Free Republic

The sponsors of Tysabri (natalizumab), Biogen Idec and Elan Corporation, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has agreed to conduct a “Priority Review” of their application to return the drug back to the market. Tysabri was withdrawn in February 2005 due to safety concerns and is currently being re-evaluated by the FDA. (Read background information about Tysabri.) Agreeing to a Priority Review means that the FDA has approximately six months from the late September 2005 submission date to review the safety and efficacy data submitted by the companies, to seek advice from experts and comments from persons...

FReeper WKB is undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery today and has requested prayer. It's out-patient surgery so he's promised to let us know how he's doing once he gets home.

Tysabri Suspended From The MarketFebruary 28, 2005 Biogen Idec and Elan Corporation have just announced the voluntary suspension of Tysabri from the market and from all clinical trials due to safety concerns. Tysabri was approved for marketing in November 2004. According to the company press release, "This decision is based on very recent reports of two serious adverse events that have occurred in patients treated with TYSABRI in combination with AVONEX® (Interferon beta-1a) in clinical trials. These events involve one fatal, confirmed case and one suspected case of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and frequently fatal, demyelinating disease of...

This morning’s newspaper headlines reported the murder conviction of Clara Harris. This lady found her philandering husband walking away from a hotel where he had just met with his mistress. Mrs. Harris was sentenced to twenty years for running over her husband – three times. She claimed it was an accident. The incident reminded me of the accident victim who “fell on his knife 68 times”! Not quite an accident. At least the jury didn’t think so. Mrs. Harris suffers from what my Lynchburg psychologist friend Gentry Doyle titled “toxic anger”. Clara’s anger was dangerous to her as well as...

Welcome to the Republic of Umm Qasr. Water comes out the end of a jerry-rigged pipeline from Kuwait. Security is provided by the British Royal Marines. There's a deep-water port, one of the finest in the Middle East, but only one ship has called so far--and no others seem on the horizon. ELECTRICITY IS NONEXISTENT. The nights are dark and dangerous. The town's 40,000 residents are scared and angry. And this is what free Iraq consists of so far, after two weeks of war.

Kim Komando Electronic Newsletter – 3-22-03 SITES TO HELP YOU COPE WITH WAR'S DEMANDS The Internet has loads of information for those who go, and those who stay. For instance, are you familiar with geography that our fighting forces are facing? And do you know where our troops are located? MilitaryCity.com shows a map so that you can see how our forces are dispersed in the region. Check it out here: http://www.militarycity.com/map/ WHEN DOES A CAPTAIN OUTRANK A CAPTAIN? If you didn't spend time in uniform, you may find the proliferation of ranks confusing. For instance, a Navy captain is...

<p>DAVAO, Philippines — At least 19 people were killed, including an American, Tuesday as a powerful explosion ripped through a waiting area at the Davao City International Airport in the southern Philippines.</p> <p>Three other Americans, from a Southern Baptist missionary family, were among the over 150 injured after the bomb, hidden in a backpack, exploded just outside the arrival airport terminal.</p>

<p>U.S. President George W. Bush spoke to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City on Saturday morning. The following is a text of his address.</p> <p>"Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates and ladies and gentlemen, we meet in a hall devoted to peace, in a city scarred by violence, in a nation awakened to danger, in a world uniting for a long struggle.</p>

ISLAMABAD: US secretary of state Colin Powel, who will touch down at Islamabad airport on Monday on a crucial visit, will discuss with the Pakistani leadership the post-Taliban political order in Afghanistan. The US has made clear its intentions to support a new government in Kabul to replace the under attack Taliban. Diplomatic sources confided on this scribe that Powel’s visit will also bring under discussion the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan to normalize the South Asian regional situation as both the rivals in the conflict have nuclear capability also. America has recently expressed its extensive concern over the ...

No wonder Russia has had so much trouble getting its economy right. If prosperous, sophisticated, high-tech California can so thoroughly bungle an effort to deregulate just one industry, why should we expect ex-communists to know how to deregulate a whole economy? The basic problem is much the same. Virtually all of the old Soviet economy was under state control, creating enormous vested interests that resisted exposure to the competitive rigors of the marketplace. So Moscow settled for partial privatization, handing over control of state-owned companies to their corrupt managers, then subsidizing the inefficient production of poorly made products by levying ...