Posts by James Green
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If they try to sell you vitamins, you could always ask about the potential for them to kill you. But it seems mostly Vitamin A & E; the evidence is not so good for Vitamin C and selenium. Curiously, they note that it appears make safer getting them from fruit and vege.
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I don't think cocaine works as a nasal *de*congestant, somehow...
<buzzer> You're thinking of re-bound congestion. If you look at a nasal spray, it will say don't use for more than 5 days (or it will cause worse congestion than you already have). Same with coke. As an aside, Cocaine's current legitimate medical use is for nasal surgery.
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No one as far as I know makes a generic non-branded version of it in NZ
It depends on the sense in which you apply 'generic'. Paracetamol is long off patent, and 'Panadol' was the name of the original patented innovator brand. Pamol is made by Johnson & Johnson, though. Paracare and Parapaed appear to exist as generics. This is PHARMAC's pricing, not available as retail obviously.
PARACETAMOL
Oral liq 120 mg per 5 ml $6.80 per 1000 ml Paracare Junior
Oral liq 250 mg per 5 ml $7.00 per 1000 ml Paracare Dbl Strength
Suppos 125 mg $7.49 per 20 Panadol
Suppos 250 mg $14.40 per 20 Panadol
Suppos 500 mg $20.50 per 50 Paracare
Tab 500 mg $137.81 per 15000 Panadol (Manufacturer’s price $1467)
Tab 500 mg $9.60 per 1000 PharmacareIt appears it's the formulation, not the paracetamol that increases the cost. Supposititories and suspensions are both much more expensive, and the pharmacare tablets are ~1c each. I'm speculating, but I'd guess economies of scale, manufacturing processes, and shelf life play a role.
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study chemistry and microbiology every year of their degree
FWIW, they take much less microbiology than that (one paper in second year @ otago). Although antibacterials are an important class of medicines, there's a lot of others that don't have too much to do with it.
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Having said that, I think pharmacies can choose not to stock pseudoephedrine, but I'd have to check.
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has there actually been a ban on over-the-counter pseudoephedrine-based medicine
No. The new phenylephrine products are mostly not as effective, but you might have to push a bit harder to get the good stuff. Note, in case of an emergency, P, other amphetamines, and cocaine will also work, but are now unfortunately not available for decongestant purposes.
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Antibiotics do tend to kill useful bacteria as well as evil bacteria. This is especially true of broader spectrum antibiotics. For example, amoxicillin clavunate (Augmentin) is very commonly prescribed, and in addition to making you well terminates the lives of 1kg of bacteria resident in your GI tract (explaining the commoness of diarrhoea as a side effect). The medsafe datasheet describes this as 'may affect gut flora', which sounds less icky. Coming off antibiotics, there is a chance that instead of the usual bacteria re-colonising you, you might end up with unwelcome visitors, which is what the probiotics are supposed to prevent. I'm not sure how big the chance is.
It's worth noting too, that the total cost of the antibiotics is much higher than $3, but also that yoghurt containing good bacteria, is much cheaper than $14. Whether the yoghurt works as well as the probiotics, I'm not sure.
________________And just while we're talking about 'good' bacteria, bear in mind that the anti-bacterial handwashes that kill 99% of germs, are mostly killing the ones that you don't want to kill.
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UPDATE: The source by the picture says 2000, this has 15,000. Not sure which is more accurate. Other good stats. Cows come in at 18 months, stay for 250 days, and eat 2 tonnes of grain on the way to doubling their weight.
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I was horrified to learn recently that there are a few feedlots for beef in NZ as well. Seriously, what the hell? If people want to eat over-fattened tasteless "Angus" beef, let them get it from countries with no ethics.
On the odd occasion I head north to the Flatlands, I'm often surprised by restaurants who seem like they should know better (pimping the 'local' in the food on their menu), when they have Wakanui grain-feed beef. Useless factoid -- the feedlot at Wakanui required more earth to be moved than the Benmore dam (which is an earth rather than concrete dam for those who haven't been, picture here, scroll down. Actually, I just found a picture of the feedlot. I assume the black area is in fact 15,000 cows standing so close together you can't see the concrete!!
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why did the industry lobby so hard for such evil "standards" if only a small minority of farmers actually use them as Trengrove so dubiously claims? Why lie?
I think it's because it's something that they're moving away from. As in, when they replace a building, they probably build it to a more modern standard. Although, I wonder if there are some farmers who are dragging their heels a bit, and letting the team down as it were.
This article makes interesting reading. I guess you could infer from that that maybe the high grain prices have slowed down incentive to change. You can also read Colin Kay's resource consent application for a new farm here. Charitably, you'd guess he might close the existing one after that opens (although I note his resource consent for that is due to lapse soon).
I just found an answer to another thing I was pondering. I can see (but don't support) the mechanisation advantages for battery chickens, but it's seems the benefits of growing pigs in a barn are less obvious. We don't keep our sheep and cows in feedlots, so why would we do it with pigs?