Starlight Temple

Those of us with frequent migraine attacks want drugs that will prevent attacks before they even start. The list of drugs that sometimes work is motley: beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, anticonvulsants, a particular antihistamine, certain toxins from the ergot fungus, and so forth. Unfortunately it's rather hit-and-miss. What works for one person doesn't always work for another.

It was noticed that many of these drugs interact with serotonin receptors in the brain, in particular the 5HT-1B and -1D subtypes. For someone taking a beta blocker for high blood pressure this is a tiny side effect, but for a migraineur it is the main event and the blood pressure effects are unwanted. The ergots hit serotonin receptors like gangbusters, which is good for migraine, but bad for gangrene, so they can't be used for prophylaxis.

The drug companies sensed a major opportunity. Looking at the patient population, they found two major groups. Lots of people have infrequent migraines and would gladly pay $20 a pill for relief. Twenty dollars is cheap insurance against not having a brain meltdown at a business meeting, date, big exam, etc. The other group is a few people who have frequent migraines and need daily prophylaxis for a few dollars a day. They cannot afford $20×365 = $7200 a year.

And that is a problem. A drug company could design something that works for the second group, but then folks in the first group would just use it too and get relief for a couple of dollars a pop. Whereas if you make something for the first group, they'll pay $20/pill, and the second group will also pony up for quite a few $20 pills. Do the math and the $20 version is worth many billions of dollars more.

Naturally the drug companies went for the $20 pill. They put emphasis on drugs that were fast acting, and could be dosed to the gills without excessive side effects (sumatriptan is available in 100 mg tablets). Many drugs were discovered and approved: sumatriptan, naratriptan, etc. All of them but one (frovatriptan) leave the body within hours, so that prophylaxis would require multiple daily doses even if it was affordable. (One wonders if frovatriptan was an accident, from a discovery effort whose shorter half-life candidates bombed.)

I am not entirely complaining. The triptans are incredibly helpful, and have paid for loads of much-needed migraine research. It's just a drag to ask yourself "Is it worth $20 this time?" on a near-daily basis.

I should mention that there is some question as to whether triptans are safe and effective for prophylaxis. They are vasoconstrictors, so there is some theoretical risk of infarction, including stroke. However large studies have not found a worrisome stroke rate for occassional use, one small study found prophylactic efficacy and no bad effects with daily dosing (although the statistical power was small), and lots of people seem to use them heavily without stroking out.

Triptan Half-Lives
Compound	Half-Life (hours)	Brand Name	U.S. Approval
Sumatriptan	2.5	Imitrex	Dec. 1992
Zolmitriptan	3	Zomig	Nov. 1997
Naratriptan	6	Amerge	Feb. 1998
Rizatriptan	2–3	Maxalt	Jun. 1998
Almotriptan	3–4	Axert	May 2001
Frovatriptan	26	Frova	Nov. 2001
Eletriptan	4	Relpax	Dec. 2002

Power tools. Soldering iron. 400 watt power supply. How do I manage to hurt myself? I somehow rip off skin with the edge of my workbench.

That's what I get for going in to work on a holiday.

C. Paul Robinson, physicist and former Sandia National Laboratories director, lashed back Friday, saying his team was appalled at the lack of competent business practices and focused scientific direction at Los Alamos National Laboratory,...

"No wonder science is hurting. You've got scientists with no support for their work," Robinson said. "We think Sandia is a good proof test that good processes are not incompatible with good science. We know how to bring processes into being that can streamline and simplify things for scientists."

Amen—that's exactly what I have been saying for a long time. The management incompetence led by the University of California was appalling: large-scale embezzlement by employees, lax tracking of secret documents and data, and weak management vision.

The best defense UC has been able to scrape together is that private industry will scare away scientists by crimping their style. Yeah, just like at Bell Labs, IBM, Xerox PARC, Microsoft, Google, Sandia National Labs, and so forth. I don't know what's worse: that they would use such lame rhetoric, or that they would seriously expect people to believe it.

University of California officials recently have suggested that only academia has the scientific rigor and "moral strength" to watch over the aging nuclear explosives in the U.S. arsenal and objectively judge, for example, whether a return to nuclear testing is necessary.

So only Left Coast Academe has the "moral strength" to discover how to kill the entire human race faster and cheaper? Pardon me whilst I scrape my sense of humor off the walls.

Eneman! Faster than a ... uh. Able to leap ... better not say. Nevermind.

Which reminds me of the song Working Where The Sun Don't Shine (The Colorectal Surgeon's Song).

From the Headlines That Have Been Current Since the Roman Empire Dept.

I'm shocked, shocked I say.

On the one hand, the global warmingists claim they understand how the atmosphere works and can predict the temperature a century from now to within a few degrees. On the other hand, they couldn't predict a major change in atmospheric transparency. Well, which is it?

Incredibly, green pundits are trumpeting that this makes the global warming hypothesis even more dire.

Most viruses are content to afflict a few species. Not flock house virus: it can replicate in plants, insects, and yeasts. One wonders how many other viruses have a similar ability but just don't do it well enough to get noticed.