Before you read the rest of this posting please take a moment in silence to honor our countrymen slaughtered six years ago on this day. I began work at ChangeWave on Sept. 10, 2001 and I was fortunate to be able to share and be comforted by the companionship of the people I work with there.

I will never shake the memory of the second plane hitting the Twin Towers, the collapses of the buildings, the long lines of volunteer health professionals waiting outside of hospitals for survivors that did not survive, the other New Yorkers waiting for firemen and policemen and wives and husbands and sons and daughters that did not come back home that night.

We must not forget them.

Now back to work: Last time I wrote that companies focusing on genomics are seen as being on the leading edge of drug development and could be next great frontier for speculative investors. In fact, too speculative -- gene therapy is a giant leap, trial results have not been better than mixed and there are better ways to make or lose money.

And that is the key: I like speculating as much as the next guy but in genomics I would stick with companies that already have real products and revenues, if not necessarily profits. Or I want companies doing the same with drugs aimed at patients with a specific genetic profile.

So today I am following up by saying do little if anything with the leading-edge guys and retreat into products, revenues and profits. Yes, I missed the run-up in RNAi stocks -- which, now that I am back from the beach and the D.C. Money Show, I will write about later this week (despite this being the week of Rosh Hashanah -- but there is no change in the fundamental prospects for RNAi companies. They are still very speculative. I feel the same way about genomics -- too much coming out of them is still hype and hope.

The best example of this is Human Genome Sciences (HGSI), a company whose building is visible from our offices in Maryland. Just read their company profile as it is posted on Yahoo.

"Human Genome Sciences, Inc. operates as a biopharmaceutical company with a focus on drug development in the United States. The company develops protein and antibody drugs to treat diseases, such as hepatitis C, lupus, anthrax disease, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and HIV/AIDS." Read anything about genes? How about their self-description on their website? "The mission of Human Genome Sciences is to discover, develop, manufacture and market innovative drugs that serve patients with unmet medical needs, with a primary focus on protein and antibody drugs."

My point is developing pure genetic therapies is very hard and problematic.

As I wrote last time, start your search with the equipment companies, then move on to testing outfits such as Cepheid (CPHD) or Applera (ABI) in addition to the companies mentioned before like Illumina (ILMN), Affymetrix (AFFX), Luminex (LMNX) and Sequenom (SQNM).

Next, RNA interference, RNAi, my great miss, and still not a good opportunity for investors? Say what? Jealous of folks who got into RNAi early Shulman?

Could be. But not anymore. I'm over it and on it.

RNA interference is arguably the hottest area of raw biotech research today.

And, up front, I don't like it as a place for investors to put their money for two reasons -- it's too early, and it is too late.

It is far too early to see if this technology and approach for treating disease will pay off in the form of approved drugs and treatments.

It is too late because many of the stocks in this segment have been bid up due to M&A and partnership activity between the big pharma dinosaurs that are desperate for new approaches and the little itty bitty start ups a decade or more away from an approval drug.

And, like most investors, I don't like it because I missed it.

What is RNA interference?

It is the use of RNA regulation of gene expression to inhibit the genetic direction given to disease -- simply put, the use of RNA to mess up gene expression in disease. Check out the complete definition at Wikpedia if you are helping your children with their homework or if you want to pose as a scientist at a cocktail party .

There is an even more boring, ongoing discussion of the science at RNAi News. And if that gets you going, there is also a Genome News, but I will save that dor a rainy day. Last year, Craig C. Mello and Andrew Fire won the Nobel Prize for their work in RNA interference in roundworms. Too bad you cannot swallow these roundworms to cure what ails you.

Why am I such a cynic? Because RNAi is elegant but incredibly hard to manage and build into real drugs. The single biggest task is to get enough engineered RNA into a human cell -- enough to treat the target disease. The problem is RNA is inherently volatile and unstable, so there is a great deal of work required on drug delivery and packaging before any of this becomes real. The first targets will be where drug delivery is easiest: A shot (literally) in the eye, inhaled treatments in the lungs and so on.

Stay with me folks! This is a blog about money, not RNAi pathways or molecules.

IS there still money to be made among the RNAi intereference stocks? I spent a good deal of time on this one, as late as this entry might be, and I am still uncomfortable. I admit a bias against investing based on the hope of M&A activity - but, well, it's your dough.

And let me say, though, that RNA interference or something akin to it -- something that modifies or suppresses the genetic sequences of disease -- is arguably a holy grail in medical treatments, for it goes after the disease and the disease alone -- at least we hope so -- and leaves the rest of the body alone -- again, we hope.

Alynlam (ALN): This used to be a true dog -- it has now licensed more than $300 million in core technology to Roche and that company also got a 5% stake. A dog no more, and far too expensive to buy. Alynlam is also working with heavyweight device maker Medtronic.

Arrowhead Research (ARWR):This outfit invests in early stage research, including RNAi and then if anything it has comes close to success ARWR will partner it off or bring it to market.

CyTrx (CYTR): This company manages press releases and the growth spurts in its stock better than its labs and, cleverly enough, announced a new subsidiary to do RNAi-only research earlier in the year. Too much hype, not enough hope, stay away.

ISIS (ISIS): This company was in the news in the past few days as it cut a major deal to work collaboratively with Alnylam to form a company called Regulus to do research in microRNA, a derivative technology. Why? To eventually take this new outfit public because they are tired of losing money on RNAi research without a payoff. I will write about Regulus when it comes to market.

Merck (MRK) -- through Sirna (formerly RNAI): Merck bought Sirna for $1.1 billion late last year to get into this game and Sirna was the only company with a drug in late-stage testing. The drug is for age related macular degeneration. It was this purchase that set off the frenzy in RNAi stocks. I think MRK is almost a short, let alone an investment, and I would stay away from Merck at all costs.

Rosetta Genomics (ROSG): This company is also specializing in microRNA and is the closest to a possible investment for me because it

a) is benefitting from the hundreds of milliosn spent by others on research, and
b) it has not done as well as others since its recent IPO so the stock is not ridiculously priced. If you look at the little things like revenues and profits ROSG is over priced, but compared to other RNA stocks that have burned through serious dough, it is in better shape -- sort of.

Yes, I missed the run. But I also owned DNDN at chump change prices, saw it go past $20 and got out. So I do get it right more than occasionally - and if you are going to go speculative, take a look at immunotherapy, next up here.

"Hillary Care" -- Senator Clinton's healthcare plan that's all about the 2008 presidential election -- is not the godsend to Republicans that it was in the early 1990s and deserves some attention.

What do I think about it?

First, let me define my stance in life: I'm the nation's only quasi-libertarian Democrat, a political schizophrenic who easily accepts that the U. S. government wastes incredible amount of money, and is inept at a majority of the things Congress asks the bureaucracy to do after responding to lobbyists.

I also believe that government, in this country, must have a heart -- even if it gets in the way of its head. It's the price we pay for the unfettered ability to make choices, accumulate wealth and make our lives successful. Enough said about where I'm coming from.

Clinton care is warmed over SOS -- same old "stuff" not exactly the right translation for the term coined by GIs to describe creamed chip beef, on toast -- standard Army fare for generations.

Senator Clinton emphasizes choice, the forcing of insurers to accept all comers, government subsidies for those who cannot afford healthcare insurance and a continuing role for employers.

Each point makes sense but taken together it just can't work. Why?

Simply enough, cost. Consumer choice plus government subsidies plus new technology plus retiring baby boomers means this plan will fail because of cost. The laws of economics are not murky and this plan will lead to an acceleration of healthcare inflation -- more people demanding more services and products, which equals higher prices, just as sure as there is gravity.

And if (when) costs go up, insurance rates go up. And if (when) consumers can't afford it, there will be larger government subsidies -- and more taxes -- and then, essentially, more inflation.

And if (when) the government steps in to regulate the prices insurers can charge, there will be fewer insurers, fewer choices, and, well, there you go.

Hillary Health is an incremental, "elect me and we will worry about reality in my second term" plan.

Hillary is smarter than that -- regardless of what you think about her politics -- and we need a better plan. I'm terrified I am going to be means-tested out of Medicare (this begins this year) and unable to buy insurance when my time comes for eligibility. It serves me right for voting Democrat my whole life.

My father referred to it as voting for Mr. Lincoln's party and I feared his hand would pop out of the grave and choke me if I did. The funny thing is he loved Lincoln and my great grandmother actually met him, but my father would never have voted for him.

So what could Hillary do that would work?

It is not sane to assume a consumer, even the most informed consumer, can make rational choices in times of a medical emergency or serious illness. It can't happen and won't happen.

But consumers can make rational choices about their insurance plan, so let's change the way we buy and regulate insurance.

Here is Michael Care, which I should package and deliver across the street to my neighbor who does Obama's advertising (and did Mr. Clinton's in 1992 and 1996).

Michael Care would:

• Force consumers to buy insurance with their own or government dollars or a mix of both. They would be tax free dollars which means ending the deduction of healthcare expenses from business taxes. Transition time: three to five years.

• All insurance companies would have to insure most comers -- excluding super-high-risk consumers who would go into a pool, like auto insurance, and have capped prices or government subsidies. Medical insurance would be regulated nationally. Transition time: three to five years.

• End all government subsidies that are hidden, such as those for teaching hospitals in the Medicare system. Let the market and private carriers figure it out. Transition time: three to five years.

• All physician fees and prices would be posted -- no hidden discounts for non-hospital fees and products. Do this right now.

• Patients and providers are guaranteed reimbursement within 30 days. Insurance companies who routinely reject claims or paperwork to delay payment are fined thrice (nice word, that) the amount of the delay and, in time, will be put out of business. Do this right now.

• All hospitals must post their performance. All hospitals have a patient ombudsman (Sweden does this) to represent the infirm who come in without relatives etc. Do this right now.

• Physicians would submit all their patient records, without patient names, via computer so the government can track the efficacy of treatments, treatment regimens and doctors. The incentive to do this? Doctors doing this become part of a national pool of malpractice insurance and their rates are cut drastically. Great incentive, that for the, mostly, very good doctors. Transition time: It wil take five years to set up, five years to screw up and we will actually get it right in about 10-15 years.

• Send between 500 and 1000 doctors to jail for fraud or negligent homicide. This would greatly reduce government expenditures and malpractice costs. It would probably also make the vast majority of good docs very happy to be rid of the harmful jerks. Do this yesterday.

• Do the previous point again - and this time send 200 tort lawyers with the bad doctors for using fake patient claims to make money in stupid courts in stupid tort states like Alabama. Do this the day before yesterday.

• Give insurance companies the right to raise rates for consumers who do not take care of themselves: diabetics who are able but don't medicate properly, people who smoke, etc. Do not do this for the obese as long as obesity is being treated a disease, which it is. Sadly, this must be done now.
  

Speaking of the interesting but potentially unwise, my plan is a lot like Rudy's. I think his also includes a provision for coverage for ex wives if you divorce them publicly and they fall ill from the shock.

The simplistic and lazy cancer vaccines are immunotherapy: treatments that stimulate a patient's immune system to fight cancer.

A decade or more ago, in a capital market far far away, cancer immunotherapies and treatments, and the companies that researched them were white hot. Due to the incredible time it takes to develop these therapies and the lack of clear regulatory guidance and pathways at the FDA, they have been stuck in trials -- and, understandably, investors have run for cover.

But now, they may be on the rebound -- for patients and for investors.

What is cancer immunotherapy?

I prefer a very narrow definition when talking about investments: new drugs designed to turn on the patient's immune system to fight cancer on it's own.

Wikipedia has a good working definition that also includes some broader approaches beyond my own definition.

When I talk about cancer immunotherapy (and when Wall Street talks about immunotherapy companies) it is the treatment, stimulation and management of a patient's own immune system to fight cancer in many forms. Treatments are being developed to either prevent the onset of cancer, almost like a traditional vaccine or immunization, or to stimulate a patient's immune system after the onset of the disease typically by injecting therapeutic antibodies.

Different kinds of cancer tumors have cells that have unusual type of antigens (go to Wikipedia for this one also) and these are often the targets of immunotherapies -- especially antigens that appear on the surface of cancer cells and are relatively easy to get to.

Research scientists also look for something called "cell surface receptors." These do not occur with any frequency in a healthy patient and are an integral part of the duplication process of cancer cells, and if an immune system can stop these receptors, a tumor, theoretically, could stop growing.

Who plays in this arena? The most infamous company is Dendreon (DNDN) and its prostate cancer treatment Provenge. The success (at a panel) and failure (with the FDA staff) of this drug in the approval process highlights the problems facing developers of these treatments. The problems:

• What to treat? When these companies got started, "tumor shrinkage" or the stopping of tumor growth was all the rage. Now, they are being asked to extend life, a much more logical target but this changes things. Dendreon's trials of Provenge failed to stop tumor progress but one small one seemed to show a survival benefit.

• Who is the regulator? Most cancer drugs are regulated by a group at the FDA known to some of us -- the wittier ones -- as statistical fascists. The panels convened by this group to review new treatments are dominated by practicing oncologists who see two weeks more survival as a relevant fact. It is not.

  Some of the immunotherapy companies are regulated by a different group at FDA and they are far more sensitive to the issues facing brand new technology. This group stacked the panel looking at Provenge with seven immunologists -- and lost the battle with the statistical fascists within the agency, and the drug was rejected. It was the first cancer treatment approved by a panel and rejected by staff in living memory. This mess -- and it is a mess! -- makes handicapping the potential success of a treatment in trial and the approval process very difficult.

• How to measure progress? If life extension is what counts, trials need to be much longer than a trial to measure tumor progress -- the new trial for Provenge is three years long -- and trials need to be managed very well with most patients at the same stage of the disease when entering the trial.

  Most start up biotechs lack the management ability to keep their bathroom stocked with toilet paper and are very poor at managing trials the way the FDA wants them managed. The executive teams at these companies are also populated with arrogant scientists not willing to listen or work with public servants. I kid you not. So many trials are still underway that are aiming at something other than life extension.

• Manufacturing: Many of these treatments require processing of an individual's patient's blood -- some involving the taking of tumor tissue samples -- and this requires a manufacturing facility that requires FDA approval and a whole new FDA set of regulations. A great book is "Inside the FDA" by Fran Hawthorne, which will give you a good look at how tortured this process can be.

• Does it work? Traditional high profile oncologists -- used to poisoning and burning patients or giving them cocktails of drugs they put together outside FDA labels -- want more data.

  I don't. Provenge clearly works on some sub-group of advanced prostate cancer patients, and these people are going to die anyway. Other treatments have failed, notably a treatment from Antigenics (AGEN). Let us hope the arrogant doctors who manage these companies and the arrogant doctors on the FDA panels abandon Francis Bacon, at his worst, and let one through. And then another, and another....
  

Dendreon (DNDN): Avoid this dog. Management is screwing up the trial process again and the new trial will be interrupted to present interim results to get an expedited FDA approval at the end of 2008. The betting money is the trial will fail to show life extension because they enrolled the easier-to-find patients in the trial first - the sickest patients. A dumb move.

Cell Genesys (CEGE): They are also working in an advanced prostate cancer treatment, GVAX, and their trials are constructed to show life extension and also in conjunction with other known treatments, so if the therapy works, they may have a fighting chance to get an approval.

Antigenics (AGEN): Probably a dead company, their drug did not work, they have burned through oodles of investor cash, stay away.

Oxford Biomedica PLC (OXB: LSE, London Stock Exchange): They just concluded a huge deal with the Sanofi-aventis (SNY), potentially worth more than half a billion dollars, as SNY tries to play catch up in the $50-billion-dollar-per-annum cancer treatment market.

Big pharma: The dinosaurs working in this area are Sanofi-aventis, GlaxoSmthKline (GSK) and German company Merck Kga. Stay away, dinosaurs are just that, dinosaurs.

Bottom line: If investors continue to support these companies -- and just one drug works and gets an approval -- all hell will break loose to the upside for there is a great need for a next-generation approach to cancer treatment.

There is an aura around life sciences and biotech companies -- an aura that projects the notion that management is very intelligent and the best our nation or the world can produce. They have Ph.D.s and M.D.s out the wazoo. What this aura often hides is the incredible number of morons that also exist in the industry.

One dictionary defines moron as a stupid person, a dolt. Dolt is defined as stupid, a person who is not very bright. Now we are getting somewhere! Someone who is not very bright, like a research scientist turned manager who cost shareholders in BioCryst $100 million dollars in market cap last night. Needless to say, I am a shareholder. And also needless to say I am not happy.

BioCryst (BCRX) announced yesterday that the company's Phase II trial for flu treatment Peramivir failed to reach its clinical endpoint. The headline made me nauseous and caused aftermarket investors to bid the stock down more than 30%. Sadly, the information that the company was moving on to Phase III trials -- and the drug was quite effective in a large subgroup of more than 100 patients and the reason it failed to meet its endpoint was that the needles used in the trial were too small to penetrate the increasingly fat butts found in patients -- was placed too far down in the copy for nervous investors and traders.

You can't make this stuff up!

Obesity is epidemic, airlines are widening seats and the rocket scientist at BCRX who designed the trial used a needle that was too small to properly administer the drug. The Phase I trial for Peramivir used a longer needle.

BioCryst switched to a shorter needle because it thought it might be more comfortable for the patients -- and either did not bother to test the new needle beforehand, or tested it on the wrong sampling of a patient group before finalizing design of the trial.

Surreal! The best analogy would be NASA re-doing heat shields on the shuttle and not testing them with real heat to see of they worked.

In (grudging) fairness to BCRX, the relatively new CEO Jon Stonehouse -- a very operations-oriented exec recruited out of big pharma -- inherited this trial, as did several new members of his management team.

I don't envy him the past few months. He also inherited a trial for leukemia treatment Fodosine that was canceled because the stopper used for the vials that held the drug corroded a bit and contaminated the drugs used in the trials.

As I said you cannot make this stuff up.

Sadly for may investors, these miscues that cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars are more the rule than the exception among smallish biotechs. These outfits, typically started by doctors and scientists (occasionally accused of arrogance) place their emphases on molecules and raising money, while operational details often get lost, including crucial ones like the size of a needle for a clinical trial.

For example, Dendreon (DNDN) did not bring an attorney to its FDA panel meeting and initially allowed the panel to vote on its drug based on the wrong wording of the question dictated by FDA regulations. I have been to investor presentations where companies truly needing to broaden their investment base speak in biotech-lab gibberish and are frustrated when they cannot get their message across.

I have had the good fortune of spending time with Jon Stonehouse -- don't take this post personally Jon -- and he is a highly competent fellow with the advantage of not having a Ph.D. or M.D. next to his name on his business card.

He will figure this out -- but take some unsolicited advice, Jon -- hire some more guys like you and get rid of the weenies with too many graduate degrees. They are better suited to a college campus or managing a clinical trial program in China.

Do you know of a company that has made these kinds of gaffes? Come and post.

Live, from New York, its ..... Monday night after a grueling day at the UBS Global Life Sciences Conference. No stand up here. Rather some very serious presenters whose sense of humor left them at an early age. But UBS does a very fine job and it has been wonderfully productive with still three days left.

What I've been learning here:

Transition Therapeutics (TTH:CA): Great presenting CEO, great potential with Alzheimer's and diabetes drug designed to cure, not treat. Partnered with heavyweights Elan and Novo Nordisk. Some major near-term, deal-oriented catalysts -- take a look if you want more information at my newsletter Change Wave Biotech Investor.

Pharmasset (VRUS): Spectacularly boring presentation, almost made me go home. Super-knowledgeable CEO -- ex financial community. Worst presenter of otherwise solid news from this anti-viral company I have seen in several years. His specialty was his ability to rapidly pronounce multi-syllabic jargon -- with authority.

I hope his investor relations people sweep the Web, find this post and call me. I can help. And when I make my pitch, I'll make my value clear, my daily rate will be easy to understand and my presentation will only take a few minutes. Oh, by the way,I think the company has some anti-viral products, including Hep B and Hep C -- but I have no sense of why they are better, whether they will get approval or anything remotely related to critical business issues. That's the failing of the presentation.

Golden Meditech (listed in Hong Kong): Their presenter was not a native English speaker but did a little better than the guy from Pharmasset.

This is a Chinese company with three businesses based on Chinese paranoia, Chinese culture and Chinese tradition:

-- They make a system that recycles your blood when you are in surgery - would you trust a Chinese blood bank?

-- They manage a stem cell and umbilical cord bank so future Chinese have their own stash of stem cells to cure themselves.

-- And they have an herbal medicine -- a good deal of it bought by and provided by the government -- to boost immune function in HIV and AIDs patients. The Chinese, apparently, have finally admitted they have this disease in their midst. Actually, a cash rich, very well connected (if you know what I mean) business -- just, well, this company is not advancing medicine just portfolios.

Novo Nordisk (NVO): For the women, and some men, in the audience, this was the best presentation. The man at the podium put his jacket aside, was ripped and wearing a tight fitting transparent white shirt, had low slung Italian suit pants and punk hair. He was the vice president of North American investor relations, a diabetic and a great presenter for the leading insulin company in the world. It's a solid outfit that will grow 10%-15% if they don't screw something up - just because the world eats too much, Outside of insulin, a weak-to-poor company.

Given Imaging (GIVN): This was the fourth of the first five presenters from outside the U.S. -- the U.S. guy being the viral load presenter from Pharmasset -- and this was an Israeli guy I have heard speak often. He and his company are great -- expensive stock -- and I have watched them grow from pre-revenue to maturity. Next year they may get approval for a virtual colonoscopy -- the swallow a camera and we take pictures of your innards company.

Orthovita (VITA): Fascinating company that makes synthetic stuff for bone grafts and bone reinforcement, and seems to be on the verge of breaking out as a business. They had the best presentation I heard from a little guy -- I even got past some of the jargon -- and their market is growing as elders break bones and we push our children and our peers too hard and they fall down, get hit with lacrosse balls and otherwise require bone work.

Biogen (BIIB): Simply put, best presentation at the conference by far! If you are looking for a mega-cap biotech, they are in strong shape. CFO actually answered my question and confirmed what ChangeWave surveys told me two years ago: Ritxuan sales in arthritis markets are exploding. That is not a plug, it's the truth.

Dentsply (XRAY): World's leading supplier of all the stuff used across all facets of dentistry -- an interesting play on international growth in incomes, especially in Asia. Too much jargon but a stock chart to die for. For the conservative investor who thinks cavities increase with income.

Crucell (CRXL): This is the world's only pure play on vaccines and the leader (the Intel inside) of the next generation of vaccine manufacturing. Strong, obvious presentation --- another non-USA guy -- with no news for those who follow the company, either good or bad.

Draxis Health (DRAX): This Canadian company had a strong presentation and surprised the few in the audience. They make radio isotopes and are also a contract manufacturer with hard to come by sterile capacity. I have followed them on and off for years but will spend a lot of time looking at them the next few days. They have a major generic radio-isotope coming off patent next year and a new deal with Johnson & Johnson worth $120 million.

My conclusions:
-- only attend sessions at these conferences if the presenter is not from the U.S.
-- lots of great product things happening in all aspects of the life sciences industry -- the best place for the aggressive growth investor, by far, right now
-- European tourists are making NYC too expensive -- unless you walk ten blocks into a real neighborhood where you get linguine with fresh clams for $12. The single malt -- a Macallan 12, nothing more distinguished available -- cost $20 for a double.
-- you need to come back tomorrow because I will do this again after more, hopefully, non-U.S. presenters and some sushi. Some serious sushi.

See ya

I live in Washington and there has been an almost unprecedented level of political scrutiny and interference with a Medicare decision to cut reimbursement guidelines for the anemia drug Aranesp when used in chemotherapy and renal dialysis. Hidden from the view of most people has been the role of the Congressional Black Caucus -- according to some analysts 40% or more of renal dialysis patients receiving Aranesp are African American.

So the lobbyists went to work, predicting dialysis treatment centers would close and African Americans would be hurt the most. One company operating centers, DaVita, which makes a profit on every does of Aranesp it administers spent $1.5 million bucks and Aranesp's parent Amgen spent another half million dollars in the first half of this year.

I would love to know how much of that money went to Black Caucus members. And how much more since then. And when I have a bit of time, I will go through public records and find out.

Too bad these politicians and their staffers won't work this hard for a critical life saving drug unless the company making that drug has the bucks to buy their time and attention. I am speaking of the drug BiDil from the company NitroMed (NTMD).

In clinical trials, BiDil reduced death from heart attacks by more than 40% in African Americans. Heck, the trial was stopped on ethical reasons so all the patients on placebo could switch to the medication -- it was so effective. It was approved by the FDA, the first drug every approved for use by one ethnic group. And Medicare, without any pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus that I could see, gave it a poor guideline for co-payment -- meaning it could cost users as much as $50 per month.

Given that BiDil should be taken with two other heart medications, a lot of people could not afford the co-pay and private insurers follow more often than not follow Medicare guidelines. The bottom line is hundreds, perhaps thousands of African Americans have needlessly died since the FDA approval -- needlessly because the drug is too expensive for too many people.

These unnecessary deaths FAR exceed the number of African Americans killed in Iraq. And guess who has made a major argument against the war? That most self-righteous group of politicians, the Congressional Black Caucus.

Their behavior is proof that racial politics has come mainstream. A political organizations supposedly organized to protect a certain group -- in this case African Americans -- really doesn't give a damn about their constituents, unless they're lobbied (dare I say, paid) to do so.