One of the leading Eli Lily researchers on PTH spoke to us yesterday about PTH and its actions. A good lecturer, but raised a couple thoughts in my mind:

• Should companies be able to patent drugs (hormones) we make naturally in our own bodies? Sell it, fine, but patent it?
• After he talked about the wonders of PTH (and glossed over calcitonin), I would’ve appreciated it if he had told me that it’s been found to cause osteosarcoma in rats . While there’s no indication that it causes bone cancer in humans, it seems a little suspect that we had to learn the fact from our pharmacology lecture today.

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