Health and Wellness

Acne can be a mild problem that gets easily eliminated by topical solutions you can buy at any pharmacy. But it can also be a problem that will require you to address a dermatologist and undergo a serious treatment. In most cases moderate and severe forms of acne will make the doctor prescribe you with an antibiotic treatment either in the form of pills or topical cremes. In some cases such a treatment will actually help, while in other circumstances the problem can get even worse. So what’s the catch with antibiotic acne treatment, what are its main drawbacks and is there any effective alternative to it? Let’s answer these questions.

First of all, we’ll have to look into the actual causes behind acne breakouts in order to understand why antibiotics are used for treating this condition. The usual mechanism of acne formation involves several factors. There’s a lot of different bacteria dwelling in skin pores, usually beneficial and helping fight alien bacteria that can cause irritation or infections. The amount of these bacteria is usually stable. However, when there’s an abundance of oil in the skin, which is very favorable for bacterial development, the amount of beneficial bacteria increases and that causes inflammation. This is what we see as acne and that’s why it is usually associated with bacterial infections. So the obvious solution would be to use a drug that cuts down the amount of bacteria and prevents inflammation. That’s exactly what doctors do when prescribing antibiotics to their patients.

There’s one problem with antibiotics though. Because they target nearly all bacteria in the skin this means that most beneficial bacteria are also eliminated. This creates the risk of alien bacterial infection because the usual bacteria protecting your skin from outside agents are eliminated by the treatment. And you may end up having more serious problems. Besides, after some time the amount of own bacteria can exceed again the normal amount if there are favorable conditions for bacterial development (increased oil production) and you will have to take antibiotics again. Which is not very good for your health in general because antibiotics seriously affect the liver and can also cause dysbiosis in many parts of the body, which can also be a serious health problem.

A really effective alternative to antibiotic acne treatment is using Accutane. This drug is regarded as the most effective solution for acne but since it is very potent it is only meant to be used under strict doctor supervision. Accutane has a different approach to treating acne and addresses the actual problem behind acne formation – excessive oil production in the skin. If the amount of oil is normalized there will be less bacteria and no irritation in the skin, which will stop acne breakouts. That’s exactly why Accutane is so effective for treating acne and doesn’t seriously affect any other aspects of skin health. Speak to your doctor about using Accutane in order to make sure that this drug will work for you.

When that inspired individual invented the wheel in those distant centuries, there was no patent system to protect the novelty of the idea. Everyone else looked on as the first wheels appeared on the streets and, before you could say, Jack Robinson, everyone had wheels. Those were the days when everyone shared the benefits of all the inventions. Times were hard and survival mattered more than commercial intellectual property rights. It took a long time for the world to come round to the view that inventions should be subject to a monopoly protection. We had a fully developed market economy back in Ancient Greece and Rome. There was a universal currency throughout both political groups, but it was not until a few hundred years ago that aggressive merchants began to buy monopoly rights from the political rulers. Now, we seem to take it as given that anyone who creates something new should have protection. Except, that is, when it comes to downloading the odd copyright-protected MP3.

In theory, this should not cause too many problems except the patent system is used to stifle creativity and keep out competing products while the patent holder changes the maximum possible retail price. This penalizes us, the consumers. We either pay the asking price or go without. So welcome to the court of District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith. Note it fell to a woman to decide the fate of men as we all waited for cheaper erectile dysfunction drugs. So here comes an international company with the nerve to threaten the cosy US market with cheap generic drugs. This competition on price would have affected the three current patent holders. Pfizer took the lead and argued it had a patent up to 2019.

Why so long? Well, after patenting the underlying chemistry as a treatment for high blood pressure in the arteries running through the chest and lungs, it registered a second patent for the same drug as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. Check out the history. You’ll find the erectile dysfunction use of the drug was an accidental discovery during the trial for hypertension. The foreigners were bold, arguing this was nothing new. It was obvious from the first research trial. Unfortunately, the judge disagreed and ordered the foreigner to take its cheap generics away and not return until 2019. This means we continue to suffer the price gouging from all three manufacturers with no immediate sign of there being anyone able to introduce a generic into the market.

Have you noticed how aggressive the manufacturers are when advising us not to buy our drugs online. The problem for them is that almost all the major online pharmacies are based overseas where generics are freely available. If you check out these pharmacies, you almost always find the cheap generics available. So, for erectile dysfunction, you can usually make real savings on your supplies of Cialis, even after adding in the cost of shipping. The only danger comes from the laws of some US states which mandate customs to confiscate imported drugs for which there’s no valid prescription. So, before you order your Cialis online, check out your local laws on importation. The packages always come in plain wrappers so there’s always a good chance they will get through undetected.

The idea of a patent makes good commercial sense. You give an inventor a monopoly to sell the new product without anyone being allowed to copy it. So, as a consumer, you either pay the asking price or go without. With no competition, the inventor can keep the price high and earn back the R&D costs fast. Once into profit, there’s a bigger return on the money invested and, in turn, this encourages more investment in R&D. The more consistently creative and innovative the manufacturer, the more money it makes. Except, this is a way of gouging the consumer. Let’s say for argument’s sake that the manufacturer gets a ten year monopoly and, at the end of five years, it has recovered all its R&D costs. It now has five years in which it can continue to charge the same high prices without there being any competition in the market. So here’s the question? How much profit should an inventor be allowed to make?

At present, this is never discussed let alone defined in law. Manufacturers simply demand increasingly long period of protection without regard to the payback time. Let’s say the development of a particular drug was a lucky accident. The company was testing for one use but noticed the participants were discussing an interesting side effect. That’s how the erectile dysfunction drugs were discovered. No one was trying to develop this drug so the actual R&D costs after the accidental discovery were to cover a comprehensive clinical trial and the application to the FDA – a fraction of the usual costs. Yet a court has just given one of the manufacturers protection from a generic manufacturer until 2019. That’s twenty-three years of protection in total. No one can possibly suggest this is anything other than a decision to keep on gouging the consumers. To make a sexist point – this is a decision of Rebecca Beach Smith, a female judge who obviously doesn’t care that men are paying excessive prices to keep their sexual satisfaction levels high.

So was this an unusual case? Actually, this was a standard case of a manufacturer taking out a second patent on the same product some years after the first. Nothing like stretching out your gravy train. Except there was one interesting twist. The generic manufacturer waited until it arrived in court and then accused the attorneys representing the patent holder of “inequitable conduct”. To translate this into English, it accused the poor lawyers of being dishonest, deceitful and fraudulent. Strong accusations except it was too late to raise them. To investigate would require the patent case to be adjourned, possibly for months. The judge ruled this should have been raised long before the case came to trial.

This leaves the market for erectile dysfunction drugs without an immediate threat of a generic product competing for market share. So although only one manufacturer was involved, the other two manufacturers benefit. They have all agreed to keep their prices high. Only the internet offers any competition on price. The moral of this story is for you to buy Cialis online at the generic prices. That way, you get the full value of Cialis at the lowest possible price. You can feel good when sticking one in the eye of the patent system.