STANDARDS OF BEAUTY CHANGE. TODAY MONA LISA WOULD NEED LOTS OF WORK.

Some of us recall when Allergan Inc. was a small Irvine, California, company making topical eye medications. Today the company is a huge enterprise with one-third of its revenue coming from Botox, the paralytic injectable which is the only compound of its kind approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2006 sales topped one billion dollars in total world revenue. Now the Botox parties are soon to be in competition with a similar compound made by Medicis Pharmaceutical called Reloxin, which is awaiting FDA approval. The compounds are not identical, but the differences are small, so the competition will be in pricing. Money always seems to attract a crowd, and now dentists, family practitioners, dermatologists, cosmeticians, as well as plastic surgeons are hosting parties to fill face lines, puff up lips and paralyze frowns. How long can you fool mother nature?

DELAY IS THE DEADLIEST FORM OF DENIAL. HERE THERE IS ROOM FOR PANIC.

In 1994 the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed with an explosive force equal to 5000 lbs of trinitrotoluene (TNT). One hundred sixty-two people died at the scene; eighty-three survived and were rushed to the Oklahoma University Hospital Medical Center, a level one trauma center. All but six survived. Now without a major cash infusion that trauma center will close in June 2008 and critical trauma patients will need to be evacuated to Texas or Kansas. For unexplained reasons state and federal governments have largely ignored the mounting difficulties of providing trauma care. Trauma one centers across the country bleed red ink at an incredible rate. Many negative factors contribute: shortage of trauma surgeons; increasing number of uninsured patients; demise of community ED call panels, malpractice turmoil; increasing physician sub-specialities; low managed care reimbursement, Medicare and Medicaid failure to cover costs, and coding numbers that penalize trauma surgeons. Military authorities boast that a badly injured soldier or Marine in Iraq can be on an OR table in Germany in four hours, and that is great. At the same time a similarly injured person back in the USA can bleed out while waiting for evacuation to a trauma center.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LITTLE GARLIC.

Allicin, a sulfur-based compound which gives garlic its unique smell, has been tested to treat or prevent a variety of medical problems from cancer, heart disease, and the common cold down to toenail fungus. The problem is that most of the trials come from companies that make garlic supplements and the numbers are small, subjective and not too compelling. A 146 patient study in Advances in Natural Therapy claimed that a garlic pill taken daily reduced the frequency of colds and shortened the recovery period for those who did get the virus when compared with a placebo. But the author was a scientist at Allicin International, a British company that sells the garlic supplement. His work has yet to replicated. Filipino babies wear a garlic clove around the neck for the first year of life as protection against disease, but detailed studies have yet to be released.

A GENUINE HIGH NOTE; UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII CANCER RESEARCH CENTER!

CEO Richard Rotondo announced that Mediscovery Inc., and its sister company Medisyn Inc., are moving operations to Kahului, Hawaii. Mediscovery specializes in the use of nano-technology to speed up drug research and development primarily for cancer. Cancure, the company anti-cancer drug, targets malignant cells with no toxicity and reduces the side effects associated with other cancer-fighting drugs. As Cancure progresses with FDA approved animal trials, Rotondo said the company wants to conduct the first phase of clinical human trials in Hawaii. The primary driver behind the company’s decision is the University of Hawaii’s Cancer Research Center which is building a new state-of-the-art comprehensive cancer facility in Kakaako.

THERE IS NO BURDEN HEAVIER THAN THAT OF CONSCIOUS LIFE.

Reporting in Nature, research teams at University of Texas, Austin, and Harvard University studied nineteen pregnant women to determine how they could maintain balance and avoid falling forward when they were carrying the equivalence of two bowling balls (thirty lbs.) in their protuberant abdomens. They discovered that women have a number of reinforcements that men lack, including a lumbar curve that spans three rather than two vertebrae, and spinal joints that are 14% larger and positioned differently. These enhancements allow the women to offset the frontal mal-distribution, and lean back as much as 28 degrees beyond normal without doing damage.

WHEN THERE IS A LACK OF HONOR IN GOVERNMENT, THE MORALS OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE ARE POISONED. (Herbert Hoover)

Congressional investigators found that Verizon didn’t bother to ask for warrants or court orders when federal authorities requested telephone records. From January 2005 to 2007, without any legal foundation, Verizon turned over records 720 times. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not merely want data on specific persons, but also on all the people those people called, and in turn all the people they called! So, if I know someone, who knows someone else, who was contacted by a questionable person, perhaps the FBI is snooping through my laundry. The ordinary law-abiding citizen appears to be in more jeopardy from Dubya’s anti-terrorism vanguard than any external malevolence.

GIVE A WOMAN AN INCH AND SHE WANTS TO BECOME A RULER.

Anytime you wish to kick off a lively discussion in a mixed group, do as former Harvard Professor Lawrence Summers did in 2005, and suggest that the relatively low number of high-achieving women in math and science reflects a lack of inherent aptitude for such endeavors. Summers lost his job in the campus-wide flapdoodle that ensued. But the disparity remains, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington D.C. scientific meeting in October 2007 wanted to hash out why females lag behind males in math and science achievement. Ultimately, an 18-member committee came out with a consensus statement "early experience, biological factors, educational policy and cultural context affect the number of women and men who pursue advanced study in science and math. These effects add and interact in complex ways." What a relief! Now the subject is much clearer, or is it?

CARS DID AWAY WITH HORSES. NOW THEY DO AWAY WITH PEOPLE.

A car crashed into a bank building in Tarzana, California. EMTs were able to remove the driver who said he was alone in the vehicle. Two days later family members called the police station inquiring about his mother. Officials called the towing company and asked them to see if anything was unusual about the car. They reported finding an elderly woman under the air bag. She was dead. The county coroner stated that the 72 year-old mother died within minutes after the crash and not in the towing company’s parking lot. Another caveat for paramedics - look under the exploded bag.

SHE’S SELLING WHAT SHE USED TO GIVE AWAY.

Philadelphia Municipal Judge Teresa Deni dismissed rape charges against four men who had sex with a prostitute at gun point. Because the woman had initially agreed to a business proposition, said the Judge, the men should properly be charged with "armed robbery for theft of services." The local bar association and women’s activists were enraged with the decision.

THEY SHOULD HAVE ORDERED TAKE OUT.

In London, a couple was preparing breakfast and frying bread when suddenly it caught fire. As the flames leaped higher the man reached into a nearby laundry basket, pulled up his auntie’s size XL bloomers, soaked them under the faucet and threw them over the grease fire which immediately subsided. Good thing auntie wasn’t wearing a thong or string bikini panties.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

In Wellington, Florida, a woman stole a baby Jesus from a nativity scene. Police were able to track down and arrest the thief with the aid of a GPS which was attached to the Babe. Possibly the modern day Magi were using OnStar.

ADDENDA –

• Eighty percent of migraine sufferers are women.
• Forty percent of nurses say they do not want any member of their family treated in the hospital where they work.
• In schools dice have been replaced by "number cubes."
• Indonesia has 167 active volcanoes.

Aloha, and keep the faith. ----------rts

Contents of this Newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinion, policy or position of the Hawaii Ophthalmology Society or the Hawaii Medical Association. Editorial comment is strictly that of the writer