candy, drugs and stocks - Odds and Ends

A strange combination of items for tonight's post - let me explain.  I had only meant to log on to make a quick little follow up to last night's Easter related comment and was side tracked by a news story that led me to add a couple of more things.

First - I just wanted to point out that I used our recent holiday to say something positive about eggs, but not candy :)

Second - I came across a term I had not heard before, though it was easy to google and is not a new term.  The term was really a phrase - ethical drugs.  Do you know what makes a drug "ethical?"  The definition is "drugs that are provided by prescription only".  In other words, not drugs that are over the counter drugs or supplements.  Isn't that odd that these medicines, many of which are harmful, over prescribed and sometimes sold on the street, are considered "ethical." 

Third - Would you like to get an idea of how important and effective health care reform is and maybe how drug companies are not themselves "ethical" ?  Read a blog about pharmaceutical company JNJ in which the analyst gives reasons why the company did NOT have a good year - i.e. profits were down or absent - I will quote the article, which means I should link it, which means you will also see where I first read the phrase, "ethical drugs."   When the article refers to efforts to control health care spending (below) it means that the company is under pressure to lower the price of its drugs or that benefits programs are limiting their use in its recipients...
    "It has suffered from a host of issues including:
continuing efforts to control health care spending in developed countries with Obama care exacerbating the US situation,"

Fourth - An article about saving energy and replacing light bulbs caught my attention.  One of the reasons is that I had meant to update my readers on my experience with lightbulb replacement - after I put in the CFL bulbs, my power bill went up.  I bet that was a coincidence - right?? I will let you know next month.  More frustrating, in this article is reference to two light bulb types that meet the new energy standards and do not contain mercury.  Why didn't Duke Energy 1) offer me this kind, and or 2) tell me that the ones they were giving away had mercury in them.

Fifth - The CDC recently released a report noting that many states have comprehensive smoking bans and that they expect the entire country to have them in the future (ten/twenty years).  Comprehensive means that there is no indoor smoking in bars, restaurants OR work places.  The reason these bans are important is the high correlation of  disease and death related to second hand smoke.  In response to this news, a blogger in Kentucky noted that her state has the least indoor smoking laws, is second only to NC in (US)tobacco production and has the highest rate of new lung cancers.  Yes  indeed - smoking kills.