Global
If you think prescription drugs are getting more dangerous, you are right. Once upon a time if a drug were linked to dangerous side effects or deaths, it would simply not be approved. End of story. Now, the risks are transferred to the patient in the form of detailed warnings on the label and TV commercials.
This provides a false sense of security. Most patients still believe a doctor would not prescribe a drug if it weren't safe and doctors still believe the FDA would not approve a drug it weren't safe. In many cases, both have barely noticed the take-at-your-own-risk status of many prescription drugs which once would not have been approved.
The parade of injected biologic drugs that currently dominate the advertising "space,"–– Humira, Dupixent and Stelara––would once not have been approved because of their serious side effects like immunosuppression in light of the minor conditions they address. Some suggest the wide swath of citizens taking advertised biologics explained the US' Covid dramatic toll compared to countries with populations not on immunosuppressing drugs.
Dear Senator Cruz,
While millions of people across the world were marching to demand the end of the Gaza genocide, you were shaking hands with Crime Minister Netanyahu and busy criticizing a kid rapper at a foreign festival that we have never heard of in a country which is on the other side of the ocean since they dared to criticize a third country (Israel) that is thousands of miles away!
While your home state of Texas was going through a catastrophic flood where over 100 people were dead, injured, and missing, you were busy criticizing a rapper in the U.K. who dared to criticize a third country (Israel) for killing women and children every day during the last 20 months. How does that benefit the people of Texas?
How can an American Senator condone and defend Israel's genocide killing Palestinian civilians including children, babies and starve the rest... where are your American values gone?
Eye-yii-yii! I’m trying to tell myself that I’m still learning about life, not drifting into doesn’t-matterness. You know, asleep on the couch in the middle of the day.
Cataract surgery on my second eye (the rightie) was almost a week ago now and it went well. my vision seems slightly more enthusiastic. Biggest noticeable change: I can read captions on the TV screen without my glasses, which suddenly don’t help with that at all, though I still need them for ordinary reading.
What’s going on with my life right now feels larger than post-cataract-surgery recovery . . . so much larger that I don’t want to write about it, but feel I must do so because I want to write about something. As I cuddle myself at my sister’s kitchen table with this notebook, feeling lost and subjectless, I nonetheless sense a return of emotional energy – simply because I’m doing something . . . so I hope, so I pray . . . that matters.
When that sense vanishes from my life, what happens isn’t just an emotional crash. The crash I feel is also physical. I start losing the will to stay awake! This is a phenomenon I’ve never experienced before in my life, or read about anywhere.
As an infant in Côte d'Ivoire (Currently known as Ivory Coast), Pierre Dupont knew nothing of the world except the arms of one woman who embraced him with tenderness and warmth: his nanny Aisha. She was more than just a maid. She was like a second mother, feeding him, rocking him, and holding him whenever he cried, showering him with unforgettable love.
But fate separated them for 38 years. Pierre's family left for France, and all news of Aisha ceased. Years passed, Pierre grew up, studied, and moved on with his life, but something inside him remained there... in the arms of that kind woman with her tender smile and eyes filled with love. He didn't know where she was or if she was still alive but longing and gratitude drove him to begin a long and painful search.
