[ExI] good bexarotene article

[The Avantguardian]

----- Original Message -----
> From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
> To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 3:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] good bexarotene article

> Hey cool, I found this on wiki:
> 
> Bexarotene is a solid, white powder. It is poorly soluble in water; the
> solubility is estimated to be about 10-50 µM. It is soluble in DMSO at 65
> mg/mL and in ethanol at 10 mg/mL with warming.[3]
> 
> DMSO is dimethyl sulfoxide.  You can get that stuff in reagent grade
> cheaply, and it absorbs directly through the skin taking with it whatever is
> dissolved in it.  A therapeutic dose for cancer patients is about 75 mg, so
> it would take would be a little over a gram of DMSO.  Then again, it would
> only take about 7.5 ml of alcohol, which is the amount of alcohol found in
> about 8 ounces of beer, and that's that weak California 3.2, or four ounces
> of normal beer.
> 
> So never mind Targretin.  What if we could find the company that makes
> reagent grade Bexarotene and buy it not as a medication but as rather a
> flavoring for beer?  Or rather as mouse food?  The patents apply to
> Targretin, but not necessarily to bexarotene, which should solve one hell of
> a lot of problems.  If we short circuit the Targretin route and have a
> million amateur chemists dissolving reagent grade (but not pharma grade)
> bexarotene in alcohol or DMSO, would not we go around the whole
> profit-driven medical-government alliance?

Reagent grade is usually only about 99% pure, Spike. That 1% impurity can be unconsumed reactants, products of side reactions, bacterial endotoxins, or practically anything. So I would discourage anybody from using reagent-grade on a human without having a drug chemist clean it up for you. Feeding reagent grade to mice on the other hand is fine as long as you are not recieving NIH funding. If you are recieving NIH funding then you must use the pharmaceutical or vetinary grade drug.

It is kind of stupid law because it is sort of giving doomed lab rodents a prescription drug benefit that is paid for by tax-payers. Because of this experiments are much more expensive to conduct because you are paying full price for the drugs. But this is the strength of the pharmaceutical lobby in this country. Lab mice get government-subsidized prescription drugs while humans must buy their own. Kind of silly huh? 

Also keep in mind that beer is food and regulated by FDA *and* the ATF so if you plan to sell bexarotene-spiked beer, I would get a lawyer and come up with a loophole to exploit first.


Stuart LaForge
 
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson