Dear Drug Topics, Get Your Shit Together.

I was looking through the August issue of Drug Topics today because I was eating lunch and didn't have access to a computer, and I happened to notice a few things that made me question not only the writers but the also editors of the magazine.

First off, they have a special insert about brand name drugs about to go generic, and whoever wrote it seemed to have a very limited vocabulary, plus no access to a thesaurus, or an internet connection (yes, the internet can be used for more than blogging and porn, who knew?). Seriously, the word "blockbuster" was used about 10-15 times. Now, I know some drugs are very popular, and occasionally our line of customers extends out our door, but in no way, shape, or form has a single drug ever caused a line to go around the block, which is quite literally what the word means. A lesson to you young ones out there: "blockbuster" was first coined to describe movies that were so popular that people would line up around the block just to see it. Think Harry Potter. Now it's used to describe anything popular. That's fine, but do you have to use it 12 times in one 4-page article?

Second off, they say that Imitrex is about to lose its patent and that GSK is working on approval for it's spin-off drug Trexima. As you know, there are three things wrong with that. Imitrex has already lost it's patent, and the spin-off drug is Treximet, not Trexima. Yes, originally it was called Trexima, but it's currently August 2009, and it's now called Treximet, probably because it sounds less pussy. Oh, and Treximet is already on the market, so obviously it's been approved.

Third and final thing, in the article about how technology will free up pharmacists to focus on MTM and counseling and blah blah blah, they show a pharmacist using a Parata machine that Parata doesn't even make anymore. My pharmacy has this robot, and there's a reason Parata discontinued making it. We get vial cap feed errors constantly, and it's filling error percentage is sometimes alarmingly high. Parata has other machines that are much newer and better than the one Drug Topics depicts in it's prestigious magazine, but apparently DT couldn't be bothered with locating pictures of one for their article about emerging technology.

Come on, Drug Topics, get your shit together.