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Friday, 2 December 2016
High School Students Make Martin Shkreli’s 5,000% Price-Hike Drug For Just $2
Sydney high school students have produced the anti-parasite drug Daraprim in their school lab. Daraprim is the World Health Organization-listed essential medicine whose price pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli raised by 5,000 percent last year, sparking global outrage and leading him to be dubbed the most hated man in the world. The students have demonstrated how cheaply and easily the life-saving drug can be produced.
The University of Sydney’s Open Source Malaria Consortium attempts to use treatment methods that already exist, but are not fully utilized, to prevent and cure malaria. The consortium has an outreach program with Sydney Grammar School.
For this year’s project the Consortium’s Dr Alice Williamson had a group of year 11 students attempt to produce Daraprim, which achieved fame last year when, despite being long out of patent, Shkreli raised the price from $13.50 per pill to $750.
Daraprim is manufactured using 2,4-chlorophenyl acetonitrile, an easily available and cheap chemical, but conventional methods involve reagents too dangerous for the students to use.
With advice from Williamson, their chemistry teachers, and scientists around the world with an interest in open source medicine, the students found a safe way to turn 2,4-chlorophenyl acetonitrile into Daraprim in their school lab. Williamson confirmed its purity using a spectrograph last week and the work was presented at the New South Wales Chemistry symposium, the day before World AIDS Day.
The ingredients and the outcome of the students’ project. Alice Williamson
Rival companies have announced plans to sell Daraprim at prices that will drastically undercut Shkreli’s. Williamson told IFLScience the students’ method probably won’t displace existing techniques since, despite its safety, it is unlikely to scale as well. Nevertheless, she is delighted with the success. It’s an education project and it highlights how easy it is to make this medicine and why it is important, she said. Moreover, according to Williamson, the knowledge sharing that contributed demonstrates the viability of open source science to tackle complex problems.
“Working on a real-world problem definitely made us more enthusiastic,” Austin Zhang, one of the students involved, told Fairfax.
Although Daraprim is primarily used today to treat the toxoplasmosis parasite in people made vulnerable by weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, AIDS, and cancer, Williamson told IFLScience it was originally invented by Nobel Prize winner Gertrude Elion for the fight against malaria. Although it has long been replaced as a front-line malaria treatment, Williamson noted it is still used occasionally when other drugs fail.
Undergraduate students at half a dozen universities worldwide are already involved in open science projects as part of their courses, but Williamson told IFLScience she believes Sydney Grammar is unique in having high school students take part. She hopesto engage other schools soon, and is seeking funding for a mobile laboratory to make this easier.
Commenting on the news of the students’ achievement, Shkreli tweeted yea uh anyone can make any drug it is pretty ez, but he followed up with a far more gracious response on video.
In response to Shkreli’s comments Williamson told Fairfax, “If anyone can do it and it’s so cheap, it highlights why it shouldn’t be $750 a dose.”
source http://www.eastgrinsteadcommunity.co.uk/high-school-students-make-martin-shkrelis-5000-price-hike-drug-for-just-2/
Thursday, 1 December 2016
This Is What’s Keeping Your Child From Being As Safe As Possible On The School Bus
After a devastating school bus wreck in Chattanooga, Tennessee, left multiple children dead, bus safety has been at the front of parents’ minds. How can we prevent a tragedy like this from happening again?
The crash took place on Monday, November 21. The driver, Johnthony Walker, lost control of the bus before flipping it over and wrapping the vehicle around a tree. It’s estimated that he was going well over the 30 mph speed limit. Although it’s been determined that drugs and alcohol were not a factor, Walker is being charged with reckless driving, reckless endangerment, and vehicular homicide. This accident has horrific implications for the nature of bus safety nationwide.
When first repsonders arrived to the scene, it was immediately clear that there had been fatalities. It took them two hours to remove all the children from the bus. Five were pronounced dead on the scene and several more were transferred to ICU.
Read More: She Thought Her Baby’s Eye Looked Weird In This Photo…Turns Out, He Had Cancer
According to the children, Walker sped up the bus before asking them, “Is everyone here ready to die?” One parent admitted that her son had complained about him speeding before.
Johnthony Walker, 24, charged w/ 5 counts vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment & reckless driving in Talley Rd school bus crash. pic.twitter.com/9ZTIpXUZNl
— Chattanooga Police (@ChattanoogaPD) November 22, 2016
Read more: http://www.viralnova.com
source http://www.eastgrinsteadcommunity.co.uk/this-is-whats-keeping-your-child-from-being-as-safe-as-possible-on-the-school-bus/
The president’s diet and what it says about America
(CNN)Thomas Jefferson may have been America’s first foodie. The Founding Father developed a taste for French cuisine, grew a vast vegetable garden and cherished a farm-to-table diet.
Abraham Lincoln was more of a modest eater. According to historians, the 16th president “liked apples and hot coffee,” and didn’t demand much in a meal.
On the other hand, Ronald Reagan was known for his sweet tooth. The country’s 40th president munched on jelly beans to quit smoking and quickly fell in love with the candy, often keeping a stash nearby in the White House.
Now, it seems that a fast food connoisseur will enter the White House.
“The Obamas are very calorie-conscious and health-conscious, which is a reflection of the first lady. Her vegetable garden is a serious thing, something permanent for White House residents to come,” Seale said, “In Mrs. Obama’s parting, her garden has been endowed handsomely by the Burpee seed company.”
Now, with the Trump administration, Bentley said, we might see a different model of eating that might be something of a “throwback to the post-World War II era of being enamored with the qualities of fast food.”
“You could argue that Trump’s food aesthetic is similar to this earlier post-World War II era, where the dominant values for food were sameness, predictability and quantity over quality,” she said.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/30/health/donald-trump-presidents-diets/index.html
The post The president’s diet and what it says about America appeared first on Lose fat today, simple and easy from fatburnersforwomen.org.uk.
source http://fatburnersforwomen.org.uk/the-presidents-diet-and-what-it-says-about-america/
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