I’m not very enamored of most websites about diabetes. They seem too clinical or … what’s the word? Happy all the time about the condition. However, there is a site I am recommending called A Sweet Life. It’s run by a woman named Jessica Apple and it includes a lot of recipes and the normal things one would hope to find at such a site. It also has some articles and features about the emotional and quirky aspects of diabetes and living as a diabetic. I hope you’ll check it out.

Stumbled across a new and ongoing review of Chasing Medical Miracles today. The review is on a site called Cure Talk.

The site is owned by a company called TrialX, which, apparently, is less scary than it sounds. The statement of their purpose on their site says:” TrialX is developed by Applied Informatics Inc., a New York based company with extensive experience in the areas of Health Information Technology, Computer Science, Medicine and Clinical Research. Besides the qualifications, our team has balanced bold thinking and new ideas with real-world challenges in the healthcare industry.”

Their site is worth a look, as are their tweets.

I don’t want anyone to think I am languishing in my blogging and homepage/website maintenance responsibilities because my last entry was almost a month ago. Gayle – wonderful, talented Gayle – at rustixsinteractive.com is working on updating my site. (Yes, we are adding a photo of me in which I have hair. And info about the novel. And info about just about everything else so it is not ALL about Chasing Medical Miracles.)

The idea to place advertising in books or “near” books is long overdue to make books a potent entertainment and viable choice so they can compete fairly with movies, TV, magazines, and the Internet. This article in the WSJ takes a look at how digital readers might open that door. “…The marketing world is drawing up plans to invade one of the last bastions of media that is largely advertising-free: books.
As e-books proliferate, advertisers are experimenting with ways to pitch to consumers while they read, a trend that could change the publishing business but faces opposition from some traditionalists…”

“… But before we pass out the scepters, it’s instructive to contemplate how class distinctions work in America today. We’ve set up class divisions that are defined and determined not by blood lines but by education, achievement, notoriety, attractiveness, and most especially, wealth. We may not have the formal trappings of royalty, but we have plenty of barriers…”

The agent who represents me, Joy Tutela at the David Black Agency, has moved to Brooklyn. I lived in Brooklyn as a kid,. I climbed trees in Prospect Park, played army in the hills with my brother and friends, and I LOVE Brooklyn. Plus I have aunts, uncles and cousins in Brooklyn who are some of the best people who ever lived so for me, this is a good omen as my memoir, Stealing Norman Mailer’s Dog, is being circulated to publishers around town right now.

… because medical experimentation is so rife with drama and impact on the human psyche that the small percentage that is reprehensible and retrograde resonates powerfully. It’s as it should be. The clinical trials community should take a moment and consider a comprehensive way to comunicate the good they do; or at leas, in this instance, respond with proper outrage indignation that this chapter is sullying the fine work being conducted now.

“Experts” are actually arguing that patients should have increased access to drugs not yet tested and that this should be done on compassionate grounds. This article, by the way, came out a few days before the FDA decided to restrict Avandia, a drug that HAD ALREADY BEEN APPROVED because it increased the likelihood of heart attack

The NYT is live blogging the debate on whether to pull the diabetes drug Avandia from the shelves. A federal advisory panel is hearing testimoney about how safe it is, how safe it isn’t, what the problems may be… when did science becaome so much about opinion? When did clinical trials have so much wiggle room? Makes one wonder. But, enough, now to the blogging …

… this trend where patients increasingly drive the focus of research and the availability of unproven treatments is absurd, insane, and potentially life-threatening … No matter how heart wrenching these personal stories, anecdote and desperation should neer be a significant factor in conducting effective clinical trials. It makes for bad research and produces bad medicine.