Sunday, April 22, 2007

msb-0137 Artisanal vs. Industrial Production

msb-0137 Artisanal vs. Industrial Production

intro

[DJ Jeff's intro]

See, I do so have friends. :-)

---- "The Industry " by: "DJRM" http://myspace.com/DJRaveMaster

Feedback come first, so...

I got some from an artist who's music I played. That's always nice.

"Herrad" has been in touch. So has "homer".

I'm still waiting on "MDMHvonPA" for his latest "Roundup" column.

But from you, my gentle MSers, episode downloaders and sites visitors, I got bupkiss, zip, nada, nothing.

You seem to be a shy bunch.

Or maybe you just figure that I'm playing things you like to hear so everything must be okay, right?

I'm just doing my job here, keeping some content in your ears, or in your eyes.

But its "your" show too.

Drop me an email: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com.

---- "Dead Industry " by: "Drew Vics" http://drewvics.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

My wife went to Newark and got me a lovely bunch of books.

But from you, my gentle MSer audience, not a thing to share...

So we're just going to go into the next tune.

---- "Industrial Breakdown" by: "Dub Narcotic Sound System" http://www.krecs.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Industrial " by: "easyflow" http://www.easyflowmusic.com/

Main Topic: "Artisanal" vs, Industrial Production.

My wife is sewing some curtains and things for a little theater group here in Jersey City. That's the 'one off', extremely small-scale effort which doesn't need to be extremely repeatable stuff.

Artisanal production is the small scale, very individualistic and individualized, some might say idiosyncratic, manufacture of goods or the provision of services.

Quality control is left up to the individual producer.

Artisanal is of course reproducible, small run stuff, but the techniques employed are very much un-scalable to take advantage of the economies of mass production .

Drugs and therapies are at a disadvantage at both ends of the spectrum of production.

First we, quite sensible enough, demand that the drugs be as safe as possible, its our lives after all.

The only way to insure that is by employing the latest and the best methods, or best practices, of mass production.

We MSers represent only 0.0833% of the population. That's one in twelve hundred people.

Economies of scale don't happen with only 0.0833% of the population unless we ramp-up to take in a very large area, like continents large.

Out of 6.6 billion people on the planet, we represent then represent about 5.5 million individuals.

Problem is that there are things like national borders and other barriers and impedimenta to achieving that 5.5 million person market. Now, I'm not saying that nations don't have their uses. (Well okay... I am. What of it? The United Nations exists to maintain the fundamental existence and inviolability of borders. Everything they do is done to maintain the fundamental existence and inviolability of borders.)

Guess what folks?

Disease knows no race, no borders and no nations. We are in the unattractive position of being just a medium for some biotic or viral or prional parasitic form of existence.

Trying to fight disease within borders places us in a asymmetrical straight-jacket where we give disease the upper hand.

The bigger impediment is the presence of the hundreds, nay, the thousands of languages and dialects spoken by the 5.5 million individual MSers. (Recognizing this fact is this podcast which has an English speaking podcaster ["moi"], a Dutch speaking podcaster ["Herrad"] and a Greek speaking podcaster ["Homer, speak up buddy" :-] in its ranks (and the offers for a French speaking and/or German speaking podcaster is still open.)

This is where the Latin and Greek used by "all" medical practitioners comes to the rescue. There "is" a "lingua franca" spoken by all which makes up the thousands of "Rosetta Stones" necessary for communication to be effective, however haltingly.

---- "The Industry Penguin" by: "Option42" http://www.lordfly.com/music.html

Main Topic, part deux:

Now lets look at Industrial production.

The kinds of mass production techniques leading to the economies of scale are further hampered by the difficulty in finding a common cause of MS.

A series of discrete, reproducible steps which lead from health to disease. (A disruptable path where we can halt the progression by tripping up the disease in its steps.)

To add to the confusion, MS may be a syndrome instead of a single discrete disease.

Medical research is making admirable progress in spite of the difficulties posed by this challenge; this lack of a road map, a known path from heath to disease.

Beyond the injectables, (the ABCRs, beta-interferons, Copaxone, Tsybary, Daclizumab, Rituximab, Alemtuzumab, Zenapax, Rituxan, and Campath, [and the problems and sheer yuck factor involved in clinical or self-injection, {not to mention the liver damage.}]);

beyond the oral drugs (the FTY720 and BG12, and the problems of digestion [imagine trying to design a drug who's effectiveness has to survive being bathed in gastric acids and still be absorbable by the stomach lining, {without causing ulceration!}]);

there may be an aspirated, inhaled, drug regimen out there, germinating in some researcher's mind.

Given our demographic disadvantage, the one in twelve hundred factor, and the fact that, weather or not MS is a syndrome, it still affects individuals very, uh, individually.

This disease progresses at different paces and affects individuals differently at different stages.

The efforts of the providers of regimens, the drug manufacturers and other treatment options, are to be lauded.

Enough praise.

Put down the self-blowing horns and can we please get moving. :-)

---- "Industry" by: "Robert Farrell" http://www.robertfarrell.com/

Outro

2 comments:

Miss Chris said...

I'm still hoping that LDN will be the drug for me. So far so good. I'm noticing significant improvement in my day-to-day pain. I wonder if any of your listeners have any experience with this drug? I'm going to give it one year and see how I'm doing at that point to see if I can stay off the Copaxone.

Charles-A. Rovira said...

I think that, if I can ever get some feedback from them, I will ask for some ideas on their therapies and their reactions to them.

I know first hand about injection site problems, as well as the problems you yourself have experienced.

I admire your patience.

I hate injections.