If you’re a manufacturer of medicines, thinking up a suitably snappy name for (2S)-1-[(2S)-6-amino-2-{[(1S)-1-carboxy-3-phenylpropyl]amino}hexanoyl]pyrrolidine-2-carboxylic acid [generic name Lisinopril] might not be an easy task. And, according to a recent paper in the journal Names : A Journal of Onomastics, Volume 66, Issue 2, 2018, picking the ‘wrong’ name can make a huge difference to your […]
Tag: drug
A further delay in the arrival of a universal drug creation machine
The new great attempt to make a machine that can conveniently make and deliver any —any — kind of drug has hit a snag. The previous great attempt, by two-time Ig Nobel Prize winner Jacques Benveniste, hit a snag two decades ago, and never got unsnagged. The Retraction Watch blog sums up the new case: Paper claiming […]
Assessing the taste of medicine
This study probes in some detail the sentiment that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”: “The bad taste of medicines: overview of basic research on bitter taste,” Julie A. Mennella [pictured here], Alan C. Spector, Danielle R. Reed, and Susan E. Coldwell, Clinical therapeutics, vol. 35, no. 8 (2013): 1225-1246. The authors, […]
Comparative death counts: Marijuana vs. water
There’s news about the literally grave danger that a feared drug might pose for someone somewhere some day. Details are in a new study. The study describes two persons who died from no obvious cause, and who—the doctors conclude — therefore must have died from the unknown amounts of marijuana that they are likely to […]
Drug experiment of the day: Cocaine and Oreo Cookies
Today’s Drug Experiment of the Day happened at the University of Connecticut. Connecticut College News announces: In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/ high-sugar foods, Professor Joseph Schroeder [pictured here] and his students found rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as […]
Goat’s-blood product sacrificed
Mike Levine of Dealbreaker reports, biz-tech-bitchily: It seems that California biopharma company Immunosyn has been a little more optimistic about the prospects for its blockbuster drug than would be warranted by the facts. Specifically facts such as (1) the FDA has blocked clinical trials in the U.S., (2) there are no clinical trials likely elsewhere, […]
The ethics of eating a drug-company donut
Philosophy and medicine join forces because of a donut, in the study: “The ethics of eating a drug-company donut,” Karl Broznitsky, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1996 March 15; 154(6): 899–900. It concludes with this passage: “He bit into the donut, as content with his rationalization as his staffmen were with theirs. A blob of grape […]
Medical attention for Tikosyn
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: A fact sheet for the heart drug Tikosyn advises: “Seek medical attention right away if any of these SEVERE side effects occur when using Tikosyn: Severe allergic reactions… fast, slow, or irregular heartbeat; fainting; heart attack; pale stool; paralysis; pounding in the chest; stopping of the heart; sudden death; yellowing […]