Pharmaceutical Industry Vs. Doctors

"Sure, the pharmaceutial industry is much more powerful than doctors," my doctor flatly said to me.

She was talking about a weird prescription drug system in Japan. Whatever the manufacturer is, all prescription drugs of the same kind are the same retail price under Japan's health insurance system. But depending on the manufacturer, wholesale prices actually vary. For example, say, company A adopts a very strict standard to check pesticides used for growing plants for herbal medicine, while company B does not conduct such a strict inspection. As a result, company A's herbal medicine's whole sale price is more expensive than company B's. Even so, retail prices of both are the same - which means pharmacies could lose money by selling company A's quality medicine, but company A does not, because it can still charge the more expensive wholesale price to pharmacies whatever the fixed retail price is.

In short, the current system actually discourage doctors to prescribe good, quality, but expensive medicine. I thought the solution may change the retail prices depending on the whole sale prices and let doctors and patients choose....? What do you think?

Juex Interdits

When I first saw the film with my parents, I was more or less the same age as the main character girl. Until recently, I only had a vague memory about two scenes - when the air raids on the bridge that killed her parents and puppy, and when she refused to drink a cup of milk that contained a dead fly, as my mom pointed it out as interesting.

Decades later, I rented a video from a French school that I started to attend over the weekend, and saw the movie second time - only to find myself belonging to the foolish adult world. I felt as if I was knocked on the head, and was told "what the hell are you doing?"

Oui, this world can be too political in various levels. But what we need in this crazy world is the straightforward, pure humanity and love that transcend throughout the movie, isn't it?

As I'm usually too workaholic even on weekends, such as watching CNN and C-SPAN, I decided to saw the video for a change. At the end of the day, this has led me to ponder over the world and my career seriously.