It seems the Opinion-ators at the Wall Street Journal Agree. . . .

I suspect posts like mine are being echoed all over the blogosphere, this dawn — that certainly seems to be the case, on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal – look here:

. . . .When Japan was mired in economic crisis, the U.S. urged it to take decisive action to deal with its ailing banks. Japan didn’t follow the advice and the crisis dragged on for years. Now, it is the U.S. that is mired in crisis and facing the prospect of swallowing the bitter medicine it once proffered. . . .

Indeed. It seems Floyd Norris, over at the New York Times Finance blog, agrees, as well:

. . . .[Lessons:]

1. The capital rules were far too lax, and they still are. They may have made sense if you assumed perfectly liquid and smoothly functioning markets, but that is like saying a roof does not leak when it is sunny and mild.

2. The end of the rules separating commercial banks from investment banks — Gramm Leach Bliley — is one reason the government is much more deeply involved now. Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase, the fire-sale buyers of Merrill and Bear, have government guaranteed deposits. That amounts to a subsidy, and when times get tough the subsidized firm has a big advantage over the unsubsidized one. To keep the others going, the Fed now will lend them money secured by almost anything they can find, including common stocks.

3. Those who were complaining, only months ago, that excessive regulation was making American markets uncompetitive, had it exactly wrong. It was a lack of regulation of the shadow financial system and its players that allowed this to happen. The regulators might not have gotten it right if they had tried to put limits on leverage, or assure that it was clear what risks were being taken, in the world of derivatives and securitizations. But deciding not to even try, and assuming that risks traded secretly would somehow end up in the hands of those most able to bear them, reflected ideology, not analysis. . . .

Now, I’ll be back firmly, and solidly, on topic.

Akiro Endo, Ph.D. (then of Sankyo) Awarded Prestigious Lasker for Fungus Discovery from which LDL-Lowering Statins Derived. . . .

With a sincere hat-tip to Ed Silverman, of Pharmalot, the Scientific American reports that the Akiro Endo, the “Godfather of statins” has received the American equivalent of a Nobel — the Lasker Award — for his discovery of the strain of fungus from which cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins are derived:

. . . .Endo and a colleague started giving it to animals and humans, ultimately finding that it reduced LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, by 27 percent, according to a press release. Drug giants including Merck (which in the 1970s had an agreement with Sankyo, the Japanese company Endo was working for), Pfizer and others went on to produce statins, which are now the world’s second-most commonly prescribed medicines after cancer drugs, according to IMS Health. Pfizer’s Lipitor is the top-selling statin in the U.S., with sales last year of $13.5 billion; statins overall were a $33.7 billion industry in 2007, IMS says. . . .

Despite some side-effects, statins remain the drug of choice for fighting high cholesterol — when diet, and exercise, fail.

Akira Endo, Ph.D. (then of Sankyo) Awarded Prestigious Lasker for Fungus Discovery from which LDL-Lowering Statins Derived. . . .

With a sincere hat-tip to Ed Silverman, of Pharmalot, the Scientific American reports that the Akira Endo, the “Godfather of statins” has received the American equivalent of a Nobel — the Lasker Award — for his discovery of the strain of fungus from which cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins are derived:

. . . .Endo and a colleague started giving it to animals and humans, ultimately finding that it reduced LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, by 27 percent, according to a press release. Drug giants including Merck (which in the 1970s had an agreement with Sankyo, the Japanese company Endo was working for), Pfizer and others went on to produce statins, which are now the world’s second-most commonly prescribed medicines after cancer drugs, according to IMS Health. Pfizer’s Lipitor is the top-selling statin in the U.S., with sales last year of $13.5 billion; statins overall were a $33.7 billion industry in 2007, IMS says. . . .

Despite some side-effects, statins remain the drug of choice for fighting high cholesterol — when diet, and exercise, fail.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Errata: Corrected mis-spelling of Dr. Endo's first name.]