http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/consu....

Quote:

Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ARNA) scored a major coups today, winning the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of its weigh-loss pill locrcaserin, which with the decision becomes the first obesity medication cleared for sale in the U.S. in 13 years. Trading was halted after the news release.

I'm excited to see another well rationalized large cost added on to the already paralyzed health care system.

Simply make cheap ephedra available again. Was an awesome appetite suppressant. :-)

The word is that it takes a lot of soda to wash down those pills. :)

ARNA currently up some 32%.

VVUS (Vivus) currently up some 5%.

(No positions.)

This will save the system a ton of money if it works.

Lower weight= Less diabetes, fewer heart attacks and other cardio events.

This is a win win for both sides.

I'm sure there will be no side effects with this new wonder drug.

OREX popped then went back down. Now up 12%

I'm long ARNA. Hope this turkey still has wings.

Quote:

This will save the system a ton of money if it works.

Lower weight= Less diabetes, fewer heart attacks and other cardio events.

This is a win win for both sides.

Yeah, eating healthy is such a bitch...let the fat ****s have a pill with their 18 cheeseburgers and 428oz Cokes so they can loose weight!

Pcaldallas...funny that you mentioned side effects. There are some of course, but here are some that might be "interesting": potentially bigger breasts for females, stronger erections for males and smoking cessation. I am not joking.

Fat chicks usually have big sloppy boobs - having the fried egg hanging lower on the nail is not a positive.

Fat guys don't get laid.

Ambivalent on the smoking.

Quote:

"Pcaldallas...funny that you mentioned side effects. There are some of course, but here are some that might be "interesting": potentially bigger breasts for females, stronger erections for males and smoking cessation. I am not joking."

And it doubtless reverses the aging process to create immortality.
I smell eugenics.
No thanks, I'll just keep running 500+ miles a year. :p

> This will save the system a ton of money if it works.
> Lower weight= Less diabetes, fewer heart attacks and other cardio events.

Healthier people live longer and die of more expensive things.

The notion that making people healthier saves money is bunk. Everyone dies sometimes.

Dallas...two thirds of us population are either obese or overweight. Almost any guy with a beer belly doesn' t get laid? Impossible.

Quote:

Pcaldallas...funny that you mentioned side effects. There are some of course, but here are some that might be "interesting": potentially bigger breasts for females, stronger erections for males and smoking cessation. I am not joking.

I believe those are some of the documented side effects for placebo as well. Placebo is a wonder drug in itself.

ARNA. in the $2 range a month ago, now $11.39. Not bad. Timing is key in these nitro-laced bios.

I had some OREX a couple months ago. Bummer I got stopped out, but them's the breaks.

Got a problem? Pop-a-pill!

What flavors do the diet pills come in?

Strawberry? Chocolate fudge? Banana?

Since most obese people eat to fill some unsatisfied emotional need I assume this drug comes with another psychotropic mechanism of action. It's easier for someone to swallow a pill rather than to look at their lives and figure out what's wrong.

"Healthier people live longer and die of more expensive things.

The notion that making people healthier saves money is bunk. Everyone dies sometimes."

Jfed

You can hate pharma all you want but it works. Diabetes drugs like Actos allow fat people to manage their disease without losing weight.

Lipitor allows them too keep their cholesterol 50% lower and blood pressure meds keeep their BP at 120/80.

This keeps fat people out of the hospital and saves the healthcare system millions if not billions of dollars.

People are generally lazy and stupid so it's a no brainer to put them on meds when you are trying to manage costs in the healthcare system. You have no idea how hard it is to try and get people to exercise and eat better. Doctors tell me all the time it is virtually impossible to change people's habits 90+% of the time.

They are forced to use these meds because people won't change. Healthcare needs to be managed like a business and if people refuse to exercise and eat well then you need to put them on meds that keep them out of the hospital.

> This keeps fat people out of the hospital and saves the healthcare system millions if not billions of dollars.

No it doesn't.

The cheapest thing for the system is for smokers and fat folks to drop dead of heart attacks in their 40's. Dead people cost $0 in healthcare.
Keeping them alive lets them die of chronic diseases that are far more expensive to treat.

The best thing that could happen to Medicare is the vast majority of people dying before age 55. People living to 100 sucks for the budget.

Let's combine two thing that don't really work (phentermine and olestra) and sell it.

Jfed

Please.

The majority of these fat ****s will live and milk the system dry.

You assumption is if they live this unhealthy lifestyle they will die. The numbers prove otherwise. The majority of them keep on ticking and milk the healthcare system dry.

DO the math as KD likes to say. Fiscally the prudent thing to do is get them on meds and reduce their exposure to higher cost procedures in the hospital.

> DO the math as KD likes to say.
> Fiscally the prudent thing to do is get them on meds and reduce their exposure to higher cost procedures in the hospital.

The math is pretty simple.

Dying during childbirth is the cheapest option. Beyond that the longer you live the more you are going to accrue healthcare costs.

Anything that causes you to die quicky and cheaply saves money. Anything that causes you to live longer costs money- especially anything that lets you live long enough to die of slow chronic diseases as a senior citizen.

All a healthy lifestyle does is defer your healthcare costs. And on average healthy people die of more expensive things than unhealthy people.

If you could live forever via a healthy lifestyle then your argument would be valid. But given that everyone needs to die of something the cheapest option is for you to die suddenly and young.

All people want to survive. People will live longer regardless because of self preservation. THey will go and get a triple bypass if need be that costs the system $100,00's of thousands of dollars in order to survive.

The cost of living longer is two fold. Either you are a train wreck that has multiple surguries or you can be on meds that allow you to survive at a fraction of the cost of repeatedly going to the hospital.

People are going to live longer. The key to controlling costs is to allow them to do so at the lowest cost possible. Drugs are the cheapest option overall in trying to achieve this goal fiscally.

Hey let's just put it in the tap water!!!

Can't wait to see how long it takes for the first class-action lawsuit and for yet another "wonder drug" to go away.

So let's take a pill that may have other nasty side effects, instead of getting off of our fat asses, doing some exercise, and eating properly. **** this ****.