"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Norman the Mutant Poppy: A Tasmanian mutant poppy named Norman is in the news because he's morphine free:
A mutant morphine-free opium poppy holds the key to producing less addictive pain management drugs, Australian scientists say.
The poppy, nicknamed Norman and grown in Tasmania, produces no morphine or codeine, CSIRO plant geneticist Dr Phil Larkin said.
Instead, a block in the biochemical pathways that would normally produce those substances leads to an accumulation of their precursors, thebaine and oripavine.
Both those substances are already being developed into less addictive painkillers as well as addiction-treatment drugs, Dr Larkin said. posted by Sydney on
9/23/2004 10:33:00 PM
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