[ExI] good bexarotene article

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of The
Avantguardian
...

> ...
> 
>> ...  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? ... would not we go around

> the whole profit-driven medical-government alliance?

>... 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...

Good, this had to happen.  What we have here is a case where the
pharmaceutical/government alliance is harming people for profit.  This is
the poster child case, right here.  It might be that bexarotene is useless
or harmful, but every day that passed without our knowing is useless or
harmful.

>... 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? 

Worse than silly.  It might be that skin cancer dose of 75 mg/day is
effective in fighting beta amyloids, and if so, the cost is about 40 bucks a
day.  Plenty of retired people cannot afford that, and medicare will not
cover it for that purpose, however, they will cover it for skin cancer
treatment.  So for the less well funded seniors with Alzheimer's, we need
some kind of drug that will cause skin cancer.  Then they can get medicare
to pay for their Alzheimer's drug.

I think we must end up going with reagent grade bexarotene however.  It
would be healthier to risk a milligram a day of aluminum trichlor and good
old sodium hydroxide than to try to induce skin cancer.

>...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
 
I already have it Stu.  Sell the reagent grade bex as a hand soap.  If
people decide to take a pinch of this powder, drop it in a shot of vodka,
stir vigorously and slam it down, well, hey you aren't in any position to
tell them what to do with the hand soap you sold them, which is intended
for, you know, washing their hands.

I can't find a price for reagent grade bexarotene, still looking.

One last thing for you guys to chew on: this stuff might not be just for
grandma; it might be too late for her.  But you and I are quietly
accumulating beta amyloid ourselves right now.  This bell might be tolling
for me and thee.  Perhaps the beta amyloids may be prevented by the right
medications, we just don't know.  But once those plaques form, there is
plenty of brain damage already done.  If we prevent that, we prevent losing
what makes us such cool people.

spike