FROM YOUR TEACHER

LONDON JOURNAL

Welcome to Britain. Our Weather Is Appalling.

POSTED BY: Your teacher

By SARAH LYALL

Published: January 29, 2013

        

LONDON — The 100 Years’ War actually lasted 116 years. Pantomime dames tend to be men dressed as women. The hovercraft was invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell. York Minster has very nice stained-glass windows. Margaret Thatcher successfully tamed the unions and turned London into a powerful international financial center by deregulating the financial markets.

These and other interesting pieces of information can be found in “Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents,” a revised book issued by the Conservative-led government that, starting in March, will form the basis of the country’s revised immigrationtest. To pass, applicants who want to become citizens or live here permanently will have to answer 18 of 24 questions correctly.

Judging from the sample questions released by the government, the test may end up being relatively easy. But the guidebook, crammed with information, reflects the Conservative view that too many people are trying to immigrate to Britain, and that once they arrive they are failing to appreciate the country properly.

“The new book and test will focus on events and people who have contributed to making Britain great,” Mark Harper, the immigration minister, said last weekend.

In announcing the revised guidebook, Mr. Harper went out of his way to criticize the old one, “Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship,” which was issued by the rival Labour government in 2007.

While it includes some history, the Labour version tends to concentrate less on the excitements of the British past than on the practicalities of the British present. (Plus, in its own partisan contribution, it says that Mrs. Thatcher was a “divisive figure” whose policies might have “caused a massive decline in industry.”)

“The new book rightly focuses on values and principles at the heart of being British,” Mr. Harper said. Referring to the old book, he said, “We’ve stripped out mundane information about water meters, how to find train timetables and using the Internet.”

Indeed, a chapter called “Everyday Needs” in the old Labour version gives advice on things like what to do if you feel sick (“call your G.P.,” is one possibility); how to rent a house; and, weirdly, how best to refer to garbage. “Refuse is also called waste, or rubbish,” it explains.

Roger Helmer, a member of the European Parliament from the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party, said it was about time the old manual was retired.

“They’ve taken out a lot of references to New Labour achievements, which is a jolly good thing,” Mr. Helmer said in an interview.

But Don Flynn, director of the Migrants’ Rights Network, an interest group, said the new version propagated a snobby, atavistic, superior approach to British culture and history. He singled out as particularly objectionable the historical chapter, called “A Long and Illustrious History,” whose first page depicts a rousing scene from the Battle of Trafalgar.

“The chapter which primes applicants’ knowledge about history is permeated with the sort of Whig views of the world-civilizing mission of the British realm which have encouraged generations of Etonians and Harrovians to play their role in the great imperial enterprise,” Mr. Flynn told The Guardian, referring to Eton and Harrow, two elite boarding schools.

In the section, would-be immigrants are taken on a speedy 56-page tour of the past 100 centuries, beginning with the Stone Age (“People came and went, following the herds of deer and horses which they hunted”) and ending with a flourish at the climax of the 2010 election. (“The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, became prime minister.”)

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Labour’s most important politician in the past 20 years, gets a paragraph; his successor, Gordon Brown, gets a sentence.

The chapter sometimes skates shallowly over contentious issues. Discussing the often bloody, often traumatic shedding of the component parts of the British Empire in the 20th century, for instance, it says happily that there was, “for the most part, an orderly transition from empire to commonwealth, with countries being granted their independence.”

As The Guardian pointed out, “There is no mention of the million or more people who died in communal and religious violence at Britain’s withdrawal during the 1947 partition of India.”

Britain is actively trying to find ways to tighten its borders. The British news media reported recently that the government, terrified that the lifting next year of European Union restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians living and working here would result in an influx of unwanted people, is considering an advertising campaign pointing out Britain’s bad qualities, like its climate.

A spokesman for the Home Office did not deny the reports, but said that officials “are working closely with other government departments to look at the pull factors that may encourage E.U. nationals, including those from Bulgaria and Romania, to come to the U.K.”

Mr. Helmer of the U.K. Independence Party scoffed at the government’s attitude.

“Rather than simply say, ‘We only want 500 of those people coming in,’ ” he said, choosing a random number and referring to Romanians and Bulgarians, “we have to run an ad campaign saying that it rains in Britain. For heaven’s sake, how ridiculous is that?”

The guidebook does its best to promote what the government considers Britain’s best qualities (rain is not among them). But filled as it is with proud references to great kings, great achievements and great prime ministers, it is strangely at odds with the quirky, creative, nonmilitary image Britain presented of itself at last summer’s ecstatic and much-loved Olympics opening ceremony.

Keith Vaz, a Labour member of Parliament who is chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said the Conservatives had taken “a very odd approach” to their guidebook and questioned whether it was right that a government department should unilaterally get to decide how to present British history to the outside world.

“This is the kind of work that is best written by people who are not party political,” he said in an interview.

FASHION REVIEW

Oscar Calling!

By SUZY MENKES

Published: January 21, 2013

POSTED BY: YOUR TEACHER

FROM: THE NEW YORK TIMES

This is the Big Oscar. The one that every star in the world dresses up for. And I cannot tell you how much we are LOVING your Versace Ateliercollection.

I can just imagine Angelina Jolie sticking out another leg in that wisp of white over the pink mini dress. And, no, I don’t think she will wear Chanel just because that maybe-husband of hers performed for their fragrance.

You are going to rock the red carpet with the little gilt-factor dress — the one that with the built-in bra and furry shoulders that glitters right down to the mid-thighs. That is just destined for Jennifer Lawrence. I know she wore gold for “The Hunger Games.”

I guess you did those black pinstripe, body-clinging suits for the likes of Kathryn Bigelow, if she had gotten that director nomination.

By the way, you looked fabulous in your pinstripes. And we were all loving how you negotiated those marble stairs in those shoes! I guess that wrought-iron balcony was what your Gianni ordered for all his homes.

Now think about this. That crazy-tall model with the white hair — Kristen McMenamy — who wore the clingy suit, she has coloring not so different from Jessica Chastain. It could be a look.

Then there was that Day-Glo pink feather stunner with the gold belt. What a pity Jodie Foster already shot her bolt at the Globes. She really should have waited for us and got a decent audience.

I have a few more ideas for you. Even if you make it for him in that workroom of yours, I don’t see Kevin Costner in those tight-bod outfits, although I know he was at your fabulous after-show party. But that Olivia Munn who was on your celeb list would look great in anything.

And if there is any chance of your atelier turning out a quick tiger print fur, there is such a cool placement! That Indian guy in the “Life of Pi.”

Over the top? Never! You are a Versace!

Biotech Firms, Billions at Risk, Lobby States to Limit Generics

POSTED BY: YOUR TEACHERFROM: THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/battle-in-states-on-generic-copies-of-biotech-drugs.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130129&_r=0 

By ANDREW POLLACK

Published: January 28, 2013

In statehouses around the country, some of the nation’s biggest biotechnology companies are lobbying intensively to limit generic competition to their blockbuster drugs, potentially cutting into the billions of dollars in savings on drug costs contemplated in the federal health care overhaul law.

The complex drugs, made in living cells instead of chemical factories, account for roughly one-quarter of the nation’s $320 billion in spending on drugs, according to IMS Health. And that percentage is growing. They include some of the world’s best-selling drugs, like the rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis drugs Humira and Enbrel and the cancer treatments Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan. The drugs now cost patients — or their insurers — tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Two companies, Amgen and Genentech, are proposing bills that would restrict the ability of pharmacists to substitute generic versions of biological drugs for brand name products.

Bills have been introduced in at least eight states since the new legislative sessions began this month. Others are pending.

The Virginia House of Delegates already passed one such bill last week, by a 91-to-6 vote.

The companies and other proponents say such measures are needed to protect patient safety because the generic versions of biological drugs are not identical to the originals. For that reason, they are usually called biosimilars rather than generics.

Generic drug companies and insurers are taking their own steps to oppose or amend the state bills, which they characterize as pre-emptive moves to deter the use of biosimilars, even before any get to market.

“All of these things are put in there for a chilling effect on these biosimilars,” said Brynna M. Clark, director of state affairs for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. The limits, she said, “don’t sound too onerous but undermine confidence in these drugs and are burdensome.”

Genentech, which is owned by Roche, makes Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin, the best-selling cancer drugs in the world Amgen makes Enbrel, the anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp, and the drugs Neupogen and Neulasta for protecting chemotherapy patients from infections. All have billions of dollars in annual sales and, with the possible exception of Enbrel, are expected to lose patent protection in the next several years.

The trench fighting at the state level is the latest phase in a battle over the rules for adding competition to the biotechnology drug market as called for in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

A related battle on the federal level is whether biosimilars will have the same generic name as the brand name product. If they did not, pharmacists could not substitute the biosimilar for the original, even if states allowed it.

Biosimilars are unlikely to be available in the United States for at least two more years, though they have been on the market in Europe for several years. And the regulatory uncertainty appears to be diminishing enthusiasm among some companies for developing such drugs.

“We’re still dealing with chaos,” said Craig A. Wheeler, the chief executive of Momenta Pharmaceuticals, which is developing biosimilars. “This is a pathway that neither industry nor the F.D.A. knows how to use.”

Biotech drugs, known in the industry as biologics, are much more complex than pills likeLipitor or Prozac.

That makes it extremely difficult to tell if a copy of a biological drug is identical to the original. Even slight changes in the cells that make the proteins can change the drug’s properties.

The 1984 law governing generics does not cover biologicals, which barely existed then. That is why it was addressed in the 2010 law.

One reason generic pills are so inexpensive is that state laws generally allow pharmacists to substitute a generic for a brand-name drug unless the doctor explicitly asks them not to. That means generic drug manufacturers need not spend money on sales and marketing.

The bills being proposed in state legislatures would expand state substitution laws to include biosimilars. So Amgen and Genentech say the bills support the development of biosimilars.

The girl who feels no pain POSTED BY: YOUR TEACHER

FROM. THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/magazine/ashlyn-blocker-feels-no-pain.html?hp

Ashlyn Blocker, who feels no pain, at home in Patterson, GA.

By JUSTIN HECKERT

Published: November 15, 2012 6 Comments

The girl who feels no pain was in the kitchen, stirring ramen noodles, when the spoon slipped from her hand and dropped into the pot of boiling water. It was a school night; the TV was on in the living room, and her mother was folding clothes on the couch. Without thinking, Ashlyn Blocker reached her right hand in to retrieve the spoon, then took her hand out of the water and stood looking at it under the oven light. She walked a few steps to the sink and ran cold water over all her faded white scars, then called to her mother, “I just put my fingers in!” Her mother, Tara Blocker, dropped the clothes and rushed to her daughter’s side. “Oh, my lord!” she said — after 13 years, that same old fear — and then she got some ice and gently pressed it against her daughter’s hand, relieved that the burn wasn’t worse. 

“I showed her how to get another utensil and fish the spoon out,” Tara said with a weary laugh when she recounted the story to me two months later. “Another thing,” she said, “she’s starting to use flat irons for her hair, and those things get superhot.”

Tara was sitting on the couch in a T-shirt printed with the words “Camp Painless But Hopeful.” Ashlyn was curled on the living-room carpet crocheting a purse from one of the skeins of yarn she keeps piled in her room. Her 10-year-old sister, Tristen, was in the leather recliner, asleep on top of their father, John Blocker, who stretched out there after work and was slowly falling asleep, too. The house smelled of the homemade macaroni and cheese they were going to have for dinner. A South Georgia rainstorm drummed the gutters, and lightning illuminated the batting cage and the pool in the backyard.

Without lifting her eyes from the crochet hooks in her hands, Ashlyn spoke up to add one detail to her mother’s story. “I was just thinking, What did I just do?” she said.

Over six days with the Blockers, I watched Ashlyn behave like any 13-year-old girl, brushing her hair, dancing around and jumping on her bed. I also saw her run without regard for her body through the house as her parents pleaded with her to stop. And she played an intense game of air hockey with her sister, slamming the puck on the table as hard and fast as she could. When she made an egg sandwich on the skillet, she pressed her hands onto the bread as Tara had taught her, to make sure it was cool before she put it into her mouth. She can feel warmth and coolness, but not the more extreme temperatures that would cause anyone else to recoil in pain.

Tara and John weren’t completely comfortable leaving Ashlyn alone in the kitchen, but it was something they felt they had to do, a concession to her growing independence. They made a point of telling stories about how responsible she is, but every one came with a companion anecdote that was painful to hear. There was the time she burned the flesh off the palms of her hands when she was 2. John was using a pressure-washer in the driveway and left its motor running; in the moments that they took their eyes off her, Ashlyn walked over and put her hands on the muffler. When she lifted them up the skin was seared away. There was the one about the fire ants that swarmed her in the backyard, biting her over a hundred times while she looked at them and yelled: “Bugs! Bugs!” There was the time she broke her ankle and ran around on it for two days before her parents realized something was wrong. They told these stories as casually as they talked about Tristen’s softball games or their son Dereck’s golf skills, but it was clear they were still struggling after all these years with how to keep Ashlyn safe.

A couple of nights after telling me the story about putting her hand in the boiling water, Ashlyn sat in the kitchen, playing with the headband that held back her long brown hair. We had all been drawing on napkins and playing checkers and listening to Ashlyn and Tristen sing “Call Me Maybe,” when all of a sudden Tara gasped and lifted the hair away from her daughter’s ears. She was bleeding beneath it. The headband had been cutting into her skin entire time we were sitting there.