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Physical exercize done regularly, done daily, and a willingess to put up with the mundane, boredom of the mundane to put on the sneakers, getting out or getting on a treadmill, rower or bike, to keep pushing forward, day after day. This is important to ward off cancers, heart issues, metabolic disorders, and keep mental health. Good sleep is important, so is emotional wellbeing, mindfulness in its 4 forms, and meditation, prayer and reading. Healthy eating and eating habits that help build up health, and medication such as herbal supplements including turmeric and ginger use, are other important actions to take for healthy living.

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Peter Navarro who has advised the DJT administration on world trade says even when there is no war the perceived risk from the narrow straits at Hormuz and the threats posed by militant groups financed by Iran had led to a premium being baked into oil prices. Navarro says on the Iran Premium (perceived threat risk premium) thatis is about $15 in oil prices. That it reduces growth in global output by 0.4% or $10 trillion over 25 years or $4 trillion over 10 years. As this perceived risk comes down oil prices will come down even further - even into the $50-$60 per barrel range, says Navarro. He cites different economic studies that show even in normal times the ballistic missiles and militant threats posed add up to $15 premium in oil prices to reflect this risk. What this means is higher oil prices and lower growth across the world- in poorer countries and in the US and Europe as a result of this. The current war he says gives the opportunity to reduce or remove this premium paid for perceived risk. The loss in global output he cites is about $450 billion a year adding upto $4 trillion in a decade and over 25 years about $10 trillion. Confronting the threat is not just a matter of national security, it also means this drag on growth on poor and better off countries from Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan to UK, Spain, Germany, and Italy, countries that can be so much better off with much of that $10 trillion tax or burden on world economies removed. ...

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Dr. Wolfe, a drug safety critic and head of the health group of Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader founded consumer advocacy organization, has been appointed to a four year term on the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Committee. Dr Wolfe's has a history as a consumer advocate for health safety and a critic of the corporate influence in FDA decisions. He would like to see fewer copycats of popular drugs and limits on direct to consumer advertising. Here Dr Wolfe's personal style as an activist is explored. He admits he tends to have firm opinions.

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The risks associated with a Glaxo diabetes drug after an independent doctor used results on Glaxo's own website to compute cardiac risk associated with Avandia.

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Rivaroxaban, will be reviewed by an FDA panel of outside experts to decide whether the drug used for anticlotting has a favorable risk-benefit profile. The drug is from Bayer A.G. and Johnson and Johnson. Rivaroxaban causes increased bleeding among patients in clinical studies than existing drugs used for anticlotting even though it does better at preventing clots from forming.

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Large drug companies are raising money in the bond markets to finance their mergers and acquisitions. Will this result in better research and new products/ At the same time as this is happening the capital markets are doing little for biotech startups and biotech startup are running short of cash, most of them having 6 months of cash to support them. See the link to this.

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How the Drug Industry and Drug Companies will go through a complete change and look nowhere near what it looks like today. Huge changes are overtaking the Drug industry and old ways of doing things will go out the window. Patent expirations for blockbuster drugs, safety issues, increased regulation, rise of generics drugs, cost issues, outsourcing of manufacture and testing and some R&D, changes in marketing practices, slimming down of marketing and sales force personnel, new approaches to R&D- Novartis emphasizing science, Glaxo breaking up into smaller teams, and the growth of emerging markets. All this happens as the public in the USA looks at healthcare in anew way and the demand for healthcare expands quickly in growing developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and Eastern Europe.

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The shift to finding new drugs for cancer. Pfizer has a development team of 10000 researchers in one location near San Diego, California, to develop new drugs for cancer even though some experts say the search for cancer drugs is devilishly complicated. The causes of cancer at the molecular level are complicated and vary even from person to person for the same cancer. Says one expert this also raises questions about the benefit to people as a large amount of resources are shifted to areas like cancer that affect fewer people than other diseases, and where the existing drugs have only prolonged life marginally, in some cases even as low as a few months at a huge cost of thousands of dollars. Tarceva for pancreatic cancer for example only prolongs life by 12 days at a cost of $3500 per month. 860 cancer drugs are being tested in clinical trials according to the trade group of the pharmaceutical industry. This is more than twice the number for heart disease and stroke, and nearly twice the number for AIDS and all other infdectious diseases combined, and nearly twice the number for Alzheimier's and all neurological dieases combined....

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US naval blockade of Iran in Arabian Sea starts April 13 2026. US destroyed Iran's larger ships 158 of them, yet Iran also has a fleet of smaller attack boats which it plans to use in Hormuz. These are harder to detect and can be hidden in coves along the Iranian coast and used against ships. The US with its naval blockade is now prepared to do what it has done also in Venezuela, stop and interdict fast drug boats on the Venezuelan side in the Atlantic ocean. By blockading Venezuela in the ocean US is using its strengths, and stopping drug boats its ability to pinpoint traffic on the ocean. Similar capabilities are well suited to Arabian Sea and Red Sea on the open oceans and away from narrow Hormuz playing to US strengths and capabilities. Aircraft carriers and destroyers and the US Air Force is in a position to do what it does best control open seas like the British did in their heyday of the Royal Navy for most of 1750-1920. This avoids options of Hormuz itself with its narrow 15 mile gap of water between Oman and Iran too close to mountainous terrain on either side, and of the Kharg Island option which would require special forces to be backed up with more ground forces. This is the most viable option and the interlude of couple of weeks has given the president an opportunity to make a better choice for positioning the US forces where the US has its strongest points. What is lacking is the individual powers of Britain and France whose leaders Starmer and Macron have popularity below 20%. Yet the US is better off making good choices and not having these nations alongside. The posturing by European nations is limited to France and UK, as Germany and Italy are in sync with the US position. Much of the media operates as if the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East is not important for long term peace for nations such as China and India with about 3 billion people and the billions of people of Asia, Latin America and Africa. For the first time in 400 years since 1600 as Asian civilizations began a long decline China and India have emerged in 2000-2030 into the kind of modern economies and societies that exist in Europe and the US. The last thing they need is the risk of destroying the Modern World with nuclear proliferation when it took centuries to get to the right opportunity after 1950 to modernize China and India. Xi's and Modi's generation are the first to experience modernization in Asia after Japan's experience. ...

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Pfizer's coronavirus pill is 89% effective in preventing people at high risk of needing hospitalization if taken within 3 days of diagnosis. It is called Paxlovid. In the drug protease inhibitors work to disrupt and prevent smaller molecules being formed of the virus needed for virus spread in the body.

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40 people out of 172 in a database surveyed by Dr. Edwards director of WHO drug monitoring center, had Goehring's desease. What does this mean and should it be made public? These are some of the dilemmas facing medicine and drug companies as more and more databases and their resultant statistics become available to researchers. It also poses a new kind of risk for drug companies as they face increased scrutiny.

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On world tuberculosis day the work of Dr. Zarir Udwadia is acclaimed for drawing attention to a resurgent tuberculosis in India through a medical journal article in 2012 for untreatable TB. India has 2.8 million new TB cases annually, 100,000 being drug resistant, according to WHO. India relies on outdated diagnostic tests that miss about 50% of the cases and Dr Udwadia says India needs newer technologies including GeneXpert tests. TB can be easily treated at a cost of $5 with 4 drugs over 6 months if done in time. Wrong drugs, incorrect doses, irregular medication, lets the TB bacteria become resistant causing havoc- leading to taking of 250 injections and 15000 pills treated for upto 2 years and costing thousands of dollars, with the toxicity of the drugs levels creating risks of deafness, blindness, kidney failure, and psychotic conditions. Crowded conditions in slum areas act as an incubator of the disease and infection rates, with 20 people being infected by one patient alone. ...

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Abbott Laboratories agreement to pay $1.6 billion in civil and criminal fines for promoting unapproved off label uses of the neurologic drug Depakote, to sedate older patients in nursing homes. The acting associate attorney general, Tony West, said: "Not only did Abbott engage in off-label promotion, it targeted elderly dementia patients and down played the risks apparent from its own clinical studies." Abbott aggressively promoted its use in nursing homes. It also aggressively promoted the use of the drug for schizophrenia between 2001 and 2006. In 1999 Abbott had to discontinue a clinical trial testing Depakote's effectiveness against dementia after results showed increased incidence of anorexia, drowsiness and dehydration.

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An indication of how much controversy is becoming part of the drug risk appraisal process, involving the medical journals, the FDA, the Congress, the drug companies, the courts, and independent physicians, and the users of the drugs, with charges thrown back and forth. The information on Avandia comes from Merck's own website and was an attempt to provide more public disclosure of drug studies conducted by the manufacturer.