Pradaxa & Xarelto: Are they worth the risks & costs?

What dangers lurk ahead for new “blood thinner” medications?

Could we unwittingly be participating in our own destruction?

Not only that, but these new medications are exorbitantly expensive, as well.

Are they worth it in the long run?

Should we continue to use the ready stand-by?

The new meds have no antidote. The old one does.

Too little too late, or too much too soon?

Are we playing with fire?

Only time will tell.

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Insight: Top heart doctors fret over new blood thinners

6:50am EDT, 14 June 2012

By Ransdell Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – For millions of heart patients, a pair of new blood thinners have been heralded as the first replacements in 60 years for warfarin, a pill whose hardships and risks have deterred many from using the stroke-prevention medicine.

But growing complaints of risks and deaths tied to the new crop of drugs have made some top U.S. cardiologists hesitant to prescribe them. Some are proposing a more rigorous monitoring regimen for when they are used.

Most concerns revolve around Pradaxa, a twice daily pill from Boehringer Ingelheim that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in October 2010 to prevent strokes in patients with an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. It was the first new oral treatment for that use since warfarin was introduced in the 1950s.

“The good news is

The ONLY digital camera that CANNOT shoot color is…

Huh?

You mean there’s a digital camera that CANNOT make color photographs?

Yup.

Not to worry.

You probably won’t buy it.

Besides… it’s nearly US$8000.

Unless you’re an artsy fartsy fancy schmancy pho-tograffer type… and in which case, you probably don’t have a lot of munny anyway. Fo-to-graffers don’t make a whole lot of munny.

You know… they’re the starving atisté kind.

But, on the upsid3… the REAL matter is the development of sensors, and how they perceive and are sensitive to light.

For all the bazillion-dollar cameras that can see in the dark, and blah, blah, blah… there has NEVER EVER been a camera that has EVER come close to the human eye.

Seriously.

Think about it.

Your $8000 Nikon or Canon, or Leica cannot in any way come close to accurately reproducing what your eye is capable of seeing.

Your eye can see detail in highlights AND in shadows… without PhotoShop.

Your Canon or Nikon or Leica cannot.

Try to take a “well-exposed” photograph in the dark.

Your camera needs a flash, doesn’t it?

Your eyes don’t.

Yeah, sure… digital cameras can see the infrared spectrum of light, whereas your eyes