Pharma Veterans

Health Hazards of Social Media for Adolescents – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #990 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #990 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Mary Taylor Credit: Jessica Ticozzelli Credit: Budgeron Bach Credit: Andrea Piacquadio This Blog Post is mainly based on an interview with US Surgeon General, published in Journal of American Medicine Association – JAMA on August 9, 2024. Link at the end. The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. The Office of Surgeon General periodically issues health warnings, the best-known example of which is warning label that has been present on all packages ...

Quitting Tobacco Use – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #988 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #988 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Alexandar Andreev Credit: Antoni Shkraba Credit: Eren Özdemir Credit: Thibault Luycx World Health Organization has issued “WHO clinical treatment guideline for tobacco cessation in adults” in July 2024. Link at the end. I was a good (read heavy) smoker for many years before I quit about nineteen years ago. Of course, I still carry a soft corner for smokers, particularly, when I see them being restricted from all public places like restaurants, parks, hotels, airports, and so on. Life is not enjoyable for smokers anymore. There was a time when tobacco chewing was part of culture and lifestyle, and smoking was iconic and related to real men. Almost all adults and elderly men ...

World Drug Report 2023 – Last Part – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #887 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #887 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans  aims to share knowledge and wisdom from Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Alena Baliaeva Credit: Cristian Arias Credit: Damian Barczak Credit: Anecb YcuiHay UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has published World Drug Report 2023 (link at the end) which shows where the world is vis-à-vis drugs and crime. I am reproducing here the highlights of the report in summarized way. Key Message #9 – Forcibly displaced populations suffer an elevated vulnerability to mental health and substance use disorders. By mid-2022, the number of people who had been forcibly displaced worldwide had exceeded 100 million, which was more than...

World Drug Report 2023 – Part 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #886 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #886 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans  aims to share knowledge and wisdom from Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Baqir Zaidi Credit: Sinitta Leunen Credit: Towfique Barbhuiya UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has published World Drug Report 2023 (link at the end) which shows where the world is vis-à-vis drugs and crime. I am reproducing here the highlights of the report in summarized way. Key Message #4 – Large inequalities remain in the availability of pharmaceutical opioids for medical consumption, and treatment of drug abuse. The issues with opioid abuse besides, inequality exists even in the availability of these pharmaceutical products between high-in...

World Drug Report 2023 – Part 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #885 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #885 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans  aims to share knowledge and wisdom from Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Alesia Kozik Credit: MART Production Credit: Zarina Khalilova We are now talking about DRUGS, the illicit compounds of various types and abused medicines.  This is the latest information from UNODC - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. They have published World Drug Report 2023 (link at the end) which shows where the world is vis-à-vis drugs and crime; illicit drugs or abused medicines are a crime by itself and leads to more crimes. This report such important information that it should be shared in detail and shared publicly to raise awareness. I sh...

Peer Pressure – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #800 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #800 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Photo Credit: Huy Chien Tran Photo Credit: Ivan Samkov Photo Credit: cottonbro studio Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a person's peers or social group to conform to certain behaviors, values, or attitudes. It can be both direct, through explicit requests or demands, or indirect, through perceived social norms or expectations within a group. The children get exposed to peer pressure as soon as they start interacting with other children, at very tender ages. School exposure is the first major avenue of facing, feeling, and negotiating with the peer pressure in its many aspe...

Opioid Crisis and Pharma Industry – Last Part – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #726 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #726 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. This series of blogposts is based on multiple sources, links to some of which appear at the end. The entire discussion on factors associated with opioid misuse rests on four factors: individual, interpersonal, community, and society. The individual is affected by outside factors and influences the outside factors. For example, an individual is exposed to trauma of any kind, uses opioid substances to get relief, becomes addicted, the family and friends are adversely affected at interpersonal level, the community loses a productive worker who would otherwise ...

Opioid Crisis and Pharma Industry – Part 5 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #725 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #725 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Photo Credit: Mart Production Photo Credit: Google Images This series of blogposts is based on multiple sources, links to some of which appear at the end. We now look at the factors other than those associated with the pharma companies working. Individual physicians’ approach to the concept of pain relief determines the prescribing habits. While some physicians advise patients to learn to bear a certain degree of pain, the others believe that pain relief must be provided by all means and that the patient must not suffer unnecessarily. In the US, chronic pain w...

Opioid Crisis and Pharma Industry – Part 4 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #724 Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #724 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans welcome sharing of knowledge and wisdom by Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here. Photo Credit: Google Images Photo Credit: Tawfiqu Barbhuiya This series of blogposts is based on multiple sources, links to some of which appear at the end. Three pharmaceutical companies and their involvement has been discussed in detail already. However, such instances are complex matters. Lot of work was done to understand commercial, social, ecological, legal, and policy matters which contributed to the spread of this epidemic. We shall briefly look at these points to strengthen our understanding. Our situation in Pakistan is not much different. We do not ...