Kruti:  You and I have both written about the opioid crisis in our novels. Being a US-based pharmacist and having seen the catastrophe up-close, why do you think the government of such a tightly regulated country was so blind-sided in detecting an oncoming drug disaster?    Peter:  In my opinion the government really did not think there was an epidemic until it was too late. These drug companies (Purdue for example) were all abiding by government regulations and laws, so there was no pursuit by the DEA [1] or FBI in the early stages of the problem. They marketed their products to doctors who in turn began writing prescriptions for these opioids.    Once some unscrupulous doctors began noticing a niche market for these drugs and an abundant demand for them, they opened up what became known as "pill mills." In these "pain clinics" doctors would charge their clients $200 cash co-pays and then referred them to pharmacies that would fill their prescriptions without quest

If you’ve been shown  job search ads on your work computer after doing an employment hunt from your tablet at home, you probably know what  ‘the Grid’  is. If you’ve received walk-in angiography messages on your mobile while passing a heart-specialty hospital, or foreign education loan messages on your daughter’s 18 th  birthday, you don’t need an introduction to the Grid.  Wherever you go, you are constantly ‘in the Grid’ – tracked through your landline, mobile, traffic cameras, computer desktop, credit card,  biometric devices at clubs and offices,  store scanners, cookies, and what not.    Electronic tracking and lack of privacy are an accepted fact of today’s times. Modern data marketers can build a dossier on us through the thousands of databases we are not even aware we are in. They  can trace us even when we change IDs, names, cities. Because they now analyse the signs and behaviours that remain the same – the writing style, the computer, the surfing pattern, the products bought

  A preview of "The Grid" in 'The Aquila Trials.' Traced. Trailed. Hounded. How far are we from the story of the protagonist? More on it in the next post. #TheAquilaTrials #novel #medicalthriller #pharmafiction #indianauthor #books #medicalfaction #latestnovel #newrelease2020 #thegrid

  The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.                         - Rita Mae Brown   Are you balding? Get treated for alopecia. Thin eyelashes? You may have hypotrichosis. 50+ male with a reduced sex drive and erection troubles? Andropause could be the cause. If you are a woman with inadequate breast development, it’s really a disease, according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. An issue of the  Seattle Times  quoted that 75% of the adult US population was diseased. Are we increasingly becoming biologically indisposed? Or is something else at work?   Medicalization is a social process through which previously non-medical conditions are turned into ‘medical problems’ primarily by selling the idea  that a complex personal issue is a molecular disease. Y ears ago, some children were deemed as problematic and unruly, but fa

Happy to present an introductory video blurb of 'The Aquila Trials' that gives an insight into some of the issues covered in the novel.  #medicalthriller #medicalfaction #theaquilatrials #indianauthor #novel 

If almost half the data on drugs is hidden from our eyes, as mentioned in my  previous post,   why is nobody talking about what’s missing? Isn’t it odd that tons of negative data can disappear so flawlessly with hundreds of eyes peeking over them everyday? Not a researcher that calls for past studies, not a journal that protests lack of publication, not a regulator that nabs the offence?   Unfortunately, not everyone is as clever as Sherlock Holmes to solve mysteries by focusing on what’s missing than what is present. In ‘Silver Blaze,’ the story that revolved around the disappearance of a famous racehorse, Holmes had recognized that none of the people he interviewed had mentioned that the watchdog had barked on the night of the incident. Holmes had concluded that if the dog had not barked, then the dog must have known the perpetrator, and this had led him to track down the guilty party.    But Holmes was an exception. Humans have a natural tendency to focus on what is present than wha