Chemistry Week 1

What do you feel we can change to help gain effective control of the pharmaceutical industry?

I think that a full-on counter-movement is needed to combat the control of the pharmaceutical industries. Unfortunately, a counter-movement would probably not be funded to the same massive extent as are the pharmaceutical companies, so there would be less financial incentive for the people involved. However, I think homepaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists, herbalists, and other alternative health practitioners could support a counter-movement in educating the public about the malpractices of the pharmaceutical industry along with warnings about certain drugs. These alternative medicine practitioners could hire someone with a petition, the article we read, and harmful side-effects or misuses of certain pharmaceutical drugs to set up stands outside of co-ops with a discount coupon for the first visit to the doctor who hired them. There could even be generous coupons for herbal supplements inside the store if people sign the petition. To attract people on the questionable meds, the stand could say in bold letters, “Take Zyprexa? Take (fill in the blank) or other pharmaceutical meds? This could save your life!” This would give the people who take these meds a curiosity about what is going in their bodies, and the pamphlets could direct people to a website that gives them an informative list of pharmaceutical malpractices and the drugs in question. They would be directed to a petition that would eventually be sent to congress and fought for by a lobbyist that would curb the amount of financial support pharma companies are allowed to spend on marketing. Perhaps the bill could include that doctors would be required to give their patient in-depth information about the prescribed drug, including all potential side-effects and what it has been approved for by the FDA. I think there should be incentive involved to send the informative website along with the petition to other people. So for instance, for every 20 people someone sends the website and petition to, they get $10 off their next acupuncture or homeopathic appointment with participating doctors. This could stimulate more regular clients for the alternative doctors, so it may actually work given most peoples’ financial motivations.

What do you understand by the expression “carbon neutral?”

Carbon neutral means bringing one’s carbon dioxide footprint to zero by reducing energy use activities that emit carbon dioxide (like driving a car), and then making up for the unavoidable amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by planting trees of donating money to CarbonFund.org, which can also reinvest funds toward renewable energy projects. Carbon neutrality is a positive way to curb the effects of global warming, promote conservation, and lead the way towards a more sustainable society.

What features of the Periodic Table did you discover?

The periodic table is a well-organized table of alkali metal, alkali earth metals, transition metals, lanthanide series, actinide series, poor metals, nonmetals, and noble gases. Noble gases are odorless, colorless, and chemically stable. Each element has a number on the top of its box that denotes its number of protons, which also equates to its number of electrons. To find the number of neutrons in an element, one need only take the atomic mass of the element (which is located in the bottom of the box) and subtract the amount of protons (which is found in the upper left-hand part of the box). The names of the element are located below a one to three letter abbreviation of the element. The color version of the periodic table has an aesthetically pleasing quality to it. I found it interesting that without exception, the man-made elements were all radioactive. All the actinides- many of which are artificially made- are all radioactive. They also had pretty quixotic names, like Plutonium, Americium, Einsteinium, etc.