lets have a civil factual debate aboug E-Cigs

[DebJ]

83. If you re-read my comment, I made no comment at all about ecigs.

I was referring only to the comment "I have to believe that nicotine isn't terribly addictive". I've posted before on DU about my own nicotine addiction. I'm a chain smoker who is hoping ecigs might be helpful for me, so I was reading about them, and found this thread very useful and bookmarked it.

Here's my take on big pharma: as a restaurant manager, I was told by a pharma rep who used our catering services several times a week that the drugs she marketed in the USA were extremely cheaper anywhere outside USA borders. I asked why, she said she didn't know...but clearly, she was incredibly angry about her employer's pricing practices, and she clarified that production point had nothing whatsoever to do with the pricing That certainly didn't make me happy; I was so ticked off I've told everyone I know what she said..and that was 6 years ago now and I am still repeating the story.

I don't know if flu vaccine makers are considered part of big pharma, but I am incredibly annoyed that they refuse to sell or provide flu vaccine to the doctors in our area. They will only market them through pharmacies. I don't feel like revealing all my health concerns to a pharmacy to get a shot in a grocery store or drug store. They know enough from my meds history. Furthermore, our health care plan, which is extremely generous, will only pay certain pharmacies to give the shots, and none of those pharmacies are in our area, so we have to pay for the shots ourselves. I find this all so annoying I never did get a flu shot this year, and I should have. And my doctor is very concerned that when there are shortages of vaccines, the vaccines are 'rationed' by a first-come,first-serve, whoever-has-the-dollars plan, instead of by which patients in a given area are most critically in need of a vaccine that could save their lives. Getting flu shots has become like shopping for anything else, rather than a matter of supervised health care.

My son has to remain on social supports because the medicines available for his bipolar disorder are so outrageously expensive there is no way he could 'work his way up' the ladder and earn enough money to pay for medical care and the medicines that keep him alive. He would be cut off from medical assistance way before he earned enough to support himself in even the most meager of fashions. If the medicines were not so outrageously expensive, he could perhaps pay for the meds for awhile himself. I had to pay cash for his meds for a year (going back 12 years now), and they cost $800 a month....just the meds alone...that was 20% of my gross income.

I detest the TV marketing of drugs; the absurdity of telling people to ask your doctor about thus-and-so, when half the time they don't even tell you what the med treats: hypochondriac marketing to a group of people who aren't trained in science or medicine. And then bill everyone for the cost of that marketing in the cost of the drug!!!!!!!

Most of all, I resent profit being in our health care system, period. In addition to my son's issues, four other family members suffer from Marfin Syndrome, with health issues like backs deteriorating and falling apart by their late 40s, and so many other issues you wouldn't believe. We have other things in the family, too. My husband's health care costs for his kidney disease may result in foreclosure or bankruptcy for us within the next few years.

Ridiculous that I feel compelled to defend myself against being considered a troll because I commented on the addictive impact of nicotine...like any addiction, including alcoholism, it is the individual's brain and body chemistry that determines the level of or presence of an addictive response to a given substance. That was my only point. Troll-hunting can be an addiction too, perhaps.