Steampunk werewolves and gay vampires in Victorian England. Plus lots of tea and treacle tart!

Asian Historical! SOOOO Good! Her shorts are really great too. http://www.amazon.com/The-Dragon-Pea…

Christina Dodd! Her supernatural stuff is a bit hit and miss but her older historical stuff is awesome!

I'm glad you fought that, because that was total bullshit on the insurance company's part.

I completely enjoy romance novels. They are absolute brain candy for me. I like reading reviews at: http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ That's where I got my first few recommendations. Now I get plenty of recommendations from Amazon because of my purchase/browsing history. It is now my goal to one day write…

True story: My husband and I went to India a few years ago. We knew we needed shots, and when I called our insurance company, they said all vaccines were covered as part of preventative care, which is what I expected. We went to a local travel clinic, they shot us full of goodness, and we went about our merry way.

This scares the crap out of me. If the majority of the population is too poor to get vaccinated, then herd immunity goes out the window. And when that happens, we're all fucked. People go apeshit over anti vaxxers, and rightfully so, but the real enemy is much more powerful and sinister than a bunch of paranoid nuts.

Among all things to which I am happy to devote my taxes, surely vaccines and contraception are among the most worthy. Highway, bridge and water/sewage infrastructure complete the top five. I wonder whether we are truly doomed.

The cost of albuterol inhalers went through the roof. After being available in generic form for so long the medication didn't change, the inhaler did. Basically because of CFCs the old inhaler design was due to be banned. So pharm companies took advantage of this and designed a new type of inhaler and bogged it down…

Only part though. The British National Formulary lists a price of £49.10 ($84.18 at current exchange rates) per pre-filled syringe for Prevenar 13. Also Prevenar 13 is only part of the recommended vaccination schedule for children, for high risk adults and children over 5 (such as people with diabetes) we use…

My favourite thing (that's not super relevant here so I didn't add it above) is that condoms are covered by Pharmac. You can get up to 10 boxes of brand name condoms "prescribed" and it will cost you $5. I just love that some smart health leader was like "how can we make safe sex affordable and accessible for…

It sure is interesting. The sad part is, if it costs so much money to vaccinate you kid, this is one more reason anti-vaxxers will list to forgo vaccination. They will probably chalk up the costs to "big pharma's out to get our hard-earned $$$" and use it as an argument.

Yeah, it's really a tough balancing act and like I said, the Times piece is worth reading in full. Totally grant that development costs money. But it's still just so shocking that this vaccine is basically a license to print money (it's required for all kids entering school) and yet the costs remain so high. Just…

I wrote something similar and got called a dumb ass! I'm so glad we are talking about this because it will eventually become another luxury item for the rich. I'm all for research and development, I'm just not willing to make them uber rich in the process.

This is the story with all prescriptions. My old asthma medicine was up to $400/month before my insurance took it off the preferred med list (now I take another medicine that should be the same, but I don't like it, probably because it tastes nasty...)

It's one of the best arguments behind why we should be single…

Every single time a story like this comes up, I am sooooooo thankful for socialized medicine. I phone, make and appointment, show up, review all the info and sign a paper, get a shot and leave. I don't know how American's do it, I would always be stressed out.

Jonas Salk is spinning in his grave. He developed his polio vaccine for the good of humanity and never wanted to collect profits from it. Vaccines should be readily available to all children and adults who need them. This is one of the many reasons why the profit motive in health care is just plain awful.

I'm curious to know — do you have your own small practice, or are you part of a larger group? It sounds like the hardest hit are the really small practices (I always think of my bow-tie wearing childhood pediatrician), which seem harder to maintain these days, anyway. Reading the Times piece I couldn't help but wonder…

Back in the day, when I was arguing with other mamas on my birth board (yes, I should have quit immediately) about this stuff, what I had heard was that everyone takes a hit on vaccines. Drug companies, doctors, everyone. Now I can't even use that line of argument because it turns out drug companies are making a…

you should perhaps consider that many of these practices have already been spending out of pocket for them. how long would you continue that? until your practice closes and youve lost your job and everyone elses you employ? that seems quite irresponsible itself.