I have no idea what you mean by either of these statements. I have a feeling that I’m being whooshed though…
This page says
It is amazing that a doctor in Germany would prescribe thalidomide to GingerOfTheNorth’s mother, just months after the announcement of a very large settlement to the German victims.
My point is that it’s easy to look back now and point fingers at doctors that were prescribing thalidomide, even after news of its affects were made known, but we don’t know the environment of the time. How was a doctor able to prescribe this drug, if it had been removed from all pharmacy shelves? I could be wrong, but I don’t see the situation as people realize the drug is bad on Monday, and the drug is pulled from all shelves by Tuesday. I would say that from 1968 to 1971 was definitely within the window of how long it takes the wheels of bureaucracy to move.
In relation to this point, I also think the procedures for removing a bad drug were probably not nearly as fast then as they are now, since we had such a bad thing happen and we (hopefully) learned a lesson from it.
Anybody who is more familiar with this whole episode and what happened and when, I would welcome more accurate information than I have from doing some very casual research on this subject.
Oh, and kick us the heck out if we’re hijacking your thread too much, Kalhoun.
Ginger loked up Primperan at work today and found out that it’s a drug called “Metoclopramide HCL”, which you can search for online, I guess. The pharmacist there said it’s a catagory B drug, which means no known side effects withing the first 28 weeks.
No Wooooshing.
The website (the one you linked…remember?), says “Inhale comfortably without smoke”.
The herb is burned inside the vaporizer and then injected into the balloon. None or very little initial smoke. `Cept you have to suck the contents out of the balloon to get high. Then, I assume you should exhale at some point, which is where the smoke part comes from.
The short term memory loss thing was just a play on the parts of the thread that, I believe, you initiated when you said the following; “What are the symptoms of your allergy? Dry mouth? Short term memory loss? Inexplicable food cravings? Short term memory loss?”
Short term memory loss my arse.
Take a look at either of the two pages I linked to in my previous posts. By 1971, thalidomide had been banned for at least nine years in Britain and Germany.
Canada (the slowest country to move on banning thalidomide) was harshly criticized for letting it stay on the shelves for only four months after it had been banned in Britain at the end of 1961. By 1968 the “wheels of bureaucracy” had definitely moved. This was a drug with horrible side effects and even if Ginger’s doctor never read a medical journal throughout 1960s, he almost certainly would have heard about thalidomide in the newspapers or on radio or TV. There was no excuse for a doctor to prescride thalidomide to a pregnant woman in the 1970s.
That goes for me, too. Sorry.
But everything turns out ok. You forget why you’re holding your breath.
It’s not smoke because nothing is actually burned in a vaporizer…it’s a vapor or mist, not smoke. You exhale the vapor.
Hell…I’m done with my rant. This conversation is much more informative (and funny) than what I had going. I just hope the mods will think twice before closing down an entertaining thread. I mean, it’s not like it was grown men dancing naked in front of children or anything!
Please resume your hijack, my friends.
stops dancing, gets dressed, waits for next post
Geez, as soon as I saw the thread title I new it was a blatant joke. I didn’t have to see the OP’s name – I thought it was obvious.
After the talk about Thalidomide this morning, I walked into the Director of Pharmacy’s office at work today, and there was a package of it sitting on his desk. I didn’t eat any. Apparently, it is used not only in cases of Leprosy, but also for Aids patients. They can sometimes get a similar skin condition to leprosy, but not full-blown, parts-falling-off, leprosy. It’s used to treat that skin condition.
Now, I just wonder where the hell a North American would come in contact with a tropical/hot weather country disease.
See? Now you’re going to get my rant shut down. C’mon, you guys! 
Well, that’s what I get for arguing with someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Hey, this is the Pit - I thought we could dance naked if we wanted to!
Ginger, it is also used in the treatment of Behcet’s syndrome. A friend of mine has been on occasional courses of thalidomide for that reason.
To save the trouble of Googling, as I’m sure the name is unfamiliar to most, Behcet’s syndrome is an immune disorder which unlike AIDS or leprosy, is not believed to be caused by an infectious agent. It currently falls into the category of “hanged if we know what causes it”.
And to the OP, I agree that it was obviously a joke. I saw the opening text of Dave’s thread as the mouse pointer passed over the title, and assumed it would be a spoof. My guess was ballooning or skydiving!
[folds arms, and stomps foot]
Awwww shit. Now that just isn’t fair. I wanna be fired from housework too. Got any ideas on how I can make that happen without getting pregnant.
Congrats on the wee one.
Really?, I just thought vapor was a nice word for smoke.
I probably shouldn’t have said that. Now Dave’s gonna lose ‘cred’ in debates. Big mean Weirddave isn’t so mean after all, huh?
You gotta be pregnant or half-dead from exhaustion every day. That’s just how it works. Sorry!
Nope. From NORML California: Cannabis vaporizers are designed to let users inhale active cannabinoids while avoiding harmful smoke toxins. They do so by heating cannabis to a temperature of 180 - 200° C (356° - 392° F), just below the point of combustion where smoke is produced.
Well…water vapor isn’t water smoke, is it?