Take a Chill Pill

The "tawny streaks and shades" of summer sunlight, as Walt Whitman put it, have a mellowing effect; leisurely hours spent in scenic locales, on vacation or just out on the weekend, provide an opportunity for unhurried thought and easy reflection ("heat dome" notwithstanding). In the spirit of lawn chair cogitation and hammock-spun reverie, Pharm Exec invites you to submit your own verses—pharma-related, of course—to be published on our website in late August. Send those jottings from the post-conference tarmac, the hotel bar, or the family vacation to bcomer@advanstar.com, if you are so inclined. Our pseudonymous colleague Stix Daley has contributed one of his recent scribblings to kick things off. Summer will be gone soon, so take it slow while you can, and enjoy.

Pharmacopoeticsby Stix Daley

Longitudinal studies on red meat with clever endpoints.

Freedom to choose cigarettes and their adverse events.

By QALY, I develop the best immunity

I mean by golly.

Policy and people need most toexpire—

in their due time of course.

Meantime I’ve mislaid the data

that I

well I guess that I

ought to report.

Fee-for-service reimagined as

Hippocratical aphorism.

A cunning caduceus loosed

in the waiting room.

To Asclepius’s chagrin.

Even our immune systems are uniting

in mutiny

Coffee cup copays a fair market value

or just an encephalographic

image problem.

Commodities traders and doctors

know better.

Or regular Tories.

I mean no better.