Wednesday, August 28, 2019

open letter to @US_FDA @CDCgov @NIH @MVPHealthCare about Synthroid and false equivalents

This blog is an open letter to the Food and Drug Administration about your having declared certain formulations of levothyroxine to be "equivalent" to Synthroid.  They are NOT equivalent -- and your having declared them so is putting me and other thyroid patients in mortal peril.

I first started Synthroid many years ago, due to hypothyroidism -- later diagnosed as Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.  I also have a history of heart palpitations.

At that time, I tried a generic "equivalent" of Synthroid.  I quickly discovered that the so-called "equivalent" gave me heart palpitations, when Synthroid did not.

My primary care physician referred me to an endocrinologist.  The endocrinologist explained to me that the body is highly sensitive to small changes in dosage of thyroid medication.  The generic levothyroxine uses a different substrate from what the Synthroid uses. This causes changed efficacy in the body. My endocrinologist said that I must always use brand name Synthroid.

Recently, my health insurance company, MVP, demanded that I try other brands, before getting rid of the brand name penalty price for Synthroid.  I tried Levoxyl.  I experienced heart palpitations, anxiety, poor sleep, inability to focus, and tingling in my chest, face, and mouth. These are all clear symptoms of overdose.

I'm over 60. I have a strong family history of heart disease.  I personally have suffered from heart palpitations before.  I have been treated with Doxil, which can cause heart damage.  It's dangerous for me to be playing with these medications.

Now MVP wants me to try another generic "equivalent" before getting rid of the brand name penalty for Synthroid.  This is too dangerous for me personally. My physician says that she has not previously been able to convince insurance companies to stop this practice.

The Food and Drug Administration having falsely declared other formulations of levothyroxine as equivalents of Synthroid is putting my life in danger.

#Synthroid #levoxyl #genericdrugs #levothyroxine

Monday, August 26, 2019

irobot roomba e6

I got this in June.  It stayed in the box for 40 days or something, because I didn't have time to straighten up enough for it to clean a room.

Afterwards, I finally let it out and it did pick up an impressive amount of dust and is surprisingly quiet.



annoying things it does:
1. refuses to stay on area rugs.  will just vacuum a few swaths of the rug and leave dirt in another section
2. repeatedly entangles itself in the same cord that it just got tangled in five minutes ago.  It should have a cord sensor and it should avoid places where it just got tangled up.
3. communicates with cell-phone via wifi.  the router had a security setting that wouldn't allow it to communicate with devices that were communicating with each other via wifi.  my son had chosen that setting to prevent spying in our home.  he also changed the router password and couldn't remember the new password. As a result we couldn't implement voice control features.
4. gets trapped in narrow area between area rug and wall.
5. pulled a radio alarm clock off a table and broke it

#irobot #roomba


Tuesday, August 6, 2019

searching for barschall on ecosia

I tried searching for my name on ecosia.

I went out to page 49.

I skip most of the references which are to my dad, the famous physicist -- and to me, since those are on other parts of this blog.

I wanted to memorialize some other interesting links I found, especially referring to my grandfather


http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM38/AM38_118.pdf
https://www.gjenvick.com/Passengers/HamburgAmericanLine/Pretoria-PassengerList-1903-08-22.html
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Y1AAQAAMAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA183&ots=NQxFpflTxz&sig=4kb0wsjrOv5G_fHmArw9opl0pxc#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.tpa-project.info/html/body_moriz___barschall.html
http://jinfo.org/Physicists.html
http://www.merrytheschristmascollection.be/papcards.htm
https://gregnjenn.wordpress.com/2016/08/23/becoming-visible-quaker-outreach-at-colleges/
https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/f/formalin.html
https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.B445-ead.xml
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,435972,00.html
https://viaf.org/viaf/153001167/
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/verlustlisten/vl_1_brb_drag-_reg_nr_2_wk1.htm
http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/dkm_deutschland/b-amtsgcharlottenburg.htm
https://www.kegler-von-spandau.de/files/dokumente/Oberliga%20Spandau/10.%20Spieltag%20EW%20Oberliga.pdf  Ullrich Barschall — now

https://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/ueber-den-bezirk/geschichte/stolpersteine/artikel.179914.php
Johanna Barschall, b. Loewenheim, was probably the daughter of Jenny Loewenheim and was born on 4 March 1889. Her husband Willi was registered 1939 with the designation Kaufmann / Papiergroßhandel and still 1940 in the address book. After that he is nowhere to find any more, according to his wife he had died. Her son Karl-Heinz, who was born in 1912, was able to emigrate in time.
Johanna ran a bridge club in Wielandstraße and lived on the revenue, because virtually any other activity was forbidden for Jews. In 1939 she wrote to her son that she was forced to deliver her jewelery and other silver and auction her valuables. She had to give everything up and was taken to Grosse Hamburger Strasse. On February 19, 1943, she had to jostle into a demolished by the Nazis as "age transportation" with 997 people occupied death train to Auschwitz.
The next day they arrived there, almost all were gassed.

https://www.bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de/cgi-bin/bildarchiv/suche/show_foto.cgi?lang=deutsch&id=119889&showmenu=1&bildinfos=1
http://www.territorial.de/dawp/thorn/landkrs.htm
http://www.gbv.de/dms/weimar/toc/672553600_toc.pdf (Wilhelm Barschall)
http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=6874

It turns out that there's a book on amazon that may contain my grandfather's doctoral dissertation https://www.amazon.com/Arbeiten-Aus-Dem-Reichsgesundheitsamte-German/dp/B009F648H6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Arbeiten+aus+dem+Reichsgesundheitsamte&qid=1565066848&s=books&sr=1-1

amazing