Remember Martha Stewart and the trouble she had with Imclone (the company that had the cancer drug that was to be turned down by the FDA?) Well, believe it or not, the FDA did approve that cancer drug, Erbitux. Go figure. And the Erbitux was shown to be effective in treating late stage colorectal cancer in patients who no longer responded to primary drug treatments. All well and good so far. Well, there is a slight problem. It’s the cost! Specialists and physicians are complaining about the high cost of Erbitux. It is estimated that the average treatment costs $161,000 for a lifespan gain of less than 2 months, compared with other, less costly, treatments. Colorectal cancer is the third deadliest form of cancer in the US, claiming about 56,000 lives annually.

While Medicare covers the costs of these treatments, patients with private insurance policies could see their carriers or employers deny them coverage because of the cost. Now, what would you think? I say ney-ney!

Imclone CEO Daniel S. Lynch said it’s marketing partner, Bristol Myers Squibb Co., sets the Erbitux price. Bristol Myers, which pays Imclone to share US marketing privileges for Erbitux, says its prices reflect development and manufacturing costs. So, what do you think? My Nicky says it’s highway robbery. Do you?

Now this one really "takes the cake" as my mom used to say. And it tops the bizarre story from the 1981 decision to make ketchup a vegetable in the school lunch program—hey, remember Reagonomics? Now it seems that a federal judge in Sherman, Texas, ruled that the USDA went by the book when it categorized french fries as a fresh vegetable. Seems the rule change and court decision outraged health advocates who consider french fries a processed food. Gee, I always thought french fries—or freedom fries as they were once known—were a processed, adulterated food item.

Being considered a fresh fruit or vegetable can be worth big money. You can’t convince me that special interest groups are not out to change us. I always thought raw potatoes were considered fresh and french fries were processed. Silly me. Deep fried potatoes that have all the nutrients replaced with oil and fat are not, in my book, a fresh vegetable.

Hey seniors. You just had the wool pulled over your eyes by the administration that is currently in office. Remember when your government just revamped Medicare and the prescription drug program? Seems the rules and regulations have changed a bit. And not in your favor. Seems the government has sent out the new prescription discount cards to you seniors, so that you can get a 10% discount; they didn’t tell you that the drug companies have raised the prices on their drugs by 30%! Yup, that’s the government looking out for your interest. Or is it?

And while we are talking about the price of drugs, did you know that Canadian mail-order drugs are getting cheaper and more plentiful? To receive savings as much as 80%, countless thousands of Americans regularly fill their prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies. But recently, US drug makers, like Glaxo Smith Kline and Pfizer, have cut back shipments to those same Canadian pharmacies that serve US citizens. Those actions have left many drugstores across the border struggling to meet and fill US demands. So I ask you, just who is Uncle Sam looking out for?

And here is a really shocking article I recently came across. Fewer and fewer Americans believe the overall threat of AIDS is very serious.

The decline in fear of contracting AIDS comes at a time when the disease is showing signs of making a comeback in this country! It seems that 6 in 10 people now deem AIDS a serious problem. When people back in 1987 were asked how serious AIDS was as a national health problem, almost 9 in 10 people deemed it a serious problem. And now AIDS diagnoses have increased for the first time in a decade.

Could it be that the new, revolutionary drugs that have allowed people to live longer made us think that it could be "held off," or some think it’s a cure for the disease?

Could it be that many of the young gay men have no memory of the devastation to the community in the early deadly days two decades ago? Many have adopted a "it’s not going to happen to me" attitude.

Has the government let us down now that they’ve employed a program of abstinence through faith based organizations? They are not telling us to use a condom, but to just "say no."

Did you know that the US provides financial help to developing countries that support President Bush’s insistence that abstinence and not the trusty condom should be the main way to fight AIDS?

Now, who are we kidding? Fifty five percent of US citizens said teaching safe sex should be the focus of efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. The promoting of abstinence was supported by 40 percent. Is our government listening? The recent increase in diagnosed cases of AIDS is likely a sign of things to come, said Dr. Jim Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and a long time veteran of AIDS prevention efforts. Is anybody in the White House listening? What do you think?