Good catch!
I have worked for and with a major global pharma company for several years. I had one 30 year+ scientist tell me that drugs like asprin and Ibuprofen would be by perscription only if they were introduced today. People want to vilify “big Pharma” but have no idea what goes into the research, development and approval of usefull drugs to get them to market. When you factor in the short amount of time that they can be proprietary, these folks have to not only cover the years of R&D that went into the drug but also cover the costs of all the drugs that didn’t or won’t make it to market in the pursuit of cures and treatment. Factor in again the fact that “big pharma” can’t make money for their approved medicines in other countries and their drug prices necessarily have to skyrocket. It’s another deal that government involvement creates a problem that everyone hollars at government to fix.
There is certainly good reason for oversight in medicine. But the oversight is not being managed by industry experts. It is being managed by beauracrats. Hence the costs and delays.
24 states have Right To Try laws.
Basically, if you’re dying of a terminal illness and a new drug exists that would save or extend your life, you and your doctor can now acquire it if its in current clinical trial.
For people who are very sick, taking away their last hope is unethical and its wrong. The government should always err, as a matter of principle, on the side of saving life.
If your state doesn’t have a Right To Try law, work to get it passed. Every patient deserves every treatment option available. Our right to decide how to live out our lives should be our decision alone.
Yep, when pregnant European women where able to avoid morning sickness by taking Thalidomide, the FDA was keeping it away from American mothers to be.
Oh, to go back to the good old days when Massengill (later part of GlaxoSmithKline) could take Elixir of Sulfanilamide straight to the market without government interference.
Hysterical myth.
If these life-saving drugs were commercially available outside of USA no one would be dying here. It is not all that difficult to get grey market drugs. The burden of efficacy proof in Spain is not what it is in USA.
But you can thank the thousands of lawyers poised to strike if a new drug does not have volumes of evidence of safety prior to US commercialization.
I give anesthesia for a living. 12 years ago I was working with an anesthesiologist who was visiting from Israel, he was giving Tylenol in IV form for years. However, it was not approved in the US until I think 2010?? Crazy stupid.
Good article.
Three groups are behind this murderous policy:
1 - The Population Control, or “Duty to Die” crowd.
2 - The multi-BILLION dollar Cancer Care industry and similar, who make a mint on half-way measures.
3 - The paper pushers at the FDA who make a living from ever expanding research and study, allegedly to ensure safety and effectiveness.
If the FDA was abolished tomorrow the drug industry would replace it within 3 months with a private equivalent, and we would all be far better off. The FDA was a child of the progressive era (founded in 1906), and it does far more harm than good. Underwriters Laboratory (founded in 1894) is an example of how the free market provides for necessary safety testing.
Aside from its gross inneficiency, the primary problem with the FDA is its chronic abuse of police powers.
New Zealander Allan Smith was saved from death due to flu in 2009 with intravenous vitamin C.
http://jeffreydachmd.com/vitamin-c-saves-dying-man/
http://www.naturalnews.com/037210_Auckland_hospital_vitamin_C.html
The reaction of the FDA to this medical “miracle” was swift and decisive. They ordered the American manufacturer of the intravenous vitamin C that saved Allan Smith’s life to stop making that “unapproved drug”!
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm248280.htm
Ping
Good info. Thanks.
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