BrandweekNRX

Check.

Today was a good day:

My speech in Swedish Parliament worked out well - check.

The Swedish translation of my book Killer Drug, called Wolfpack or Vargflocken was launched today - check.

Full page interview and review of my new book in "Svenska Dagbladet," Sweden's largest conservative newspaper - check.

My op-ed article appeared in "Dagens Industri," the largest business daily in Scandinavia - check.

Radio interview, one hour show - check.

Great review of my new book in the business magazine Affärsvärlden, calling the book a "nail-biting thriller."

Pretty good day, all in all.

Oh yeah, my book is now featured as the top selection on the first page of the largest Swedish Internet book store, next to Harry Potter, and above the book by the former Swedish Prime Minister released yesterday.

Very good day, I'd say.

Only thing left is to get those hard-headed American journalists to talk about the book. Right, I'll do that in a radio interview in New York on Friday. This might become a really good week.

Lunesta wins eyeball battle but loses sales war.

Two ad campaigns for Sepracor’s sleeping aid Lunesta were the most memorable during the 2006-07 television season, according to the latest ranking by IAG Research. Lunesta is Sepracor's most succesful product.

Unfortunately,  generic competition is hurting Lunesta sales and Sepracor's stock fell to a three-year low this week, after a UBS analyst downgraded the stock.

Doesn't mean we can't enjoy one of those Lunesta commercials:

Oops. Was that the wrong one?

For more information about the top commercials, go here.

Test: Are you left- or right-brained?

Do you see the female dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If you see her moving clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most people apparently see the dancer turning anti-clockwise, however, you can try to change the direction; see if you can do it.

The left side of the brain generally deals with language (speech, writing, etc.) The right side of the brain deals with more spatial activities (music, math, art, etc.) People who are right-brained are thought to be more creative than left-brained people. Left-brained people are more focused on logic and structured activities.

John Mack is right.

John Mack of Pharma Blogosphere fame is pointing out that I didn't immediately follow the pack yesterday and jump on Pfizer Inc.'s latest debacle.  And he's right. When possible, the BrandweekNRX philosophy is to try to find those stories you can't read anywhere else.

So I allowed my exclusive post "New drug therapy: Smell of breasts drive women wild" remain on top for an extended period.

John speculates that "Rost scores technorati points for keeping the breast post at the top of his blog list for several days while the drug industry burns and bombs all around him!"

I guess there is no easy way to say this: I'm a sucker for readership numbers, and the smell of breasts clearly beats a burning bong:

The Bong is Gone.

Bloggers are having a field day with the news that Pfizer Inc. is pulling the plug on the billion dollar inhaled insulin bong that sold only a few million dollars.

Check out John Mack's summary here.

Pfizer announced a whopping $2.8 billion dollar write-off related to Exubera making this debacle even more costly than torcetrapib and cementing Pfizer's reputation as unable to do anything right.

Image courtesy of Pharmagiles.

I humbly point out my post of a year ago, before anyone complained about Exubera.

On August 16, 2006 I wrote about Pfizer's insulin inhaler:

"And this year Exubera was launched, an insulin inhaler used for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes that has blockbuster potential. According to Pfizer. But look at the Exubra inhaler! It is BIG. A foot long, when unfolded, which makes it feel like a baseball bat. Think your girlfriend would like to haul that out of her handbag while seated in a restaurant? Common sense, folks. Common sense. NO ONE would be caught dead with this foot long pocket rocket in their pocket. Or handbag."

And common sense is clearly something Pfizer's management of late is lacking.

New drug therapy: Smell of breasts drive women wild.

The smell from breasts of breastfeeding mommies can put other women in the mood for sex and spark wild fantasies, according to a new U.S. study.

This finding came from research about therapies for women with low libido, and involved asking new mothers to insert special pads into their bras.

Those pads were then sniffed by half of the study group, and the findings showed that women who were exposed to the breastfeeding smell experienced a 24 percent increase in sexual desire and 17 percent increase in sexual fantasies.

The control group, which sniffed pads that had a fake scent, reported an insignificant decrease in sexual desire and a 28% decrease in sexual fantasies.

The Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia conducted the study and recruited 26 breast-feeding women, who were asked to wear special pads in their nursing bras to collect samples of their sweat. The pads were then cut into pieces and frozen.

Another group of 90 childless women between the ages of 18 and 35 was assembled to test the pads, and divided into two groups. One set of women was given the breast-scented pads to sniff in the morning and before going to bed, while the other was given pads impregnated with a chemical that mimics the smell of sweat and breast milk.

Professor Martha McClintock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, said: "We knew there are other species in which the females use social signals from other females to help identify the time when they become pregnant and have offspring at optimal times.

The effect may have evolved because the presence of other women who have just given birth could be a signal of favorable conditions for breeding, scientists suggested.

The study adds to the growing body of evidence that chemicals called pheromones trigger sexual desire and an urge to reproduce in women.

BrandweekNRX predicts that someone is bound to make a lot money off this latest scientific finding: Women's sex drive will soon be boosted by drugs based on chemicals found in the sweat of breast-feeding mothers.

More reading on this new study here.

BrandweekNRX will test your device!

If you would like BrandweekNRX to test and write about your healthcare related (non prescription) device , such as snore stopper, massage rod, home-kit dna sampler, night vision goggles (for doctors doing surgery in the dark), please contact this writer on rostpeter@hotmail.com.

We will write about our experience with your device; if we like it we may say so and if we don't we'll make hilarious fun of your contraption.

Health: The breast massaging dentist

Breast massage is good for certain jaw diseaease, according to some dental journals. At least that is what a dentist who rubbed womens' breasts claim.

No word how massaging breasts would relieve muscle spasms in other parts in the body. Not that BrandweekNRX would question established medical procedures; we just wonder if this really is an established procedure. Other areas that could be rubbed and cause relaxation comes to mind.

The dentist is accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients and he is trying to keep his dental license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases. His lawyer says dental journals discuss the need to massage the pectoral muscles to treat a common jaw problem.

Police claim Mark Anderson said during recorded phone calls that he routinely massaged patients' chests to treat temporo-mandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, which causes neck and head pain.

We presume his patients had a lot of jaw diseases, or perhaps he found this treatment should be applied to prevent such disease?

Attorney Robert Zaro told administrative law judge Jonathan Lew at a hearing Thursday that he should let Anderson keep his dental license while disciplinary appeals proceed. Anderson would be supervised by two assistants and would no longer do the chest rubs, Zaro said.

Zaro said Anderson, 48, of Woodland, needs to keep seeing patients so he can feed his seven children and pay for his defense.

The judge made no immediate decision.

Lew suspended Anderson's dental license last month. He was charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery and sexual battery. Yolo County prosecutors are investigating complaints from more than two dozen women who say they also were groped in the examining chair in the last five years.

No word why his many other female patients didn't complain. Perhaps they weren't pretty enough to have mandibular disorders.

Is crying contagious?

Find out in this dog/baby video

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Would you believe that Chinese herbs are better than drugs?

Chinese herbs are better than drugs, Australian researches claim.

A study involving nearly 3,500 women in several countries suggests that Chinese herbs might be more effective in relieving menstrual cramps than drugs, acupuncture or heat compression.

Australia-based researchers said herbs not only relieved pain, but reduced the recurrence of the condition over three months, according to the Cochrane Library journal.

You can read about the report on Reuters.

Only if you read to the end of the story, on the second page, do you find this piece of info:

"But the researchers said more studies were needed because of the relatively small numbers of participants in each of the trials."

So really, the study didn't have enough power to be statistically signficant, which means it showed nothing and was probably funded by Chinese herb manufacturers.

And why is BrandweekNRX writing about this?

To show you that a lot of what you read about health is junk.