Amgen Drugs May Boost Survival During a Nuclear Attack
Source: Bloomberg
Amgen Inc. (AMGN)s Neulasta and Neupogen and a similar blood-boosting drug from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) may help people survive after a nuclear attack, U.S. regulators said.
Medications known as leukocyte growth factors, which also include Sanofi (SAN)s Leukine, may help decrease death rates from radiation exposure, Food and Drug Administration staff said today in a report. FDA staff reviewed a National Institutes of Health study on monkeys exposed to radiation that were given Neupogen. Agency advisers plan to meet May 3 to discuss whether the animal study is sufficient to approve the use for humans.
This is the first time an FDA advisory committee will consider a medical countermeasure for use in a radiological or nuclear incident, the staff said. Neulasta, Amgens second best- selling drug, and Neupogen together generated about $5.4 billion in sales last year for the Thousand Oaks, California-based company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The drugs are given by injections.
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Of the 24 monkeys that took Neupogen in the NIH study, 79 percent survived after 60 days, compared with 41 percent of the 22 monkeys who didnt take the drug, FDA staff said. NIH stopped the trial after studying 46 animals because of the comparison.
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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/amgen-drugs-may-boost-survival-during-a-nuclear-attack.html
bananas
(27,509 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)"Amgen shares rose 2.1 percent to $106.40 at 9:51 a.m. New York time. "
someone just made bank on pushing fear.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Because all the nutty survivalists are going to go out and stockpile this stuff.
Disclosure: I don't buy stocks. Just saying: watch their stock go sky high.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)it's around $200-$300 per dose depending on the dosage, not like basic antibiotics available any where on the net, with no script
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Who wants to "survive" a nuclear attack?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)but then I'm old or something
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They plan to return to become a warlord.
.....and have their pick of the mutant women.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The film begins with Vic sneaking through foothills in search of a bunker. An unseen voice is heard advising Vic, which is soon revealed to be his telepathic dog, Blood. When he reaches the bunker, he finds his quarry, a woman, severely mutilated and raped. He is angry and disappointed, because he is unwilling to have sex with a dead body that is so disheveled. In his sexual frustration, Blood and Vic get into several arguments, and the quirks of their relationship are revealed. Blood and Vic continue their travels and stumble upon slavers excavating into another bunker, and Vic steals several cans from them. With their newfound wealth, Blood and Vic travel to a makeshift settlement with a working movie projector and permanent residents - a rarity in the wasteland. While there, Blood claims to smell a woman, which excites Vic. The pair track her to a large underground warehouse. The girl turns out to be Quilla June Holmes (portrayed by Susanne Benton in the film) the scheming and seductive daughter of the head of a large underground vault. Her father, Lou Craddock (portrayed by Jason Robards in the film), had sent her to the surface to bait Vic into much needed "service", Blood takes an immediate disliking to Quilla, sensing something wrong. He warns Vic, who ignores him. After saving Quilla's life from a band of raiders and then some mutants called "screamers," Vic spends an amorous night with her. In the morning she knocks Vic unconscious and flees. She had told Vic about where she lives and also deliberately left an access card to the vault door so that he could follow her. Vic, taken by the idea of women and sex, leaves Blood despite his pleading and pursues the young lady into "downunder".
Downunder has artificial sunlight, hydroponic bays, biospheres (with similarities to the Eden Project) and forests. One underground city, named 'Topeka' after the ruins of the city it lies beneath, is fashioned in a mockery of 1950s rural innocence and brave-new-worldian madness, with all the inhabitants wearing dungarees and mime makeup. Topeka meets its need for exogamous reproduction by electroejaculation (forcibly extracting sperm from men with machines) and artificial insemination, yet the city with its limited population needs donors. Anybody who refuses to comply or otherwise defies the committee is sent off to "the farm" and never seen again. "Heart attacks" and "farming accidents" are given as reasons for disappearances. Vic soon learns the reality of the authoritarian committee and of its need for his semen. He is initially elated at the prospect of being used for procreative services, because he assumes that the process will involve him having sex with numerous women, but this initial enthusiasm turns to horror when he is strapped to a table and a machine is used to extract his semen. Vic is told that when his sperm has impregnated 35 women, he will be sent to "the farm." In the novella, the boy character (Vic) is indeed expected to impregnate the female population of the underground community in the normal way, not through artificial insemination. Vic uses the fact that Quilla June's father secretly desires sex with her as a distraction; instead of impregnating her, Vic lets Ira Holmes in to see Quilla lying naked from the waist down, legs akimbo; thus stunned at seeing his "secret desire", Vic is able to incapacitate or kill the father to enable the start of Vic's and Quilla's escape attempt.
Quilla June, along with a few other rebellious teenagers, have other plans for Vic. They free him and beg him to kill the committee members and their android enforcer Michael (performed by former Californian boxing champion Hal Baylor in the film), thus leaving Quilla June in power. Vic has no interest in politics or in remaining underground. Nevertheless, before Vic can shoot Lou Craddock, the other rebellious teenagers are captured by Michael and have their skulls crushed by Michael's bare hands. Vic manages to disable Michael after shooting him many times. Knowing that her plan is foiled, her co-conspirators dead and after overhearing her father order her death, Quilla decides Vic is her only chance and decides to escape to the surface with him. She tells Vic that she loves him. (She was also apparently romantically involved with one of her late co-conspirators, although this, too, may have been self-serving.) Once on the surface, Vic and Quilla discover that Blood is starving and near death. Knowing he will never survive without Blood's guidance, Vic faces a difficult situation, and in a twist ending, it is implied he kills his new love and cooks her to save Blood. The novella ends with Vic remembering her question as Blood eats: "Do you know what love is?" and he concludes, "Sure I know. A boy loves his dog." In the film, the following dialog suggests her fate: Blood states "Well, I'd certainly say she had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not particularly good taste." And then they both start laughing at the intended pun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog
They are most welcome to it.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They imagine they'll be like General Bethlehem in "The Postman".
bemildred
(90,061 posts)One of the more unintentionally funny movies I've ever seen, that one.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)And, how the same company got a total monopoly on the two drugs used as vaccines against anthrax? For a refresher, see, "Bruce Ivins: A Dead Scientist and The Great Anthrax Vaccine Monopoly" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3734640
bananas
(27,509 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)ramapo
(4,589 posts)I don't even know where to start.
Paulie
(8,462 posts)And Hamford in the US.
nileawhile
(1 post)So do they just nuke monkeys for the hell of it?