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Flair, fury and fun in Pakistan

Posted on October 14, 2008
Filed Under >Adeel Khan, Humor, Society, Travel
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Adeel Khan

When I was boarding Emirates’ EK623 to Karachi, Pakistan, I was so not looking forward to endless electricity shortages, carbon-polluted air and the crass conversations that are punctuated with materialistic garble, so typical of Pakistan’s upper-middle class. I knew little that this trip would be the most fascinating, mentally relaxing trip that will be etched in my memory for a long time to come.

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Pakistan is a country full of ironies, anomalies and abnormalities. A fellow passenger seemed to be very impresses by the Canadian passport and North American accent. On my way out of the plane I bumped, as in literally bumped, into an aunty. Thereafter, she could not stop ranting about how improper the new generation could be and how disrespectful desi-gorays are.



It still didn’t hit me that I am in Karachi until I had a coolie harass me for luggage and a security officer bargaining with a passenger’s relative to allow him entry into the departure lounge. I knew I have well and truly arrived in Pakistan, and everything goes here… or so it seemed.

Pakistanis are nothing else if not vibrant, emotional, opinionated and fearless. No two are the same – and the third is usually the opposite. By and large, attitudes were very similar to when I was in Karachi last, and that was a good, long eight years ago. However, a sense of frustration coupled with impatience and desperation has crept in as a result of falling living standards and deteriorating law and order situation..

As we exited into the arrival platform, I saw a sea of Shalwar-qameez clad men and women, and I would have never seen as many in my eight years in Canada! There is something earthly and a touch of grace in our national dress. It is easy on the eyes especially on women; they ooze with decency in them. Of course, when a cab driver wears it, with pan stains and cigarette smells, it doesn’t look as attractive anymore.

Despite all of life’s hardships, the common man does not seem to lose his patent sense of humor and spontaneous wit. Driving the very first time in Pakistan, I was just cruising within my Nazimabad neighborhood, when I almost knocked over a teenager who was moving where cars should. I was taking a left from a chooki and didn’t see him suddenly entering into the junction. He didn’t look terribly mad, all he said was ‘abay kya jaan loo ge’. And then he walked away, not having the patience to wait for my immediate apology.

In a nutshell, that symbolized the inhabitants from this Land of the Pure. Inspirational but frustrated, witty but unfocused, brilliant but undisciplined – we are anything if not original.

I couldn’t stop to wonder, what if this nation realizes it’s true potential? But in a country where poverty prevails and injustice thrives, the citizenry is too tired and unmotivated to initiate a new struggle just yet.

Adeel Khan, CPSA is a free-lancer, and a member of the Canadian Political Science Association. Consequently, All work is copy-righted.

Photo Credits: Title Photo of this post is by KamiSyed at Flickr.com. Clicking on the photo will take you to its source page.

AdverseEvents Launches Innovative Comparative Drug Side Effect Reporting System at Health 2.0 Conference.(Conference news)

Marketing Weekly News October 15, 2011 Today during the Medication and Care Management Session at the Health 2.0 Conference, AdverseEvents, Inc. (AEI) Co-Founder and President, Brian Overstreet, will announce the launch of the AdverseEvents website – a first-of-its-kind online resource that delivers accurate, real-time information on adverse drug events. Users will now have the ability to quantify and fully understand the scope of safety issues based on accurate rates of side effects by using AEI’s easy-to-use, fully searchable database. AEI’s proprietary data set has applications for both healthcare professionals and patients. website nexium side effects

Until today’s launch, there has been limited access to reliable drug side effect information. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) is the only current database of adverse event information but it is inaccessible, incomplete, filled with misspellings and misclassifications, and often out-of-date. Patients have been left to rely solely on drug labels, which can list hundreds of potential side effects with no insight into the real-world incidence or outcome rates. This lack of information has left patients and healthcare professionals confused, and often misinformed about real-world drug safety risks.

To solve this major healthcare challenge, AEI has developed RxFilter™, a proprietary 17-step data refinement process that standardizes and normalizes the FDA’s AERS into an accessible, comparative database of all FDA approved medications. It is the only resource that utilizes the RxFilter process to combine all the varied designations for a medication found in AERS into a single report, and standardizes the AERS data for improved accuracy of adverse drug event information. This dramatically improves the search and alert functionality for side effect information, data analysis and outcomes data, and provides the only comparison views of a drug and its side effects. AEI’s data will increase transparency throughout the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

With patients taking more prescription medications than ever, this data has never been timelier. During the course of an average month, a reported 48 percent of the U.S. population takes one prescription drug and 21 percent takes three or more. As the reliance on prescription medications has soared, the lack of available information on drug side effects has become even more alarming. “Over 500,000 medication adverse events are reported yearly to the FDA and this is estimated to be only 10 percent of all actual adverse events,” said Overstreet. “Now with AdverseEvents, patients can take more control of their own care, and healthcare professionals can make better decisions on the development, implementation and use of prescription medications. We believe that AEI will radically improve patient safety by decreasing potentially harmful side effects.” Using AEI’s analytic tools, users can do fast comparison searches on over 4,000 drugs, 1,000 medical conditions and 15,000 drug side effects. Healthcare professionals can conduct in-depth custom searches and create alerts that will provide an unprecedented level of drug safety intelligence. Pharmaceutical companies’ analysis of AEI’s data will inform medication development strategies, insurance companies will track medication trends and outcomes, and physicians will make better clinical decisions for their patients. web site nexium side effects

In an industry where sales are projected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2014, AEI offers the only resource that can accurately measure FDA approved medication side effects and ensure high quality standards to protect patient safety. The power of AEI’s data can be seen in recently released AdverseEvents Monitor Reports that highlight the need for reclassification of certain Epilepsy drugs for pregnant women and the examination of bisphosphonate drugs used to treat Osteoporosis. These reports can be viewed at www.adverseevents.com/news.php. About AdverseEvents, Inc. AdverseEvents, Inc. (AEI) is the first service provider to deliver accurate, real-time information on adverse drug events reported to the FDA. AEI utilizes a unique data sourcing method called RxFilter™, a proprietary 17-step data refinement process that standardizes and normalizes the data from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) into a user-friendly, fully searchable database of all FDA approved medications. Over 500,000 medication adverse events are reported yearly to the FDA; estimated to be only 10 percent of all actual adverse events. As a leading resource for the pharmaceutical industry, AEI supports companies with competitive intelligence and data to inform drug marketing decisions and business development strategies. With AEI, the healthcare industry is able to quantify the benefit-risk assessments of FDA approved drugs to fully understand the scope of safety issues, based on accurate rates of side effects from such medications. For more information about Adverse Events, please visit www.adverseevents.com.

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27 comments posted

Comment Pages: [4] 3 2 1 » Show All

  1. The Teenager says:
    October 24th, 2008 3:12 am

    I wassss the teenager you hit! didn’t know you wrote here. ah well

  2. R.Shoaib says:
    October 17th, 2008 1:35 pm

    It was a good thought which writer expressed. It seems most of us can understand ourselves better when we spend time away from our little pond.
    Now we wish to have people back here to guide this nation, we have leaders( some who can point and tell where problem is) which are in to making, and we do need managers to carry out things for our nation.Good luck !

  3. Katelyn says:
    October 16th, 2008 11:47 pm

    wow this is such an amazing description of pakistan…it sounds just like how my friend says Pakistan is, yet i am sad, because my country does not highlight the beauty of Pakistan or the Pakistani people, instead it focuses on the poverty and instability…the news makes it seem like Pakistan is such an awful place, but in reality it is not

Comment Pages: [4] 3 2 1 » Show All



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