal that the WTO negotiators from the global south balked at it, so the WTO threw them a bone: IP Waivers.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo

Here’s how those (are supposed to) work: if there’s a terrible emergency, say, a pandemic, then the WTO can grant “IP Waivers” to poor countries, which say, “Since this is such an humanitarian disaster, we’re going to temporarily lift your obligation to respect rich, offshore corporations’ patents. You can make their drugs, or import them from another poor country that’s doing so.” Sometimes these waivers make it free to use foreign companies’ patents, other times, they set a fixed cost (a “compulsory license”) for practicing a patent.

IP Waivers are as much as part of the global patent system as patent protections are: they’re the quid-pro-quo that justified poor countries’ tying their own hands and agreeing not to make drugs that would improve the quality of life for the people who live there.

But corporatists and Ayn Rand trufans hate IP Waivers. Back when South Africa and other global south countries were in danger of collapsing under the AIDS pandemic, they petitioned the WTO for an IP Waiver for AIDS drugs, which were otherwise priced beyond their means.

They had a real shot at it, too! But then, the Gates Foundation (yes, that Gates Foundation) sent its operatives to Geneva to argue against any such thing, insisting sovereign countries should beg rich foreigners to donate medicine to them, and if the rich foreigners didn’t want to, they should just let their people die and their nation fail:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

Gates and his Foundation epitomize the idea that the only way to organize public health issues is through the whims of unaccountable billionaires, rather than democratically elected governments. When Oxford University announced plans to make its vaccine patent-free, Gates changed their mind, talking them into an exclusive deal with Astrazeneca instead:

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

Rather than trusting billions in the global south to decide how to make and distribute vaccines, Gates set up a program called COVAX, whereby rich people and rich countries could donate covid vaccines — enough to treat just a tiny slice of the world’s poorest people.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

Meanwhile, at the WTO, the global south showed up calling for an IP Waiver for covid vaccines. The rich world’s pharma companies having laid out plans to delay vaccination until 2025 for 2.5 billion people in 125 countries, the case for a covid vax waiver was very strong.

Big Pharma went on the offensive. They paid ghoulish “experts” — like Howard Dean, now an unregistered pharma lobbyist — to spread the racist lie that poor brown people are too stupid to make their own vaccines (the largest vaccine factories are in the global south).

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/21/wait-your-turn/#vaccine-apartheid

They also promoted the dangerous, medically incoherent theory that poor people should “wait their turn.” This isn’t merely an inhumane, vicious ideology, it’s also a recipe for cooking up lot of covid variants, including those that escape vaccine immunity and re-infect people in the rich world. Leaving 2.5 billion people unvaccinated for years and years, incubating variant after variant, is the gift that keeps on giving…to the virus.

The idea that we can deny vaccines to half the world is like the idea that we can create a swimming pool with a "pissing" and "non-pissing" end, and doom all the people who can't afford the pay toilets to swim in the pissing end - without all of us marinating in piss.

It’s…ironic? Tragic? Tragironic? Because, of course, the vaccines were made with public money — direct state intervention in the market, in the form of R&D and production subsidies and purchase guarantees. The people insisting that unfettered markets are the only way to produce vaccines are manifestly wrong.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/entrepreneurial-state/#patient-zero-money

To its credit, the Biden administration backed the IP Waivers, but they didn’t throw a lot of weight behind it, and the corporate lobby outmaneuvered them, killing waivers by arguing that any kind of IP Waiver would be the end of vaccine production forever:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy

But now, a trove of Trump administration documents that Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) forced the US government to release shows that these very same pharma companies enjoyed luxuriant, expansive IP Waivers of their own. Writing in The Intercept, Lee Fang details how Moderna, in particular, demanded and received waivers:

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/23/covid-vaccine-patents-moderna-big-pharma-section-1498/

All in all, the Trump admin granted IP Waivers to 62 US companies making drugs, PPE, and medical equipment. These waivers allowed their recipients to march into their rivals’ patent rights and seize them, without permission, in order to produce the drugs, supplies and equipment needed to fight the virus.

These waivers were granted under 28USC§1498 (aka Section 1498), a rule that allows government contractors to demand a compulsory license to their rivals’ patents, indemnifying them — and often, the government — from patent liability. Beneficiaries of the S1498 waivers include Moderna, but also Corning, Eli Lilly, Merck, Qiagen, Sanofi and Siemens.

S1498 dates back to 1910 and came into widespread use in WWI, when the US government expropriated the Wright Brothers’ airplane patents to create an air force. S1498 got another lift in WWII, under similar circumstances.

It has been quiescent since, and, indeed, the Trump administration kept its use of waivers a secret. KEI was tipped off to their use thanks to a lawsuit filed by two of Moderna’s competitors, who complained that Moderna “simply used the patented technology without paying for it or even asking for a license.”

KEI cofounder James Love told Fang that he supports the use of waivers for covid vaccines: “I’m glad they did it.” But he pointed out that even as Moderna was relying on these waivers, they were also denouncing the idea of waivers for poor countries as an existential risk to all pharma research.

Meanwhile, Moderna’s vaccine was “really one of the most profitable biopharmaceutical products of all time.” The CEO who oversaw its production has liquidated $400m in stock. The company received $2.48b in public subsidy to make the vaccine.

Anyway, enjoy your variants. Mask up, everyone!

[Image ID: The Earth, floating in space, with its southern hemisphere in flames; it is being irradiated by a beam-weapon fired by a Death Star-style coronavirus molecule, bearing the Moderna logo.]

[ezhilmozhi]

Disney has trademarked the names of a bunch of Norse gods.

This is not okay.

These gods do not belong to Disney. They do not belong to Marvel. They belong to themselves and themselves alone, along with all those who worship them as the deities they are.

Thor, Loki, Odin, etc., these gods were not thought up by anyone at Disney or Marvel.

Stan Lee knew how sacred these gods are to those who follow many different Pagan traditions, how sacred they are to Scandinavian cultures to whom they are so important.

My best friend follows the Norse gods. She will be so bloody offended when she finds out about this. These are her gods, this is her religion. These are the deities she worships, the gods she prays to, the traditions she follows. She enjoys the Marvel portrayals of these characters, but they are separate from the gods she believes in.

Disney is stepping on her religion in an effort to gain more and more money.

Stan Lee did not trademark these names. He understood their importance and their sacred meaning. He was respectful enough not to do this.

These names are not the intellectual property of anyone. Neither the original names in runes nor the anglicised names that are used in Marvel's works.

They were around well before us (a whole ass millennium before us), and they will be around well after the greedy bastards who have decided to trademark religious symbols are dust.

It should be common sense and common courtesy not to trademark the names of religious figures, which all of these gods and goddesses are, even if you do not believe in them.

mod is not christian but you would never see me trademark jesus ffs it crosses a Line

If you agree, please sign and share the petition. If you can, please chip in to get this petition everywhere it can possibly go.

It is f**king disgusting that Disney is doing this.

It needs to stop.

Oh, and one more thing.

FUCK DISNEY.

i want to throw up ive included a bunch of tags trying to get the norse pagans attention bc im sure they'll want in on this if u have an in with the norse paganism community on tumblr pls do tag everyone u can

im wondering now if they've done this to the greek gods too ughh that would show even more of a disregard for other people's religious views and past people's religious views ughhhh ok imma go look at the toilet bowl for a bit 😅pls sign it'd mean the world to me

[zyduscadila-blog]

Zydus Cadila, a leading Indian Pharmaceutical company is a fully integrated, global healthcare provider. From formulations to active pharmaceutical ingredients and animal healthcare products to wellness products, Zydus has earned a reputation amongst Indian pharmaceutical companies for providing comprehensive and complete healthcare solutions.

[leebird-simmer]

All About: Opioids

- Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects.

- Opioids include opiates, an older term that refers to the drugs derived from opium, including morphine.

Opioids = Narcotic Analgesics

- The opioid drugs are narcotic analgesics:

sleep-inducing (narcotic)

pain-relieving (analgesic)

- They are the best painkillers known to humankind, and they also produce a sense of euphoria.

- They create a sense of relaxation, but at high doses, they can lead to coma and death.

Opium

- Opium has been used recreationally and in medicine for thousands of years (since 5000 BC in China).

- Opium is an extract of the poppy plant (Papaver somniferum).

- Opium is prepared by drying and powdering the milky juice taken from the seed capsules of the opium poppy just before ripening.

- Opium contains morphine, codeine, thebaine, narcotine, and other ingredients.

- Recreational users often smoke opium for its rapid absorption from the lungs.

Opium-Based Products

- Laudanum, an opium-based medicinal drink, was introduced to England in 1680.

- Drinking laudanum-laced wine was the accepted form of opium use in Victorian England & USA.

- Up to the 20th century, laudanum was common in popular remedies.

Morphine

- extracted from the poppy plant in 1805 by a German chemist named Friedrich Serturner

- It was the first time an active ingredient of any medicinal plant was isolated.

- Extraction of morphine allowed doctors to prescribe it in known dosages.

- very powerful analgesic and euphoric drug

- named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams

Codeine

- isolated in 1832

- less analgesic effect and fewer side effects than morphine

- A potent cough suppressant, it is often included in cough medicine and in pain relievers.

Heroin

- was developed by the Bayer Company in 1874 to be more effective in relieving pain and cough without the danger of addiction.

- Heroin was made by adding two acetyl groups to morphine, making it more lipid soluble. The very rapid action of heroin is responsible for the dramatic euphoric effects achieved with that drug.

- as a street drug, preferred over morphine

- pharmacological effects of morphine and heroin are essentially identical because heroin is converted to morphine in the brain.

Oxycodone

- semisynthetic opioid derived from thebaine

- In 1916, German scientists at the University of Frankfurt developed oxycodone as an analgesic less addictive than morphine.

- Oxycodone was approved by the FDA in 1950 as Percodan (mix of oxycodone & aspirin).

- Since the early 1960s, abuse of prescription opioids containing oxycodone has been a major concern in the USA.

- In 1996, Purdue Pharma introduced (and aggressively marketed) OxyContin, a controlled release formulation of oxycodone.

- Purdue advertised Oxycontin as non-addictive because the drug was designed to be released within the body over a 12-hour period.

- Recreational drug users quickly learned to get high by crushing or dissolving these time-release pills.

- Spread of Oxycontin abuse has resulted in increased deaths from overdose.

Molecular structure of morphine, codeine, heroin, and naloxone

Selected natural and synthetic opioid drugs

Heroin = Schedule I

Morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, opium, methadone = Schedule II

Opioids: Routes of Administration

- Recreational users often smoke opium for its rapid absorption from the lungs.

- Morphine:

in hospitals: intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous injection; or given orally

in the streets: inhalation

- Oxycodone, vicodine: taken orally as pills

- “Snorting” heroin leads to rapid absorption through the nasal mucosa. Subcutaneous administration (”skin popping”) may precede the more dangerous “mainlining” (IV injection).

Opioids: Distribution

- Morphine and oxycodone have similar fat-solubility and only a small fraction of the drugs can cross the blood-brain barrier.

- Heroin and fentanyl are much more fat soluble and can reach the brain faster. They are much more potent when injected.

- Opioids easily cross the placenta. Newborns can suffer withdrawal symptoms but can be stabilized with low doses of opioids.

Opioids: Metabolism

- Morphine reaches peak levels with oral administration within 60 minutes; with IV injection, within 15 minutes. The drug has a half-life of about 90 minutes to 3 hours.

- Fentanyl: with IV injection, peaks in 1 minute; half-life of 1.5 hours.

- Oxycodone: oral administration peaks in 30-60 minutes (controlled release 3 hours); half-life is 3-5 hours.

- Oral administration: first-pass metabolism in the liver reduces the bio-availability of opioids.

- Most opioids are metabolized via CYP-mediated oxidation (codeine, oxycodone, methadone) and have substantial drug interaction potential (with the exception of morphine).

Opioids: Excretion

- After metabolism in the liver, most opioid metabolites are excreted in the urine within 24 hours.

- Typically, morphine can be detected in urine for 1-2 days. In cases of heavy or chronic use, morphine might be detectable for slightly longer, but it usually can’t be detected after about 4-5 days.

Pharmacodynamics: Effects of Opioids

- Effects of opioids on the CNS are related to dose and rate of absorption.

- Low to moderate doses result in:

pain relief (analgesia)

relaxation

dreamy sleep

- Some researchers suggest morphine relieves anxiety, aggression, and feelings of inadequacy. This may lead to more drug use.

- At higher doses, there is an abnormal state of elation or euphoria, described as a “kick,” “bang,” or “rush.” This acts as a powerful reinforcer that encourages repeated drug use.

Pharmacodynamics: Side Effects

(A) Behavioral

- drowsiness, inability to concentrate

- (rarely) adverse effects, such as dysphoria, restlessness and anxiety

- At highest doses, the sedative effects may lead to unconsciousness.

(B) Physiological

- constricted pupils

- nausea and vomiting. Opioids affect the area postrema in the brain stem that elicits vomiting.

- constipation: Opium and morphine have been used to treat diarrhea and can be life-saving to stop fluid loss in severe bacterial and parasitic diseases.

Opioid Overdose

- at highest doses = respiratory depression. In recreational users, tolerance to euphoria develops faster than to respiratory depression.

- Opioids act on the brain stem’s respiratory center; respiratory failure is the ultimate cause of death in overdose.

- sedative effects may lead to loss of consciousness.

- body temperature and blood pressure fall

- pupils become very constricted

- antidote = naloxone (Narcan)

Opioid agonists = morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, etc.

Opioid antagonists = naloxone, naltrexone

Neurochemical Effects: Receptors and Endogenous Opioids

- Our bodies synthesize our own analgesic substances: endogenous opioids (endorphin, enkephalin, dynorphin)

- Endogenous = produced in our body

- discovered in 1974

- produced in response to pain, but also to exercise, laughter, etc.

- Both opioid drugs and endogenous opioids produce their effects via endogenous opioid receptors in the CNS.

Analgesia - medial thalamus, periaqueductal gray (PAG), median raphe, spinal cord

Positive reinforcement - nucleus accumbens, VTA

Cardiovascular and respiratory depression, cough control, nausea and vomiting - brainstem

Opioids: Mechanism of Action

- Opioid receptors are metabotropic.

- Opioids inhibit nerve activity in multiple ways:

Postsynaptic inhibition - receptors activate a G protein that opens K+ channels to hyperpolarize the post-synaptic cells, reducing firing rate.

Axoaxonic inhibition - receptors activate G proteins that close Ca2+ channels, reducing the release of neurotransmitter.

Pain Pathways to the Brain

- How do we feel pain?

- Painful stimuli can be detected by special receptors (nociceptors) located all over our body (including in our skin).

- Sensory information is sent through the spinal cord to the brain, where painful sensation is formed.

- Nociceptors --> Spinal cord --> Thalamus --> Cortex

Pain Management

- Multiple regions in the brain can suppress activity of the pain sensory neurons in the spinal cord.

- PAG (periaqueductal gray) is the key structure.

(I) Opioids stimulate neurons in the PAG that are responsible for inhibition of the pain sensory neurons in the spinal cord.

(II) Opioids directly inhibit the pain sensory neurons in the spinal cord.

(III) Opioids also affect higher sensory areas, hypothalamus and limbic structures in the brain.

Opioids: Reward Pathway

Reward pathway: mesolimbic: VTA ---> Nacc

- Opioids suppress GABA synapses on VTA dopaminergic neurons

--> Disinhibition --> Increase in firing --> Increase in dopamine release in Nacc

- Experiment: opioids micro-injected into the VTA increase dopaminergic cell firing

- Continued activation of the dopaminergic reward pathway leads to the feelings of euphoria and the ‘high’ associated with opiate use

Chronic Use of Opioids

- Chronic use of opioids leads to neuro-adaptive changes, which are responsible for tolerance, sensitization, and dependence.

- Opioids have significant reinforcing properties.

- Opioids effectively produce tolerance.

- Cross-tolerance among the opioids also exists.

- Example: after chronic heroin use, codeine will elicit a milder-than-normal response even if the individual has never used codeine before.

- Physical dependence: neuro-adaptive state in response to long-term occupation of opioid receptors.

- Physical dependence does not necessarily lead to abuse or addiction.

- When the drug is no longer present, cell function returns to normal and overshoots basal levels. Effects are seen in withdrawal symptoms (abstinence syndrome).

- Opioids in general depress CNS function; opioid withdrawal is rebound hyperactivity.

- Abstinence signs reflect a loss of inhibitory opioid action at all receptors in the CNS and elsewhere, as blood levels of the drug gradually decline.

- Severity and time course of withdrawal symptoms can vary with many factors, including the particular drug used:

Heroin: peak within few minutes; withdrawal may begin within 6-24 hours of discontinuation of the drug

Methadone: gradual increase over several days and a gradual decrease over several weeks

- Drug’s time frame can fluctuate with the degree of tolerance as well as the amount of the last consumed dose.

- Withdrawal symptoms can also be classically conditioned.

- The high rate of relapse may be due to the conditioned abstinence syndrome in the old environment.

- Some addicts describe withdrawal symptoms when they visit areas of prior drug use, even years later.

Opioid Addiction

DSM-5: Opioid Use Disorder

- A problematic pattern of opioid use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by at least two of the 11 criteria, occurring within a 12-month period.

Treatment

- A multidimensional approach includes detoxification, pharmacological support, and group or individual counseling.

- Counseling helps addicts identify the environmental cues that trigger relapse and design a behavioral response to those cues.

- Narcotics Anonymous is another option, based on the program for alcohol abuse.

Detoxification is the first step, which can be assisted by opioids such as methadone and buprenorphine (opioid receptor agonists):

substitutes for heroin

reduce symptoms to a comfortable level

Methadone maintenance program:

The most common and effective treatment for heroin addiction. Relieves craving for heroin.

Methadone is long-acting, producing a constant level of drug in the blood.

Methadone has cross-dependence with heroin, which prevents severe withdrawal symptoms.

Methadone can produce a “high” if injected, which could lead to illegal diversion of the drug.

Thus, programs require daily supervised oral administration. Little or no euphoria occurs with oral administration.

Oral administration reduces use of the needle by the addict and the ritual surrounding its use.

- Some treatment programs use narcotic antagonists (= opioid receptor antagonists).

Naltrexone (Trexan) is most commonly used because it has a longer duration of action than naloxone, is effective when taken orally, and has few side effects.

This method is effective for highly motivated individuals. Craving for the drug is not eliminated, so most less-motivated addicts stop antagonist treatment and return to drug use.

Experimental Treatment:

A vaccine is being developed to produce antibodies that would bind to the drug molecules in the blood circulation and prevent entry into the brain.

A vaccine that recognizes heroin and its active metabolites has been tested in rats.

[crazyalien87]

the "trans conspiracy"

look. I don't think this "trans ideology" is just a psyop conspiracy from a bunch of misogynists wanting to deny the right to female-only spaces or a bunch of pharma companies wanting to profit off dysphoric people. I'm sure they may have contributed to it & worsened it. but really, I think it is just a logical extension of dysphoria cope via transition.

you see, it started with "trans people have really bad dysphoria, u gotta call them the opposite sex & new name for they can be more happy & let them transition" & whatnot. which is reasonable. sometimes. but then it just escalated into "don't just call transmen men now they are actually men & vice versa" & like totally redefining words as like the ultimate cope. bc like obviously a very dysphoric person wants to be the opposite sex so bad that like they wanna be as close to that as possible. including everyone believing u are actually a man or woman based on some inherent gender u have. bc if u cant be your desired sex physically well at least u are that in ur brain/mind/soul.

this is why ppl can't explain what is a woman beyond someone who wants to be one. bc they would just have to say that women are female or want to be female n that they just wanna be female so bad that they wanna be women also but they arent actually female n thus arent actually women.

but like ppl got so wrapped up in what makes dysphoric people comfortable (which is important, of course) that they forgot to strike a fair balance with the comfort of everyone else. which is where we get shit like transwomen in women's sports, redefining words to be more "inclusive" (theoretically if there are the same amount of transwomen & transmen they should cancel out & we should have the same amount of women & men, thus it is equally inclusive), etc... but of course it's not just that. there are also misogynists that wanna take away women's rights to single sex spaces messing up shit. & medical companies wanting to fasttrack all dysphorics towards transition without considering if it's right for all of us (it ain't).

thus, u get this weird clusterfuck some have called "trans rights activism" (which is more like redefining words activism).

that's also where u get weird shit like xenogenders bc that is the logical extension of redefining words. bc if u can be any gender u want...it doesn't have to be a normal gender anymore...?

oh of course there's also hella sexism in the online "trans community", at of usa people...bc we have a sexist society, which causes lots of people to want to change their sex (to escape gender roles n misogyny n such, or it just warps their ideas of what women & men "should" be)....

[hattusha]

Enki 

(story dump underneath)

First artwork of 2023, though technically this is still from last year. I began this just as a regular portrait, but it kinda ended having a similar vibe as the other color-coded ones I did for my OCs. I guess Enki's colour scheme is silver then. Or white. Both aren't akshually colours, I know. Enki isn' actually his real name, just something he picked because being an Edward Jackson is too generic, lol. His chosen name was taken from a God of the Mesopotamian pantheon (just like my other OC, Astarte, though that's actually her given name). Yeah, Sumerian and Akkadian mythology are recurring elements in my story. Enki hails from Texas USA, though in the Alternate Universe of my story which is set in the 2100s, the United States are no more and Texas became an independent country. It's a long story (and somewhat influenced by current real life happenings), but Texas independence came with a terrible civil war (and at a great cost). Enki and his people moved away to France when he was a child to evade being killed. His older brother started to work for a shady Technology company over in England and from there on things were never the same anymore. Eventually his brother would get entangled into a scandal (after witnessing somethign he wasn't ought to see) and arrested. Not shortly after he underwent the typical "reformation" program to recondition his supposedly criminal mind. That went pretty wrong according to the authorities. But instead of sending him back to his family (to be looked for and cared after) Enki's older brother was still kept in a facility somewhere in England. Even after too many inquiries, pleas and after threatening legal actions the authorities from Britannia would not return Enki's brother to his family, nor are they willing to give them any further information about his wherabouts. Enki would never see his beloved brother again. After the situation in Texas calmed down Enki moved back (while his family remained in Europe). He would soon lose them both as well. When his dad conducted investigations on the wherabouts of his eldest son he found information about how parts of "the Party" of Britannia were involved in very illegal activities that violated several human rights. Among them were experiments and research carried out on political prisoners such as his son. After this discovery Enki's parents would eventually "vanish" at the border between France and Germany during their vacation. Enki carries on despite the grief of loss almost destroying him. He relocates a few times to the various countries and city states that arose in the wake of the US collapse. In New York he eventually gets a job as an accountant at an IT firm that specializes in combat AI systems. That's were he learns about the "eternal kind" - half human-eldritch beings that can live for centuries. The owner of the firm is part of a group or cult who support and follow the leader of the Phonoi-halflings, a tribe that desended from cosmic beings called Phonoi by humans. This man reveals Enki the truth about the fate of his older brother and parents - that they were abused and used in anti-Phonoi research that the Britannians conducted with the help and aid of their government. And that the entities that carried them out were the Epsilon Defence organisation and Britannia Genesys Life Sciences (BGLS), a pharma company owned and led by the father of Loui Device. Enki swears to avenge his dead family and to kill all the people involved with the research. And because Loui was working for BGLS at that time Enki is also hellbent and fixated on murdering him.   Personally I'd call him the Visual Kei Texas Rager, because he is usually pissed off and full of RRRRAAAGE. His hair is bleached (he'd love to be as kewl as some halflings and have natural white hair) and his fave fashion style of choice is Visual Kei (the good kind from the 1990s). He changed his looks often so I maybe do an artwork of when he had a different hairstyle. 

[rekrootingagency]

5 Best Pharmaceutical Recruitment Strategies of All Time 

The USA has always been a pioneer in medical research and development. The country spends approximately $ 60 billion annually on the R &D of the pharmaceutical industry. It dominates the market both in terms of consumption and development. The pharmaceutical industry in the US market is expected to grow more rapidly with every passing year. According to the latest update by STAT news, the USA will spend up to $ 600 billion on prescribed drugs by the year 2023.  

Hence, with this expanding pharmaceutical industry, its staffing strategies are also evolving. So, the role of solid hiring strategies for the top medical recruitment agencies is irreplaceable today. The premium healthcare specialist staffing solutions can build a strong team of pharma talents with an effective recruitment strategy. This blog will discuss some of such exceptional pharmaceutical recruitment strategies that can take any pharma business to the next level! 

The experts who follow the healthcare staffing trends consistently vouch for these pharma recruitment strategies. So, if you are hiring pharma talents, you will surely benefit from this blog. Read on to explore! 

1. Go for Temp-to-Perm

Finding a qualified candidate is one thing. But finding one that fits well within your team is an entirely different aspect! Above that, it’s pretty complex to make this determination on paper. Mostly, the only way to ensure the talents you are hiring can 100% become an integral part of your team is to try before you buy.

So, start employing this strategy to hire the best pharma talents today! This strategy is much more effective than any random healthcare recruitment software. Hiring talent as a temp will allow you to have some time to assess whether they have a long-term future in your organization. Moreover, you will also be able to make your hiring decisions faster. 

Above that, a temp-to-perm strategy is also beneficial when you don’t have clear long-term plans. You are not collapsing into a substantial fixed cost at the initial stage by leveraging the temp option. 

2. Do an Extensive Research

Great recruitment strategies for the pharmaceutical industry require extensive research. You should aim to do an in-depth analysis by dividing your strategy into different steps: 

3. Research about the USPs  

Do extensive research on any certification, licensing, or any other specific skill set requirement which is in demand in the market now. And then, you can use them as filters for improving your chances of getting more potent candidates for interviews. 

4. Self-Evaluation

Have a clear look at your present employee status and be honest about what is working and what is not! Often, it is tempting to blame candidates if you need to build an outstanding team. But the real reason is mostly a poor organizational strategy. So, you must first work on it to ensure you create the best ambience to retain great talents. 

5. Explore the Pool

“Fish where the fish are” – Did you hear about the phrase? This applies to finding talents in the pharmaceutical industry as well. You should identify and evaluate different online locations where job-seekers in the pharmaceutical world prefer to see more work. 

Look for patterns like what most pharmaceutical candidates expect from a company and their careers, what you can do to make yourself look attractive to high-performing candidates, and so on. And once you find the answers to these questions, include them in your working strategy! 

6. Find the Effective Channels

Are you leveraging potent ways to reach the most proactive performers? Ensure you watch different websites, offline channels, networks, etc., to figure out the best ways to attract an audience of potential candidates. 

7. Know How to Establish the Best Culture and Brand

Understand what message your brand has for others, potential candidates specifically. After identifying it, flaunt it more while crafting your recruitment strategies. Try to research more and determine what you can do to portray your business as the best workplace. 

The clearer your answers are to the above queries that belong to different categories, the stronger you can craft the backbone of your pharmaceutical hiring strategy. 

8. Do Your Calculations

It is always recommended to stay clear about the numbers. Otherwise, it will be challenging to connect the pharmaceutical hiring process to the bottom line. How fast you are hiring is one of many metrics. The more you are clear about different aspects of the hiring process and their impact on your company, the more you will be in a better position to take your decisions. 

Make sure you have a list of the following things when it comes to pharmaceutical hiring: 

Target cost for each hire 

Time required to fill each role

Percentage of candidates hired by source channel 

Retention Rate 

Offer acceptance rate 

Open vacancies vs filled positions 

Mix of genders 

Don’t overlook it even if you can estimate easily. It’s because guessing won’t be enough to help you with the same base for decision-making and improved ROI as factual data. Hence, ensure you do your mathematics properly while hiring pharmaceutical talents! 

9. Opt for Social Recruiting Methods

Social recruitment is gaining much attention in the pharmaceutical industry because job boards and traditional ads are no longer effective. Engage with pharmaceutical talents via social media and present them with your opportunities. It will be like chatting with a friend and talking to them for a referral. 

According to the latest statistics, 77% of pharma recruiters find social channels better than job boards for hiring the best talents. It helps build good relationships with candidates rather than just promoting your needs on job boards. The most significant benefit of doing this is that you can start to sell the candidates on your culture more potent than ever before. So, the right prospects will already be pre-sold to you. 

The biggest companies have attained tremendous success with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter ads. Try to find out the social channels your prospective pharma candidates prefer and stay active on those platforms. 

Over to You

And here we come to an end! These solid recruitment strategies will help you succeed in your search for potential pharma candidates. Have you leveraged any of these strategies before? Tell us about your thoughts!

88% of pharma recruitment experts vouch for the above strategies. But is there anything else that worked for you? Please let us know in the comment section below.

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sacklers to use Purdue bankruptcy to escape justice

The opioid epidemic is a corporate murder spree that killed more Americans than the Vietnam war, and its deaths carry on, accelerating during the pandemic. The enrichment to its principal architects outstrips the Rockefeller fortune, and they stand to retain that wealth.

The Sacklers owned Purdue Pharma, whose Oxycontin was ground zero of the epidemic. Purdue pushed deliberate lies about the safety of its product and aggressively marketed through doctors and distributors, under the direction of the family patriarch Richard Sackler.

The Sacklers were determined to come through the crisis both rich and well-loved. They laundered the family reputation with gifts to arts institutions that saw their names on galleries and museums around the world. That was the carrot.

The stick was litigiousness - their lawyers threatened me for writing about them - that let them convert blood money to legal force, burying Richard Sackler's bizarre deposition, which only came to widespread attention thanks to John Oliver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U

That was just the tip of the iceberg. Lawyers for the company and the family used the law to suppress court proceedings that revealed the deliberate strategy to addict their customers to Oxy:

https://www.propublica.org/article/data-touted-by-oxycontin-maker-to-fight-lawsuits-doesnt-tell-the-whole-story

The courts were so complicit in the Sacklers' campaign to suppress evidence of their complicity that they became, effectively, co-conspirators in the opioid crisis:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/

The Sacklers didn't invent corporate crime playbook, but their contributions are significant. For example, their PR ninjas at Dezenhall Resources - late of Enron - did very will with a victim-blaming strategy that smeared the dead as reckless junkies.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-purdue-pharma-media-playbook-how-it-planted-the-opioid-anti-story

Eventually, the survivors of Sacklers' opioids caught up with them. Purdue was sloughed off into a bankruptcy proceeding, and the Sacklers themselves began to cry poor, offering what they claimed were their last $4b to survivors.

But they conspicuously failed to mention the $8-9 billion they'd moved offshore:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purduepharma-bankruptcy/sacklers-reaped-up-to-13-billion-from-oxycontin-maker-u-s-states-say-idUSKBN1WJ19V

They pumped $1b through a single bank:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/461362-ny-ag-uncovers-1-billion-in-sackler-family-wire-transfers-report

(the Sacklers dismissed this story as "nothing newsworthy").

It looks like they'll get to keep that blood money, too, thanks to another act of solidarity from the US legal system. A bankruptcy judge is poised to roll the Sacklers' personal liabilities into the bankruptcy restructuring of Purdue Pharma.

https://prospect.org/justice/sackler-familys-bankruptcy-scheme/

As Libby Lewis explains in The American Prospect, this is a bizarre metastasis of US bankruptcy law, which, in many cases, has swallowed the entire criminal justice system.

Under the Purdue/Sackler proposal, the rights of victims will be transformed into property, owed by the Sacklers, and which the bankruptcy court claims jurisdiction over. So the bankruptcy court can decide what that asset is worth and what percentage of that the victims get.

That means that the legal claims of the victims are being nonconsensually settled without a trial. Worse, the bankruptcy judge making this settlement isn't even a federal judge with Senate confirmation, qualified to hear a criminal matter - he's just an administrative judge.

It's a twisted process. The Sacklers aren't in bankruptcy court, so they aren't obliged to disclose all those billions stashed offshore. But they've asked the judge to turn the their legal liabilities into property that he can dispose of in *Purdue's* bankruptcy.

So Jenny Scully, who gave birth to an opioid-addicted child six years ago, because her doctors prescribed her dangerous painkillers whose risk had been downplayed by Purdue and the Sacklers, will have no more recourse.

None of this is in the Bankruptcy Code, but the courts (especially the Second Circuit, which covers the finance sector in NYC), follow a case from the asbestos settlement era that created this weird precedent.

The exception has swallowed the rule, and now bankruptcy is the go-to way for the beneficiaries of corporate crimes - even mass deaths - to walk away with more wealth than the Rockefellers.

Image: Geographer (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Sackler_Gallery.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[stanandcharleyandfriends]

Perhaps some of you recall my posts in this blog from 2016, recounting my experiences with the Seresto collar and our Rottweiler Diego. The shelter where we’d adopted him recommended these collars highly. By the same token Diego had personality issues that had resulted in his going unadopted for more than a year. We were committed to Diego--he was a virtual twin to our recently deceased Stan and we were sure we could rehabilitate him. We brought him home, and indeed he made slow but steady process--until we made the mistake of getting him (and our other 2 dogs) new Seresto collars. Diego started showing abnormal behaviors almost immediately and became fearful & unresponsive. When my wife finally said, “Maybe it’s the collar” we took them off all the dogs. Within a day Diego’s behaviors started to improve--but it took months before he was back to normal. Then, sadly, we discovered lumps around his neck and he was diagnosed with the lymphoma that eventually led to his death. Online I encountered several warnings about these collars--they were even harmful to the people who handle animals.

The news article from the link above is copied in its entirety below. It appeared on March 19, 2021.

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Congress seeks recall of popular Seresto flea collars possibly linked to hundreds of pet deaths

A congressional subcommittee has demanded the recall of a popular flea and tick collar that has been linked to the deaths of 1,700 pets and suspected to have caused illnesses in tens of thousands more.

In a letter to the manufacturer of the Seresto collar — a top seller on Amazon and at major US pet retailers — US Rep Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) demanded an immediate recall, citing reports that it has been involved in 75,000 harmful incidents to pets and nearly 1,000 incidents involving humans, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We believe that the actual number of deaths and injuries is much greater, since the average consumer would not know to report pet harm to EPA, an agency seemingly unrelated to consumer pet products,” Krishnamoorthi wrote in the letter.

The EPA, which regulates pet collars because they contain pesticides, also was implicated for not doing enough to address the massive number of complaints it had received, according to USA Today, which first reported the problems with the collars on March 2 along with the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

The Seresto collar “is the only flea and tick collar that combines a cocktail of two pesticides,” Krishnamoorthi wrote in a letter to Jeff Simmons, chief executive of its manufacturer, Elanco Animal Health, citing EPA data. While that may make the collars more effective against fleas, “apparently, they may be more toxic to pets and humans as well,” the lawmaker added.

One incident involving a 12-year-old boy who slept in bed with a dog wearing the collar resulted in the boy being hospitalized due to seizures and vomiting, Krishnamoorthi wrote.

In addition to demanding a recall and refunds for customers from Elanco, Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, is asking German pharma giant Bayer, which originally developed the collar, to release information about its toxicity.

Among the issues legislators are looking at are all communications “between Bayer and Elanco during Elanco’s acquisition of Bayer Animal Health regarding toxicity or risks of death and injury to pets or humans from Seresto flea and tick collars and the transfer of liabilities,” according to the letter.

Bayer sold its animal health division to Elanco last year for $7.5 billion. In 2019, it reported revenues of more than $300 million from the Seresto collar.

Officials at Elanco on Friday said it is cooperating with the congressional subcommittee’s inquiry and “looks forward to explaining how the media reports on this topic have been widely refuted by toxicologists and veterinarians.” The company added that “no market action, such as a recall, is warranted, nor has it been suggested from any regulatory agency.”

“There is no medical or scientific basis to initiate a recall of Seresto collars and we are disappointed this is causing confusion and unfounded fear for pet owners trying to protect their pets from fleas and ticks,” Dr. Tony Rumschlag, senior director for technical consultants at Elanco, said in a statement to USA Today.

A retired EPA employee, Karen McCormack, disagrees, as The Post reported. The collars have the most incidents of any pesticide pet products she’s ever seen, McCormick told USA Today. Seresto is one of the most popular collars sold on Amazon, which has numerous disturbing reviews about the product.

“10 days after placing the Seresto collar on my dog, she suffered a neurological problem diagnosed as meningitis of ‘unknown origin,’” one customer wrote. “She temporarily lost the use of her hind legs and vet bills have already exceeded $5,000.”

Amazon told USA Today through a spokeswoman that it is “reviewing” the product.

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Please: don’t use this product.