"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows all by itself"
- Zen Proverb.

Link of the day- lion cubs swimming and white bats

There are 3 links of the day today the first-
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2010/10/lion-cubs-go-for-their-first-swim-at-national-zoo.html

is a wonderful article from the LA times with pictures and videos of lion cubs at The National Zoo in Washington going for their first swim.

The second, is a set of pictures of Honduran white bats from the blog "The Featured Creature"-
http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/2010/10/honduran-white-bats-are-fluffy.html

The final link has more to do with science than wildlife- a stunning gallery of pictures from the Mir space station-
http://news.uk.msn.com/in-depth/space/special-photo-galleries.aspx?cp-documentid=155143006

Drugs, Pharmaceutical Companies, Marketing and Quote of the Week (James le Fanu on Zantac)

Psychiatrists talk about the phenomenon of “perception filter”- no sooner has your attention been drawn to a particular fact or word, than you become aware of this item/subject everywhere. No sooner had I got [this short article] published on the role of marketing in the pharmaceutical industry, than the subject seemed to be everywhere I looked.

The idea that drugs may be promoted inappropriately is not a new subject -one of the allegations that has dogged the “antidepressant industry”, doctors and patients alike has long been that antidepressants are being prescribed inappropriately (over-prescribed). In the case of antidepressants, this “debate” seems to date pretty much from the advent of SSRIs, such as Prozac, over twenty years ago. None the less, the role of drug-company-marketing on prescription and disease diagnosis rates is probably being discussed a little more in the media of late. The context to this may or may not be the release of the book “Sex Lies and Pharmaceuticals” by Ray Moynihan last month. In any case, quote of the week this week is one comment on the topic that has slipped through my current “drug-marketing” perception filter-

“Manhattan-based advertising executive Vince Parry describes how childhood Christmases were always marred by an uncle’s withering pessimism about the whole business.... Then, in the Eighties, psychiatrists described the now well known Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as a depressive illness associated with shorter winter days and treatable with antidepressants or light exposure. “My uncle was thus transformed from a curmudgeon into a sympathetic victim by the coining of a simple phrase”....Parry has since become one of the most influential people in contemporary medicine by working closely with the pharmaceutical industry to persuade doctors that common symptoms are in fact due to some potentially serious but under-recognised condition – hence treatment with some costly drug...”

- Dr James le Fanu writing in The Sunday Telegraph 31st Oct 2010, page L21 (“Life” section).

le Fanu concludes his piece by relating the phenomenon of “blockbuster” drugs (those which have sales exceeding $1 billion per year), noting that the first of these- Zantac- was for indigestion. This may be a little unexpected, not least since treating indigestion is certainly not one of the most obvious ways to make a fortune, but there are a further 27 drugs with similar (or greater) sales. Some of these treat serious and unmistakable conditions, such as Enoxaparin for thrombosis, Quetiapine for schizophrenia, Metoprolol for high blood pressure and Budesonide for asthma, but the list includes other anti-indigestion medicines, such as Omeprazole (aka "Losec" or "Prilosec") and Esomeprazole.

Bookshelf Number 2- other people's bookshelves...

...
"Bookshelf" is going to be an occasional feature on this blog, posted at irregular intervals. The standard "bookshelf" format will be like that for "Bookshelf Number 1".
This week, however, I want to just post a link to the 15th July (2010) edition of The Guardian newspaper's "Science Book Club" by Tim Radford, which talks about E. O. Wilson and his book "Naturalist". The link is -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/15/zoology-biology

Link of the week- Drugs company ethics

Welcome to Weirdbeautiful.

Today's link is to an opinion piece on the ethics of drugs companies-specifically with regard to promoting pharmacological treatments for female sexual dysfunction (which generally responds very poorly to drug treatment)-

http://healthmad.com/mens-health/drugs-companies-and-the-battle-between-truth-and-marketing/

Quote of the week- Nathaniel Hawthorne- Happiness is a butterfly

"Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly may alight upon you"
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Writer, 1804-1864)

The picture above is from my new video "The Flowers at Our Feet", which you can see on youtube [HERE]. I believe that the butterfly is a pink cattle heart- Parides iphidamus, which is a Central American species. Image (c) Victoria Neblik, 2010 | All rights reserved.

Bookshelf- Number 1- "Plant Hunters" by Carolyn Fry"

(Above "The Plant Hunters"- book (bottom) and protective book-sleeve (top))

When I was a child, I used to read a (now defunct) history magazine called "Discovery"; each edition covered a different historical period- the Ancient Egyptians, Heian-Period Japan, Elizabethan England, and so on...

One of the best things about the magazine was that, as well as being well written (something I appreciate a lot more these days), it contained facsimiles of a couple of historical documents in each edition. Things like the confession of Guy Faulkes and various international treaties or declarations of war. At the time (late 80s-1990) this was really very innovative and impressive.

Last month, I was given a copy of "The Plant Hunters" (subtitled "The adventures of the world's greatest botanical explorers") by Carolyn Fry, which I am periodically dipping into. It is a really wonderful book and completely stuffed with "more than 100 images from the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens" at Kew (the book was produced to tie-in withthe 250th Anniversary of Kew gardens in 2009). In other words, interleaved in the book are numerous envelopes containing high quality reproductions of historic botanical documents- notes by Carl von Linne and Joseph Hooker, Chinese paintings showing preparation of tea from Camellia sinensis leaves, letters relating to the early trade in natural rubber/latex and much else besides.


(Facsimiles of Notes by Carl Linneaus in "The Plant Hunters")

The author- Carolyn Fry- was also responsible for "The World of Kew" (the book produced to accompany the T.V. series "A Year at Kew", so it not at all surprising that "The Plant Hunters" is similarly well written and readable. Tackled in order and in sequence, the pages chart the history of botany and the discovery and exploitation of plants useful to mankind, but the book also works well as a coffee table-book or for casual browsing. In any case, I heartily recommend it.


Selection of historical documents supplied with "The Plant Hunters"- those pictured include documents relating to the rubber trade, a letter about exporting rubber plants to start plantations and botanical notes on orchids, all shown on the pages of the book relating to the tea trade/ tea growth.