Ultimately, executives at companies like Microsoft keep their jobs by making the stock prices 'go up'. Acknowledging that Google is an upcoming major competitor in the business software market does not do Microsoft any sort of good as far as stock price goes so what should we expect them to say? "Yeah... Google's constantly improving software suite and low prices are already a cause for concern at Microsoft and we foresee that our proverbial ass will be handed to us in this market segment in the years to come." Never going to hear that out of Redmond, ever.

Someone had to spend time emailing, calling, and skyping to interview for job? I think I might cry...

If we stop and think about it, our present 'course' regarding human nutrition is incredibly stupid. On one side, here we believe evolution and natural selection, and the influence of genetic diversity and specificity of human health... and yet we just throw this all out the window when it comes to nutrition (and other aspects of human health). The human physiology evolved, and the GI tract developed, to east certain foods (handle certain groups of fats, proteins, etc.) and use bacteria to help with digestion and aspects of protection from 'bad' bacteria. And now we are taking antibiotics orally, sterilizing so much of our food. When are modifying foods into 'food-like' chemicals and swallowing them regularly. I mean, I'm a PhD chemical engineer... if I just mixed up some vegetable oils, ran some reactions on those oils, poured them into a cup and said, "here, drink this..." Would you? Hell fucking no! I wouldn't drink it myself! Well, we are generally allowing large food conglomerates to do exactly this... we have no idea on the long term human health effects of consumption of modified oils and so many other processed and synthesized foods. Every single food we eat has a pharmacological effect on our body and triggers hormone responses such as insulin release, etc. (don't believe me, just ask someone with a severe food allergy); we need our healthy GI track bacteria. What science has been done generally supports that GI track bacterial flora population 'health' is very ,very important for overall health. "Good bacteria' break down simple sugars (so we absorb them all), fight 'bad' bacteria that can release toxins/enzymes into our GI track, blah blah blah... lot of reasons. It is good that this gaining momentum because a lot of doctors don't know shit about this unless their medical school made them learn it and a lot of us regular people just don't have the inclination, time, or necessary background education to really study in this area. For now... I recommend everyone try to do some reading in the area of basic human biochemistry and the biochemistry/microbiology of the GI track and food digestion. Frankly I need to do more myself. I did a lot of reading a couple years ago when I got really sick, and had all kinds GI tract and allergic issues for a while... learned some of what I noted above and lot more. I'm pretty much all better now... but, honestly, my primary doctor didn't have clue what was wrong... figured out a lot of it on my own, did see a specialist who was 'mildly' helpful, and sort fixed myself. oh yeah... Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year everyone!

It is actually more than just a brand of Amphotericin-B. *Again, I'm not a medical doctor... just providing info & opinions* Standard Amphotericin-B is nick-named 'Ampho-terrible' because of its nasty side effects (high liver and kidney toxicity in acute doses); upon injection / IV adminstration, Ampho-B is filtered out of blood stream rather quickly and so the efficacy of the drug is lowered and it's adverse effects against filtering organs of the body increased. In Ambisome, Ampho-B is encapsulated in a phospholipid bi-layer vesicle, effectively an engineered cholesterol nanoparticle, which gives the drug more of a time release behavior in the bloodstream and significantly reduced filtration rate [in liver and kidneys]... so long story short: the Ambisome formula works much better than Amphotericin-B straight and the severity of adverse effects is much, much lower. That much is clinically proven. There are other lipid encapsulated formulations of Amphotericin-B (Ambisome competitors)... don't know about those formulations, but they probably also work better than Ampho-B straight.

So... that explains a lot. My opinion of the FDA still stands (discussion for another time)... but I was trying to imagine how the FDA could screw up so royally. Well, they didn't... complete oversight on my part. This then begs some additional questions: "How are compounding pharmacies regulated and why are they allowed to sell cross state without being inspected/regulated by the FDA?" I can't help but also ask, "why are non-FDA regulated facilities allowed to produce injectables?" They are numerous FDA regulated generic parenteral (injectables) manufacturing facilities all over the US and Canada that... this whole scenario just does not compute. Compounding chemists preping parenterals without complete sterility assurance (via rigorous validation and QC testing) is pretty much a disaster, like the very one we are discussing, waiting to happen; I think the doctors ought to know better, as well.

I used to work in the Pharma/biotech industry... among other things, I served on teams responsible for all facets of drug sterility (equipment cleaning and sterilization, cleanroom design/operation/cleaning, aseptic filling and personnel aseptic technique). My comments: This is first foremost NECC's fault... prison time may be coming for some folks at NECC. There is the outside chance that this was just a horribly bad stroke of luck, but it is highly atypical to have fungus in your cleanroom one day out of blue and then it suddenly gets into your sterile filling operation; it has to get in through a vector which is way out of tolerance (contamination of sterile water-for-injection system, horribly failed equipment or vial sterilization processes, fungus in the air-handlers for the filling suite, leaks in the HEPA filters, etc. In a proper pharma manufacturing facility, there are almost ridiculous levels and layers of engineering and quality control testing protection to ensure that substandard product can never get on the door (expensive, to be sure... but absolutely worth it!). NECC manufacturing practices were likely horribly sub-par, cutting corners to save money, and if this was the case... some folks at NECC are in big, big trouble BUT... one of the FDA's jobs is to make sure that drug manufacturing facilities are fully capable and have rigorous systems in place to effectively ensure that stuff like this doesn't happen (and it pretty much never should). My experience with FDA in my past Pharma career left me with zero trust of the FDA's ability to fulfill their duty to the public: they understaffed with qualified scientists to scrutinize clinical trial data and investigate and regulate manufacturing facilities. Last, in the case of a severe fungal infection (you or someone you know), ask your doctor about Ambisome (a IV drug for treating severe fungal infections). I'm not a doctor, so that's all I'm going to say lest I give anyone false or misleading information. I happen to know about Ambisome because I used to work for the company that makes it; and I mention Ambisome because I don't think many doctors know about it... at least that used to be the case.

I think he miscasts the argument between science and religion. In my opinion, science and religion have little to say to another. The real realm for discussion is between religion and philosophy, which some may argue are one and the same. (As a brief disclaimer, I am a christian and also a PhD scientist). As amazing as science is, as amazing as our discoveries have been (and will continue to be)... there are fundamental philosophical questions which science cannot answer for me today... and I argue science is not designed to answer. Example questions: "Why am I here? Is there a purpose to this arbitrary existence?" "Is this existence unique?" I could go on and on... Science deals with mechanism... the physical description of our universe past, present, and future. Science is not designed to answer the question, "why are we here?"... the notion that science could formulate an answer implies that a valid, testable hypothesis could be formed, the test(s) devised/executed and data recorded, and finally a report written stating the observations with proposed scientific model and conclusions. Some may argue that the questions is unimportant but therein we enter a philosophical debate and that is where the debate about religion ought to remain... in the realm of philosophy. This is all being said.... religion deserves much of the criticism and scrutiny it has received. But we should be careful not to paint everyone with the same brush, so to speak.