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Bad bugs the new white meat? As reported by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times recently (Sun, Mar 15 th , "Pathogens in Our Pork), hog farms are now infected with the dangerous bug known as MRSA (pronounced " Mersa "). As estimated by the University of Minnesota, up to 39 percent of pigs on hog farms harbor the superbugs which are resistant to almost all forms of antibiotics. (More people die from MRSA in the United States than from HIV.) Why? Same reason as why doc's give out prescriptions to treat viral infections like colds and ear infections: mis -use of antibiotics. As Kristof writes, more antibiotics are given to livestock in North Carolina alone than goes to treat the entire U.S. population. This is all due to the tremendous leverage that the agribusinesses have on Washington politicoes . The citizenry is being plowed under for the sake of increasing the yield of hog, cow and chicken farmers. It's as if the Congress is doing as Marie Antoinette, s
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Does God Care About Football?

Today I finally received the answer to the question I’ve asked nearly all my life: Does God care about football? Richard John Mouw informs me [TU, Voices of Faith, 2/3/18¹] that “God cares much about how the game is played. And it is not simply about how the players treat each other.” Has Mr Mouw read the New Testament? I get that the Old Testament is quite football-worthy, what with all that smiting and so forth, but it sure seems that the NT becomes quite un-football-esque in places. But maybe that’s just me. It’s not as if Matthew 25, or the Sermon on the Mount comes down on the side of how we treat one another. Did not Jesus say it best when he offered us, "Do to others what you want them to do to you...and hit ‘em hard! Knock his block off. Role the replay!" No, he didn’t say exactly that, but one can imagine him saying it...if you pretend for a moment that you live in the universe of Richard John Mouw. I’d leave football out of the equation. No spectacle where
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Change? Who needs change?

  When the status quo works so well, I mean. That's the impression I get when I visit the government affairs section of APhA, the site for the American Pharmacists Association. On the docket for the Advocacy Agenda is … Single-payer insurance? No. Health care reform of any sort? Nope. How about controlled substance policy and medguide management? Well, of course. You know, the really important things. After all, we need to nip these medguides in the bud. In…the…bud! We're bud nippers at APhA, that's what we are (apologies to Barney Fife). Why doesn't APhA get it? Not sure. I suppose they might be afraid their members could be on the short end of the stick (again), but if that is so it seems to me that the smart course of action would be to get in on the ground floor and advocate for change that benefits pharmacy. And change is coming, sure as shootin'. APhA might also like the existing system. Nah. No one likes this system short of the insurance companies. So what
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