Probably the best news of the week was that this guy is going to prison.

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:  

The smirk wiped from his face, a crying Martin Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud Friday in a hard fall for the pharmaceutical-industry bad boy vilified for jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug. 

Shkreli, the boyish-looking, 34-year-old entrepreneur dubbed the "Pharma Bro" for his loutish behavior, was handed his punishment after a hearing in which he and his attorney struggled with limited success to make him a sympathetic figure. His own lawyer confessed to wanting to punch him in the face sometimes. 

The defendant hung his head and choked up as he admitted to many mistakes and apologized to the investors he was convicted of defrauding. At one point, a clerk handed him a box of tissues. 

"I want the people who came here today to support me to understand one thing: The only person to blame for me being here today is me," he said. "There is no conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli." 

I don;t typically like jury duty, but I would have GLADLY served on this jury just to watch this smug POS bawling like a baby when he realized that he was going to the big house.

Just in case you do not realize what a scumbag this guy is, let's take a walk down memory lane: 

Shkreli became the face of pharmaceutical industry evil in 2015 when he increased by 5,000 percent the price of Daraprim, a previously cheap drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can be fatal to people with the AIDS virus or other immune system disorders. 

Shkreli seemed to treat the case like a big joke. After his arrest in December 2015, he taunted prosecutors, got kicked off of Twitter for harassing a female journalist, heckled Hillary Clinton from the sidewalk outside her daughter's home, gave speeches with the conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and spent countless hours livestreaming himself from his apartment. 

He also infuriated members of Congress at a Capitol Hill hearing on drug prices when he repeatedly cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Afterward, he tweeted that the lawmakers were "imbeciles." 

Last fall, the judge revoked his bail and threw him in jail after he jokingly offered his online followers a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could get a lock of Clinton's hair.

It is no longer politically correct to wish that bad things happened to people in prison, but in this case I am willing to make an exception. 

Ever wonder why there are all of those erectile dysfunction ads on TV during prime time? Here you go.

While I appreciate Vice attempting to be even handed here, I actually think these advertisement have dome more harm than they are reporting in this piece.

As a matter of fact the AMA wants them banned completely: 

“Today’s vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices,” AMA board chair-elect Patrice A. Harris said in a statement Tuesday. “Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate.”

Yeah, no shit.

In my opinion not only are these ads completely distasteful but they also feed into a kind of national hypochondria which otherwise healthy Americans that they need a pill to somehow improve their lives.

What most of them need is a gym membership and a self driving car that refuses to take them to McDonalds or Pizza Hut.

I challenge you to watch this and not want to kill this guy with your own two hands. Can't do it can you?

If you had told me that I would be pissed off at a guy for being disrespectful to Trey "Benghazi Witchhunt" Gowdy I would have laughed in your face.

But somehow this POS makes that happen.

And when he smirks, nods derisively, and acts like a dick to my man Elijah Cummigs, THAT deserves a Costco sized can of Whoop-ass in my opinion.

For those who are unfamiliar with the context. 

The power of Hillary Clinton.

"Let's see whihc greedy multinational company should I bankrupt now?"

Courtesy of Bloomberg:  

Hillary Clinton may not be president, but she's moving the markets like she is one. For the second time in three weeks, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination wiped millions of dollars off the value of an industry with a single tweet. 

On Friday, private prison stocks dropped sharply after Clinton said the U.S. needed to “end the era of mass incarceration.” 

“We need to end private prisons. Protecting public safety...should never be outsourced or left to unaccountable corporations,” she said in a tweet drawn from comments she made during a speech on the criminal justice system in Atlanta. 

Corrections Corp. of America fell more than 6 percent, lopping off approximately $200 million in value, while GEO Group Inc. dropped 4.2 percent, losing about $100 million. 

Earlier this month, biotech stocks tanked after Clinton slammed Turing Pharmaceuticals for increasing the price of a drug by 50 fold. “Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,” she tweeted at the time.

She is not even in the White House yet, and yet she already has huge corporations shaking in their boots that she might target them next.

I would imagine that the NRA, the folks behind the Keystone XL pipeline, and Exxon are all stuck in the fetal position over recent remarks by Hillary as well.

That is the kind of power I want to see running this country. And let's face it as much as we might like other candidates, NONE of them carry a stick this big.

In other news a recent poll shows that Hillary now leads Bernie by 20 points.

And considering that the Republicans are now eating their young right out in public I do not think there is much standing in Hillary's way at this point.

Hillary Clinton finally talks about the Keystone XL pipeline. She's against it.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton declared opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, ending a long and politically uncomfortable silence on an issue that has become a touchstone for environmentalists and liberal voters. 

“I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone pipeline as what I believe it is – a distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change,” Clinton said at a community forum here. The debate over Keystone “interferes with our ability to move forward,” Clinton said. “Therefore I oppose it.”

Well that is certainly going to help Hillary with the liberals in this country.

Clearly Hillary realizes that our future energy concerns do not lie in fossil fuels, and is going to continue President Obama's emphasis on renewable energy resources.

In other positive Hillary Clinton news she has laid out a plan to strengthen Obamacare and do something significant about the high cost of prescription medications: 

"As president I want to go further," she said Tuesday. "I want to strengthen the Affordable Care Act." 

Her drug plan would start by capping the amount of out-of-pocket expenses consumers can be charged under insurance plans at $250 per month. Of course, transferring the extra costs onto the insurance companies wouldn't solve the all of the problems, since insurers would likely make up for their expenses through higher premiums. 

She said earlier this week that her goal is to implement policies that would reduce spending on prescription medications by $100 billion over the next 10 years and proposed a number of strategies reach that goal. For example: 

• Speeding up approval of generic drugs to clear any backlog. 
• Allowing consumers to buy their medications from countries where American pharma companies sell them at cheaper rates. (This would require the FDA to ensure that the drugs being sold in other countries are the same medications as the ones sold here.) 
• Grant Medicare the power to negotiate with drug companies on the prices they charge. This has long been a standard proposal pushed by Democrats who argue that the 40 million Medicare recipients would have a system-wide effect on the price of drugs. 
• Add requirements to drug companies who receive federal support, forcing them to redirect more of their profits back into R&D.

Now THAT kind of talk is what is going to move the needle in her direction and bring her poll numbers back up.

That is good stuff and demonstrates that Hillary is well aware of where the base of the Democratic party has moved, and what they are looking for in a leader.

Health care costs in this country are high because America is full of hypochondriacs and pantywaists. Yeah that's right, I am talking to you!

The other day I was on the phone talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a doctor.

I decided to ask him what he thought of the debate over health care reform. He said that it was completely fucked up (I think that is doctor talk). He said that Obama and the Democrats went about it ALL wrong, and what they should have done is to get a bunch of board certified physicians in a room and have them create a list of all that is wrong with health care in this country and a list of what they think might fix it.

Now this doctor mentioned tort reform, and over billing by physicians, but the thing that he felt attributed most to the high cost of health care is that people have become too dependent on medicine and doctors. And remember, THIS was coming from a man who made his living because people THOUGHT THEY WERE SICK!

And then he directed me to read the article which I have linked to right here, and a portion of which you can read below.

Somehow we have developed an expectation that our health should always be perfect, and if it isn't, there should be a pill to fix it. With every ache and sniffle we run to the doctor or purchase useless quackery such as the dietary supplement Airborne or homeopathic cures (to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year). We demand unnecessary diagnostic testing, narcotics for bruises and sprains, antibiotics for our viruses (which do absolutely no good). And due to time constraints on physicians, fear of lawsuits and the pressure to keep patients satisfied, we usually get them.

Yet the great secret of medicine is that almost everything we see will get better (or worse) no matter how we treat it. Usually better.

The human body is exquisitely talented at healing. If bodies didn't heal by themselves, we'd be up the creek. Even in an intensive care unit, with our most advanced techniques applied, all we're really doing is optimizing the conditions under which natural healing can occur. We give oxygen and fluids in the right proportions, raise or lower the blood pressure as needed and allow the natural healing mechanisms time to do their work. It's as if you could put your car in the service garage, make sure you give it plenty of gas, oil and brake fluid and that transmission should fix itself in no time.

The bottom line is that most conditions are self-limited. This doesn't mesh well with our immediate-gratification, instant-action society. But usually that bronchitis or back ache or poison ivy or stomach flu just needs time to get better. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning wasn't your doctor being lazy in the middle of the night; it was sound medical practice. As a wise pediatrician colleague of mine once told me, "Our best medicines are Tincture of Time and Elixir of Neglect." Taking drugs for things that go away on their own is rarely helpful and often harmful.

Essentially we are a nation waiting expectantly to become ill. We are bombarded by advertisements for medications to sedate our "restless legs", to lower our cholesterol, to help us sleep, to make our bones stronger, etc., etc., etc.. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of us will NEVER need any of those. But we THINK we will because they are such a prevalent part of our psyches.

Now days potential patients go to their doctors with a laundry list of advertised medications to ask their doctor about. "How about this one Doc? You know I DO feel dizzy if I stand up to fast. Or what about this one? You know after I spend a few hours in my garden my joints DO ache a little. Just point out the ones my insurance will cover. I will start with those."

It is ridiculous. And you cannot rely on your doctor to always steer you away from unnecessary medications either. The next time you visit your physician take a look at the logo on his pen, or on his coffee cup, or on the cute little digital clock on his desk. 99 out of a hundred times you will see the logo of some medication, whose (often very young and female) sales rep took your doctor out to lunch, or dinner, or paid their way to attend a convention at a resort in Hawaii (right next to the beach and golf course). If the medication will not do you any serious harm, and it will shut you up, the doctor may have no compelling reason NOT to write out a prescription.

However the more you rely on medication to make you feel better the weaker you are making your body. Essentially you are telling your body's natural defenses to sit this one out and let the drugs do the heavy lifting. This allows your immune system to get fat and lazy, so when you really need it to kick in and fight off something life threatening, it is unable to respond. Add that to our horrible diets, and lack of exercise, and no WONDER health care costs are through the roof in this country.

There is no profit in healthy people! But there is a buttload of money to be made on obese, inactive, and medication reliant people. So which side of the health care reform debate do YOU think has the most money to spend?

I have probably said this to you all before, but let me get up on my soapbox and say it again.

Going to your doctor is NOT health care, it is SICK CARE. You do not go because you feel healthy. You go because you don't feel well or because you want to be told if you should still THINK you feel well. "Give it to me straight Doc. Should I go ahead with my tennis game today, or check into the hospital?"

Real health care means eating a diet low in fat that avoids most processed foods and contains plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, getting plenty of exercise, laughing as much as possible during your day, and getting up off your ass. If more Americans made those choices we could bring health care costs down in no time.

Okay I am climbing down off of my soapbox now. You guys have a happy healthy Sunday.

Namaste

Update: Well this certainly elicited a lot of discussion.

Okay let me be clear about a few things.

I am not saying that people with REAL health problems should not seek medical advice. Of course they should. The problem is that people EXPECT to be ill and go to the emergency room for every little ailment. They also demand medication for things that their bodies are perfectly capable of defeating. But the reliance on medication is a serious problem, and the constant visits to the emergency rooms are a large part of what drives health care costs through the roof.

And I also have no problem with yearly checkups. I think you should go. Especially when you are my age. And if you are a woman then pap smears and mammograms should be part of your preventative plan.

But if you are really treating your body as if you want it to last a long time, then most of the time your checkups will be drama free. You will have been engaging in "health care" all along and if the doctor does find something which requires his expertise he will find that your body is capable of making a fast recovery.

Update 2: Just to clear up any confusion, my doctor friend and the person who wrote the article are NOT the same person. The words that I attributed to my friend are in the first few sentences. He DID however agree with much of what the article said, and told me that EVERY doctor he has shown it to also agreed with the majority of it.