July 2011 Archives

Patents for wonderful life-saving medications last for 20 years. After then, other firms can copy them with no royalty payment.

Drug prices to plummet in wave of expiring patents

By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer - 1 day ago

The cost of prescription medicines used by millions of people every day is about to plummet.

The next 14 months will bring generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs, including the top two: cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix.

The magnitude of this wave of expiring drugs patents is unprecedented. Between now and 2016, blockbusters with about $255 billion in global annual sales will go off patent, notes EvaluatePharma Ltd., a London research firm. Generic competition will decimate sales of the brand-name drugs and slash the cost to patients and companies that provide health benefits.

So why do mere books, songs, and movies -- which don't save anybody's life -- get protection for so much longer, to the point where copying them is treated as a federal crime?

A great European Catholic statesman of the post-war era was buried today:

A detail in the funeral ceremony of the Habsburgs stands out:

According to Habsburg tradition, a herald knocked on the door of the Capuchin church above the crypt, announcing the long list of noble and political titles of the deceased. A friar refuses entry twice. Only when von Habsburg was announced as "Otto: a mortal, sinful man", was his coffin admitted.

An Austrian television drama depicts the rite thus:

For a while, it seemed there was going to be a pause in the case of Father John Corapi, but it only lasted until the holiday was over.

The Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity has released more information about the charges against the once-popular priest in a press release quoted here by the NC Register:

SOLT's fact-finding team has acquired information from Father Corapi's emails, various witnesses and public sources that, together, state that, during his years of public ministry:

He did have sexual relations and years of cohabitation (in California and Montana) with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a prostitute.

• He repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs.
• He has recently engaged in "sexting" activity with one or more women in Montana.
• He holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the society.

SOLT has contemporaneously, with the issuance of this press release, directed Father John Corapi, under obedience, to return home to the society's regional office and take up residence there. It has also ordered him, again under obedience, to dismiss the lawsuit he has filed against his accuser.

SOLT's prior direction to Father John Corapi not to engage in any preaching or teaching, the celebration of the sacraments or other public ministry continues. Catholics should understand that SOLT does not consider Father John Corapi as fit for ministry.

The last of the three points above is easy to confirm from public sources, at least with regard to the fact that he is listed as the owner of several pieces of real estate, because land ownership records for Flathead County, Montana are accessible via the Internet: he is listed with ten acres of land; three commercial condo units, numbered side by side; another 2.5 acres, and some boat slips. If he made a promise of poverty, that does seem a bit much. At least the boat slips! :-)

Maybe he's earned his title of "black sheep" after all. 

Oh, and a memo to bishops and religious superiors: don't ordain guys with this much of a history of wild living.  Old habits die hard, and usually they don't die.