Pill Takers Beware!!!

Shocking experience this morning. Lesson learned.

My normally reliable Safeway Pharmacy blew it Big Time in attempting to refill a prescription.

The particular formulation is one of the statin drugs used to get better cholesterol numbers. Thank God I'm a naturally chatty person. The pharmacist gave me the refill and I started talking about how simvastatin almost killed me 2 years ago with dreadful muscle ache side effects, and that I was so please with now using this older version, called pravastatin.

The pharmacist looked at me like she's just seen Jim Carrey naked.

Guess what?

They had given me the wrong scrip!!!

Fortunately, I still had 2 pills left and the bottle with me so I could compare and match the new prescription.

LESSON FOR ALL: Check, then double-check that you have been given the right poison.

Fire the Writers! Some Comedies Just Write Themselves

So we ask you to do something, and then you do it too well, so we stop talking to you.

Ecco the City of Vancouver.

For years, the City has been giving an east side neighbourhood trucks and bins to clean up their area. The neighbourhood won awards for their diligence.

Now, the City says that the 'hood is throwing out too much "personal" trash.

Result, the City is taking away the trucks and bins.

In fact, the City is threatening anyone who tries to throw out "unauthorized" garbage" with...wait for it..."a dumping infraction."

A dumping infraction....hahahahahaha....you can't make stuff like this up!

Only the City can satirize itself so successfully.

SHRINKING THE LAW

When will we remove psychiatry - that most witchy pseudo-science - from our criminal justice system?

In the latest travesty in which a head doctor hijacks a courtroom, someone claiming to be an "expert" in sleep disorders, changed the entire outcome of a dangerous driving case in a local court.

A woman fell asleep while driving at 6:30 in the evening and killed a 5 year old.

The psychiatrist convinced the judge that the driver was suffering from "undiagnosed chronic insomnia."

How does he know this?

Why would the judge and a set of appeal judges give this man any credence?

Cheques & (Bank) Balances

There is a disturbing trend in editorial writing these days.

This morning, The Vancouver Sun has published yet another piece decrying public disagreement with official policy. A consistent pattern has emerged in recent months in which the city's largest daily journal objects to debate or opposing opinions, favoring in each case, the status quo.

Today they say ,"Critique of Olympic Planning is Redundant and Wasteful."

And they may be right about the way this study was funded and other particulars. But isn't this the core of democratic process - checks and balances?

So a group was gifted $109,000 to rate VANOC's performance?

When VANOC is shrouded in secrecy and spending is astronomical and historical precedent tells us that Olympic Games are often in the red, why not ask questions?

The Fifth Estate can do better.

Doctor, Doctor. Gimme More!

Did you know that it is legal in America for a doctor to receive payment from a pharmaceutical company to prescribe the pharma's drug products?

And because it is legal and highly profitable, moral and ethical considerations never enter the equation.

Click here to read the startling and detestable story. Then ask yourself to what degree does the same behaviour appear here in Canada. I don't know the answer. But I do know this. While I am happy to see many reforms in our health care system, including the embracing of some private components, the example herein points clearly to the disaster of free-market health care delivery.