“Breathing new fire into the old cliches that war is hell and love of money is the root of all evil, American soldiers have found a way to wrest Western capitalism out of the Iraqi sands where part of Hollywood’s most popular devil movie was filmed…

Last month, Capt. Nik Guran of the 2-320 Field Artillery Regiment, a ‘major unit’ of the 101st Airborne Division stationed in the small Iraqi town of Hatra, inserted a copy of The Exorcist in a portable DVD player. As the film began, Guran had the weird realization he was sitting at the location where director William Friedkin shot the opening sequence of his 1973 horror classic.

‘He recognized the sun temples,’ Friedkin recently said by phone from Hollywood.

‘And then the Army hatched this idea,’ Friedkin continued, ‘to turn the whole area into a tourist attraction and call it ‘The Exorcist Experience.”” —Houston Chronicle [via walker]

This site keeps track of the dead and wounded among the occupying forces, slicing and dicing the statistics in various ways as well as keeping a running narrative account.

“A German cannibal was convicted of manslaughter but not murder Friday for killing and eating a man who had asked to die, and he was sentenced to eight and a half years in jail.

The court rejected the prosecution’s plea for a murder conviction and life sentence because the victim had instructed Armin Meiwes, 42, to kill him. ” —Yahoo! News

“How is it that the dog, alone among Earth’s species, comes in so many shapes and sizes?” —PBS Nova

Genetically engineered plants turn red when growing over a mine. “A genetically engineered plant that detects landmines in soil by changing colour could prevent thousands of deaths and injuries by signalling where explosives are concealed.” —Nature

Twins born to woman who acted as surrogate for her infertile daughter, to the dismay of reproductive ethics campaigners. —ITV

Found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England —Sydney Morning Herald

“The African-American vote could make all the difference in South Carolina. But given the way three local Democratic activists are feeling, the party might be in big trouble… The Democratic Party is the party that talks about the black vote and attaining it by any means necessary,” Aiken said. ”Now, that does not equate with ‘We value the black vote’ as much as ‘We have to attain it in order to get what we want.”’ The routine currency in this exchange is emotion — for white candidates a little soul power soaked up from a gospel choir and shed just as easily. Candidates parade through church, Aiken noted, but, she said: ”Has anyone done a follow-up visit after a campaign? You know, ‘I came to your church, asked for your vote, the preacher gave me the pat and we prayed. Now I’m in; I’m going to make one more trip back, at least to thank you.”'” —New York Times Magazine

Claims of the discovery of superheavy elements 113 and 115, opening intriguing vistas. “The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape of undiscovered elements beyond…Rather than being round, nuclei in that region and beyond could contain bubbles and have strange doughnut-like shapes…” —New York Times

Mos Def as Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker’s Guide feature film. —Reuters

Bowing to pressure from lawmakers, the White House reverses its opposition to an independent investigation of intelligence failures. —Washington Post. Right now, administration strategy is all about damage control; Bush’s team appears divided over whether it would be worse to acknowledge that the data on which it based its decision was wrong, or to remain ‘publicly agnostic’ about the quality of the intelligence. The thing to watch will be how the administration limits both the scope (will the inquiry address not only generation but administration consumption of intelligence data?) and duration of the investigation. Rather than making this go away quickly, an effort that the White House reversal seems to acknowledge has failed, they may try to draw this out so any damaging allegations do not come out until after November. Expect the White House to drag its feet mightily in cooperating with requests for crucial data from an independent commission.

“Monsanto, the world’s largest genetically modified seed company, has been awarded patents on the wheat used for making chapati – the flat bread staple of northern India.

The patents give the US multinational exclusive ownership over Nap Hal, a strain of wheat whose gene sequence makes it particularly suited to producing crisp breads.

Another patent, filed in Europe, gives Monsanto rights over the use of Nap Hal wheat to make chapatis, which consist of flour, water and salt.

Environmentalists say Nap Hal’s qualities are the result of generations of farmers in India who spent years crossbreeding crops and collective, not corporate, efforts should be recognised.” —Guardian.UK This would be like patenting the use of flour to make pizza dough in the US.

In examining the insidious marketing strategies Big Pharma uses to put profits ahead of people’s health, I have often noted the lack of a constituency for patients with the devastating disease on which I focus most, chronic schizophrenia. This article focuses on the challenges the drug companies face in marketing newly-developed (and monumentally expensive) antipsychotic drugs for this population.

Since the mid-1990’s, a group of drug companies, led by Johnson & Johnson, has campaigned to convince state officials that a new generation of drugs – with names like Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel – is superior to older and much cheaper antipsychotics like Haldol. The campaign has led a dozen states to adopt guidelines for treating schizophrenia that make it hard for doctors to prescribe anything but the new drugs. That, in turn, has helped transform the new medicines into blockbusters.

Ten drug companies chipped in to help underwrite the initial effort by Texas state officials to develop the guidelines. Then, to spread the word, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and possibly other companies paid for meetings around the country at which officials from various states were urged to follow the lead of Texas, according to documents and interviews that are part of a lawsuit and an investigation in Pennsylvania. —New York Times

The marketing pressure the manufacturers exerted allegedly includes payoffs and other illegal or marginally legal practices. In comparative studies, these drugs have comparable efficacy to the older antipsychotics. Early claims that they are more effective have gone by the boards. Pitching them to prescribers has largely relied on claims that they are better tolerated and safer than the older drugs in terms of side effects. While this is true (patients on them develop the devastating neurological effects of the older drugs far less often), they turn out to have important metabolic complications (effects on glucose and lipid metabolism, weight gain and in some cases cardiac risks). Psychiatrists like myself and other physicians are the objects of a relentless full court press from the manufacturers to diffuse prescribers’ concerns about such liabilities to their patients. Suffice it to say that physicians should be collectively ashamed of how they have handed control over what they learn about prescribing new medications to the pharmaceutical companies that profit from those drugs.

This site keeps track of the dead and wounded among the occupying forces, slicing and dicing the statistics in various ways as well as keeping a running narrative account.