Oooops! Re: Paul Felton: Open Letter to Progressive Democrats
Of course the quoted phrase is from the Progressive magazine, not from Jim himself. Hope there is no confusion. Carrol Carrol Cox wrote: Devine, James wrote: Nader's Wrong Turn It is (would be) one thing to argue that progressives (leftists in general) ought not to support or vote for Nader. It is quite different to attack Nader (or any other third party or independent candidate) for running. I find the latter rather repulsive. Carrol
Re: oooops
I read the article different from an oops. They are saying that they want to use genetic information to make the drugs more specific to individuals -- then they can charge more money and the drugs will be difficult for generic producers and Canadian exporters. On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 10:47:09AM -0800, Eubulides wrote: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=471139 Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients By Steve Connor, Science Editor 08 December 2003 A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=471139 Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients By Steve Connor, Science Editor 08 December 2003 A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them. It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by £2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of £7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (£600m) a year. Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients. Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients, Dr Roses said. Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said. The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people, Dr Roses said. I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody. Some industry analysts said Dr Roses's comments were reminiscent of the 1991 gaffe by Gerald Ratner, the jewellery boss, who famously said that his high street shops are successful because they sold total crap. But others believe Dr Roses deserves credit for being honest about a little-publicised fact known to the drugs industry for many years. Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public but not his colleagues, said one industry scientist. He is a pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug. Dr Roses has a formidable reputation in the field of pharmacogenomics - the application of human genetics to drug development - and his comments can be seen as an attempt to make the industry realise that its future rests on being able to target drugs to a smaller number of patients with specific genes. The idea is to identify responders - people who benefit from the drug - with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to eliminate those non-responders who might benefit from another drug. This goes against a marketing culture within the industry that has relied on selling as many drugs as possible to the widest number of patients - a culture that has made GSK one of the most profitable pharmaceuticals companies, but which has also meant that most of its drugs are at best useless, and even possibly dangerous, for many patients. Dr Roses said doctors treating patients routinely applied the trial-and-error approach which says that if one drug does not work there is always another one. I think everybody has it in their experience that multiple drugs have been used for their headache or multiple drugs have been used for their backache or whatever. It's in their experience, but they don't quite understand why. The reason why is because they have different susceptibilities to the effect of that drug and that's genetic, he said. Neither those who pay for medical care nor patients want drugs to be prescribed that do not benefit the recipient. Pharmacogenetics has the promise of removing much of the uncertainty. Response rates Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent Alzheimer's: 30 Analgesics (Cox-2): 80 Asthma: 60 Cardiac Arrythmias: 60 Depression (SSRI): 62 Diabetes: 57 Hepatits C (HCV): 47 Incontinence: 40 Migraine (acute): 52 Migraine (prophylaxis)50 Oncology: 25 Rheumatoid arthritis50 Schizophrenia: 60
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New York Times] March 7, 2003 Vivendi Posts Huge Loss; May Shed Assets By JOHN TAGLIABUE PARIS, March 6 - Vivendi Universal reported today that it lost more than $25 billion for 2002, largely as a result of huge write-offs on investments made in the heady years of the 1990's. Vivendi's board, meanwhile, gave its chairman, Jean-René Fourtou, the green light today to explore shedding its American entertainment assets. Vivendi's loss of 23.3 billion euros - more than expected and nearly double its loss of 13.6 billion euros a year earlier - was the largest corporate loss in French history, breaking a record set just Wednesday by France Télécom, which reported a loss of $23 billion. Vivendi narrowly escaped a liquidity crisis last year. Today, however, the company said that it expected to return to profitability, before exceptional items, by 2003 and reaffirmed its pledge to shed assets worth 7 billion euros this year. The results were announced after a much-anticipated meeting of the company's directors. While the entertainment businesses were discussed, senior managers gave no hints on their future at a news conference today. Mr. Fourtou said only that Vivendi was examining options for the entertainment assets, which include Universal's film and music businesses, its cable channels and television production businesses, and that Vivendi had been approached by several potential partners. He said Vivendi's plan to shed assets this year worth 7 billion euros was a continuation of an effort to reduce the mountain of debt built up by his predecessor, Jean-Marie Messier, who transformed Vivendi through acquisitions from a water utility into a media and telecommunications giant. Asset sales last year, Mr. Fourtou said, including the sale of the publisher Houghton Mifflin and most of Vivendi's stake in the water and waste group Vivendi Environnement, enabled the company to cut its net debt to 12.3 billion euros by the end of the year, from 37.1 billion euros a year earlier. Vivendi's loss reflected good-will charges of 18.4 billion euros and another charge mirroring the depreciation of portfolio investments totaling 2.9 billion euros. Excluding one-time items and good will, Vivendi lost 94 million euros. Last year, Mr. Fourtou said at a news conference after the board meeting, was an extremely difficult year, but 2003 promised to be a year of transition and of financial and economic progress. On the bright side, Mr. Fourtou said operating profit at Vivendi's six core business units rose 18 percent, to 3.2 billion euros, last year, largely because of strong performances at the phone company Cegetel and Vivendi Universal Entertainment. The company's other core businesses are the Universal Music Group, Vivendi Universal Games, Maroc Telecom and the French pay-television company Canal Plus. Mr. Fourtou had considered selling 51 percent of Canal Plus in an offering on the Paris bourse this year. But operating losses at Canal Plus totaled 325 million euros last year, down from 374 million euros the year before. The losses, coupled with the weakness of global stock markets, led him to abandon the plan. Though a heavy loss had been expected, Vivendi shares dropped in Paris trading, closing down 4.3 percent at 12.43 euros; in New York, Vivendi's American depository receipts fell nearly 5 percent, to $13.56. Financial authorities in France and the United States are investigating Vivendi's accounting methods under Mr. Messier after shareholders filed a lawsuit claiming that they had been misled. Finance police earlier this week raided the offices of the French bank Société Générale and collected documents as part of the investigation. But Vivendi said today that the board had no knowledge of any elements calling into question earlier accounting methods. It said the 2002 accounts were established according to the same methods used in previous years.
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``There never has been any such thing as free trade and never will be,'' said Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who listed a series of trade barriers erected by foreign nations that he said undermine existing agreements. ``Almost like world peace. You strive for it. You strive for it. It won't happen in my lifetime, in your lifetime.'' http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Trade.html
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Bush tax cuts put US $51bn in red Special report: George Bush's America Heather Stewart and Jane Martinson in New York Wednesday August 1, 2001 The Guardian President Bush's $38bn (£26bn) tax rebate will force US government finances into the red, the US treasury admitted yesterday. In a u-turn from its previous forecast of a $57bn surplus, the treasury now expects public finances to show a $51bn deficit over the next three months, as the combined effects of the rebate and the slowdown in the economy bite into Washington's revenues. Treasury officials insisted the swing into deficit was a short-term cashflow crunch. We made a decision to implement an immediate economic stimulus through tax cuts. These numbers simply reflect those changes, said Tony Fratto, a treasury spokesman. The news failed to dampen Washington's determinedly upbeat view of the economy's prospects. Karen Hendershot, the treasury's acting director of macroeconomic analysis, said that the fillip to public spending from the tax rebate should add a full 1% to US GDP growth by the end of the year. While we cannot dismiss the uncertainties about the progression of recovery in the business sector, it seems plausible that the worst of the slowdown may be behind us, Ms Hendershot said. The US public are continuing to shop at a healthy rate in the face of the economic slowdown, according to official figures. Consumer spending increased by a larger than expected 0.4% in June, the commerce department said yesterday, up from 0.3% growth in May. However, a drop in consumer confidence raised fears that the public will not continue to steer the economy clear of recession by spending their tax rebates, as the treasury is hoping. The confidence barometer published yesterday by independent researcher the Conference Board, fell to 116.5 from 118.9 in June. Almost 100m US taxpayers are set to receive an average of $300 each by the end of September, as part of a package of tax cuts worth $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years. A two-week delay in the payment date for corporate taxes from mid-September, enacted after the budget estimates were made, accounts for $28bn of the unexpected public deficit, by pushing receipts into the next US fiscal year, which begins on October 1. This particular exercise in smoke and mirrors will cost the treasury more than $40m in lost interest income, Louis Crandall, chief economist at financial analyst RH Wrightson Associates said of the measure. Mitchell Daniels, the administration's budget chief, expects a surplus of between $160bn and $190bn by October, but the bulk of this - some $150bn - is the politically untouchable social security budget. The congressional budget watchdog had previously forecast a surplus of $275bn for this year. Joshua Feinman, chief economist at Deutsche Asset Management in New York, said: I don't think it's the end of the big budget surplus, but we've certainly seen the peak.
RE: Oooops
Elephant shit. mbs Bush tax cuts put US $51bn in red
Re: RE: Oooops
Elephant shit. mbs Bush tax cuts put US $51bn in red Want to send a letter? You can email letters to the Guardian at the following address: [EMAIL PROTECTED], fax them to 0171 837 4530, or post them to: 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER
