Three For One

Shopping for more than you bargained?

Save your receipts or save your lives?
Seems like a silly choice but it now appears as though chemicals used in the paper receipts handed out at most stores can harm you.
The chemical known as BPA (Bisphenol A) is a plastic that can be found in those ubiquitous water bottles we all carry around.  It has been under attack by scientists and environmentalists for a while as a carcinogen.
Now it has been found in a far more ubiquitous place, cash register receipts!
The tiny piece of plasticized paper we throw into our grocery bags to mingle among our fruits and veggies is imparting on them an additive we could do without.
Either the industry must find a solution to the solution used in manufacturing the receipts or place the receipt's information on the web for me to download if needed later.
So the next time they ask you, "paper or plastic" tell them, "no thanks."


Strike Four?

I hope no one I know ever drives under the influence or while intoxicated.  But if they did I would also hope they didn't hurt anyone including themselves and that they got help!
Unfortunately we the people are not in control of the justice system and someone caught 'driving under the influence' is not brought in front of us for sentencing.
Equally as unfortunate for the rest of us who drive and or walk on the streets of Long Island Christopher Samenga was not brought in front of a judge with the intelligence of a common slug.
Mr. Samenga was arrested this past November for DWI and sentenced last week to merely 5 years probation.
But this was his 3rd arrest under the statute aimed at protecting the public from just such a menace as this and now he's emulating Willie Nelson.
So why the slap on the wrist?
No straight answer was offered by New York Supreme Court justice Meryl Berkowitz but perhaps the driving force behind the leniency was the fact that Christopher is the grandson of a retired NY Supreme Court Justice.
So if you know the umpire you get a couple more strikes?
Hey judge, can we at least know the guy's license number so we can hide?


An Uplifting Story

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension is not considered a major disease and as such anything developed to treat it would be called orphan drug.  This is a drug that could work if it had enough funding to bring it to market and keep it available.
Unfortunately or more accurately fortunately PAH only affects 600 children per year so no drug company would deem it profitable enough to work on a cure.
But what if a drug already on the market could be stroked and tweaked for double use?
Suppose that drug could rise to the occasion?
The drug company owning the patent on that drug would surely sit erect and smile.
Enough hints?
Okay, Pfizer's Viagra contains Sildenafil.  And Sildenafil, in a slightly lower dosage has been shown to help the fight against this debilitating disease in children.
The beauty of the situation for Pfizer is that the new drug will allow the affected children to grow old enough to go back on it!
Move over MasterCard - Pfizer's got a "Priceless" commercial of their own on the way!