- Folks, there is depressing news from the world of
anti-depressants. If a consumer class-action suit filed in the
United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose
Division, before Magistrate Judge Paul Singh Grewal, is to be believed then
depressed people may as well take a sugar pill rather than pay top dollar for Zoloft
(Sertraline hydrochloride). Pfizer Inc., the drug’s
manufacturer, is being sued by plaintiff Laura Plumlee, who claims she took Zoloft
for three years with no discernable results. In the suit, she argues that the antidepressant medication offered no more
benefit than a placebo. Her attorney, R. Brent Wisner (of course this
ass hat has a first initial in front of his name in typical lawyer pomposity)
argues that the Food and Drug Administration should not have approved Zoloft
because Pfizer had not published some clinical trials which demonstrated that
the medication was not significantly different to a placebo. The company is accused of deceptively marketing Zoloft as a
"highly effective treatment for depression” while knowing full well that
it had virtually no impact on the illness. The lawsuit hinges on several key
points, most notably that most Zoloft clinical trials that focused on
its efficacy proved to be either negative or neutral and in these studies,
Zoloft was not significantly better than a placebo in relieving the symptoms of
depression. In fact, the suit claims that placebos often deliverd better
results than the actual drugs and that Pfizer was fully aware of this fact. Pfizer
knew about how effective or ineffective Zoloft was, "as documented in
internal company documents discussed in the complaint,” the suit says. Yet
oddly enough, Pfizer kept right on making and manufacturing Zoloft as if
everything were copasetic. As the lawsuit’s theory goes, convincing consumers
and doctors that Zoloft was highly effective in treating depression ensured the
company of continuing to take in huge profits. This supposedly sinister plot
was carried out through a "a comprehensive scheme of selective publication
of clinical trial data, ghostwriting positive manuscripts about the efficacy of
Zoloft, paying prominent physicians (known as Key Opinion Leader or
"KOLS") to tout the efficacy and safety of Zoloft, and misleading
advertising on television and in magazines." Since the drug launched in
1991, sales have netted more than $30 billion for Pfizer and before its patent
expired in 2007, Zoloft's annual sales exceeded $3 billion each year. Even
today in a more competitive market, the drug still brings in $500 million
annually……..
- It’s about time someone was punished for the music of the
Spice Skanks. Since God-awful music is still not a legally acceptable reason to
sue someone in Britain, this will have to do for now. Instead of Scary, Sporty,
Posh or Skanky Spice being punished, a Nottingham, England resident has
been evicted from his home after repeatedly playing the group's song “Viva
Forever” at ear-splitting volume. Gavin Townroe used to live in Digby Court in
the Lenton area of Nottingham and now he doesn’t. He was booted for repeatedly
playing loud music, leading one of his neighbors to lodge a complaint last
January. Following the complaint, Townroe was later given a citation because
one neighbor called off work because he was so fatigued due to a lack of sleep.
In spite of that development, Townroe continued to disrupt those around him and
was subsequently given a six-week suspended jail term in October. When that
wasn’t enough to silence this kook’s abiding love for one of the worst musical
acts of all-time, the Nottingham City Council took action and successfully slapped
Townroe with an eviction notice mandating he leave his home by February 4 and
also pay costs of £913. "Despite being warned, Mr. Townroe had a total
disregard for his neighbours. At times the volume was so loud residents would
leave their properties to escape the music,” said police spokesman Wayne Cliff.
Neighbors will undoubteldy be relieved to not hear a poorly sung challenge to
“Spice up your life” at 8 a.m. or have to listen to the decree that, “If you
wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”The story continues a
well-deserved run of bad fortune for the Spice Skanks, as a West End musical
written by Jennifer Saunders and using the group’s music was roundly panned by
critics when it opened in London last fall………
- Way to address problems head on and in productive fashion,
residents of Aspen,
Colorado’s West End neighborhood. Those living in this upscale area are sick
and tired of motorists doing what they do everywhere else on God’s great
spinning Earth, speeding. Because they’re special and don’t want to put up with
it, these whiny Coloradans recently pushed their city council to lower the
speed limit. Initially, Mayor Mick Ireland suggested an 18 mph limit because
the number is out of the ordinary, but council members decided to adopt the
spirit of the X-Games, which their city hosts each winter, and either go big or
go home. They went even lower and decided to drop the proposed limit down to 14
mph. That change led to one of the more unusual speed limit signs around, one
that reads, “Speed Limit 14 mph.” To outfit the entire area with signs denoting
the new law, a total of 60 signs will be ordred and at a cost of less than $500
per sign, the estimated cost for the change will be more than $27,000. That
obviously means the city’s police department will simply need to write more
tickets to offset the cost, which probably won't be a problem. But the lower
speed limit has to be making an impact, right? “We are still receiving
complaints about speeding,” City Engineer Trish Aragon said. “Although from an
engineering perspective, we don’t see that they’re speeding. But the perception
still is that vehicles are speeding through the neighborhood.” Thanks for that
insightful observation, Trish. To all of the complainers who hoped the change would
discourage motorists from cutting through the neighborhood to avoid congestion
on Highway 82 near the S-curves….well….suck it…….
- As former women’s tennis eye candy Anna Kournikova once
told a young male fan, “You can’t afford me.” Put reigning NBA Most Valuable
Player and Miami Heat star LeBron
James in the same category because clearly, LBJ doesn’t believe there is a
paycheck in existence big enough to pay him what he’s worth. In fact, James doesn't
think it's possible to be paid his actual value under the current NBA rules. "What
I do on the floor shows my value. At the end of the day, I don't think my value
on the floor can really be compensated for anyways because of the (collective
bargaining agreement)," James said. "If you want the truth. If this
was baseball, it'd be up, I mean way up there." Glad to know you’re so
high on your own value, ‘Bron. Maybe you should have taken your talents to MLB
and then you could have scored than contract worth $35 million annually.
Instead, James is toiling away for a mere $17.5 million this season, which is tied for 13-highest in
the NBA. He’s well behind league earnings leader Kobe Bryant, who is making $27.8
million for the Los Angeles Lakers. Back in 2011, James was asked what it would
take to get him to play in Europe during the NBA's lockout and suggested he
could be worth $50 million a year. Some teams are looking to shed payroll
before a new more stringent luxury tax arrives next season and have traded away
some of their most expensive assets to do so. The Heat are in decent shape
because James and teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all took less than the
maximum salary when they signed three years ago. Rather than let his
“sacrifice” go unnoticed, James wanted to make sure everyone knows about his
unselfishness – before immediately insisting that credit didn’t matter to him. "I
have not had a full max deal yet in my career -- that's a story untold," James
said. "I don't get (the credit) for it. That doesn't matter to me, playing
the game is what matters to me. Financially, I'll sacrifice for the team. It
shows for some of the top guys, it isn't all about money. That's the genuine
side of this, it's about winning. I understand that." Yes, it’s about
winning and being able to take less money because you also make $40 million per
year in endorsements and sponsorships and work in a state with no individual
income tax……..
- After a late night at the bar and with a splitting
headache from one too many encounters with the bottom of a just-drained red
solo cup, Zimbabwe stumbled to the ATM the next morning looking for a few bucks
to get some quality hangover food and man, was Zimbabwe stunned to see how much
money it had left in its checking account. Yes, this is Zimbabwe the country,
the one in Africa, and unlike your bro-ham who needs a few bucks for a chalupa
and a burrito to soak up the excess alcohol in his system but only has $2.27
left in his account, Zimbabwe is a nation of several million impoverished people and
a government to run and it only has $217 left in the bank. Not $217 million or
$217 billion, but $217. Finance Minister Tendai Biti confirmed the dire
financial prognosis this week and admitted that paltry amount is all that’s
left in the country's public accounts after it paid its civil servants last
week. Biti pointed out that having been paid for what might be the last time
for a while, those civil servants were probably better off than the state. To
the obvious question of how the hell an entire nation gets to this point: After
a decade of inflation hit 500 billion percent in 2008 — leading to the issuance
of 100 trillion-dollar bills in Zimbabwean currency — the country switched to
the U.S. dollar and despite the change, the debt the country built up during
those years of nationalist rule by President Robert Mugabe drained its cash
reserves and depleted its tax base. Its current coalition government was
credited by the International Monetary Fund in September with taming
inflation and stabilizing the economy, but the Mugabe-fueled aftershocks
remain. Salary for civil servants accounts for 73 percent of the national
budget but to hear Biti talk, those servants may not get their coffers
replenished again any time soon. "The government finances are in a
paralysis state at the present moment," he said…….
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