Pfizer seeking to expand animal health business

Please provide a little more detail regarding your comment on "The hormones THEY are putting in dairy cows". Who are they? What hormones?

Northcutt - Be careful in what you post. We all have a responsibility to further rational dialogue and cut down on the mis-information.

BSE is NOT a hormone fed to dairy cows - it is a fatal neuro disease in cattle known as mad-cow disease which can transfer to humans if they eat diseased brain or spinal cord tissue from a sick animal. The first case of BSE in the U.S. was in 2003 and since then survellance was stepped up and it is not an issue for U.S. ranchers and consumers today.

You are confusing it with BST or BGH - Bovine Growth Hormone. BGH is a naturally occuring hormone in lactating cows. Cows produce their own BGH. BGH is NOT fed. There is a product on the market, Posilac, that can be injected into dairy cows to raise their BGH levels. Cows eat among other things for energy. The BGH helps to direct how that energy gets used (the scientific term is partitioned - where it goes). Energy can be used for locomotion, basic bodily functions, milk or fat. BGH directs more energy to milk and away from body fat - so the cows produce more milk.

The FDA has determined that milk from BGH injected cows and non-BGH cows are essentially the same. Not related to earlier pubescent girls which most studies believe is associated with better nutrition or even too many calories resulting in over-weight girls at earlier ages and earlier sexual maturity.

You say that injecting cows with BST (aka GBH) has "consequences" for the cows. My concern is that a reader that is not knowledgable in these things could interpret your "consequences" to be negative which I believe would be a misinterpretation of the industry's experience. The consequences of BST injection is that the cow gives more milk and puts less fat on her back. BST, then, is a management tool for the farmer to evaluate his cows periodically and decide what is best. A cow in good or over fat condition is given BST so she gives more milk rather than getting fatter.

I think you impose guilt on pharmaceutical companies that may not be factual. These companies are made up of mothers and fathers just like you and me. Some employees that I have met have a deep passion for improving life for people and animals. Of course, these companies must focus on profit or they won't be around to conduct the reseach. Profit comes from bringing value to the marketplace. I fear you have a bias (not sure why) that it makes little difference what I think/say. Thanks for the dialogue however. I do appreciate it.

Rational Poster: I hear your side and you make some good points. But when someone has an illness that has no cure and you are not provided proper treatment and real relief, it becomes quite frustrating to "wait for a cure" while your health and well being is hanging in the balance. And when medication prices are sky high, it kind of puts a bad taste in your mouth. From the way your comments read, it seems as though you may be healthy, and if so, I am happy to hear that and you are fortunate. But some of us aren't so fortunate. I hope you can respect our position...

I don't believe that you are being fair. In my nutrition class in college in 1974, the prof said that the room used to have many doors to exit - scarlet fever, yellow fever, diptheria, polio, tetnus, cancer and heart disease. He said, "Today, most of those doors have been boarded up and now you can exit via cancer or heart disease." Northcutt - life expectancy in your and my lifetime has ballooned. When Social Security was passed, few people lived long enough to reach an age to collect. Today, average lifespand in the U.S. is approaching 80. On my dad's side, I have bad genes for high BP & high cholestrol. I have been treating since I was thirty and I am ever so thankful for companies like Pfizer (Lipitor) and the makers of the four BP meds that I take. Beginning as a teenager, I had averaged three migranes (muscle tension types) per week with about one every two weeks turning into vomiting, etc. When I started a certain BP med, they essentially went away.

As for cost, drups are like software CD's. It costs almost nothing to run the disc. The real cost is developing the software. Same with the drugs that you take. The cost is developing and perfecting (and getting all the tests done to satisfy the FDA) each of the drugs plus amortizing all the costs in developing drugs that did not pan out or get approved.

R Northcutt: Being that I am on many medications and can't afford some, I understand what you mean. Some new drugs are tweaked versions of older drugs and many medications cause horrible side effects. You take one medicine for one thing and then that medicine causes a problem that you need to take another medicine for. It's a vicous cycle. I hope that there are more cures coming down the pike, because there are a lot of people (me included)who are waiting and would like to have a better quality of life and whose lives are deteriorating while we wait for a cure... that may or may not be coming.