Posted on 07/23/2002 3:54:10 PM PDT by anymouse
OTOH, these drug companies are out of control. Just like my attempt not to comment ... =)
I agree. On this I am a libertarian. I would rather that my physician, in consultation with my family, be free to use whatever drugs (excluding those illegal due to abuse) he sees as best.
There also is a scandal in drugs being taken off the market by the FDA because some patients died from them, even though they are needed by certain other patients to live. My wife's father, an intelligent man, has been having trouble with diabetes control since a drug he used to take was removed from the market. Why shouldn't he and his doctor be free to judge the risks and benefits themselves?
It also highlights the fact that lack of FDA approval doesn't prove that a therapy does not work--and that"Desperate ills are by desperate measures cured, or not at all."And that throws the liberal "zero risk" conceit into a cocked hat.
I am glad to see here the idea the "zero risk" is a liberal concept, since I some other threads I had seen FR'ers taking when seemed to me extremely risk-adverse positions. Although medicine should be "evidence based" as much as possible, a doctor could not stay in business if he only did what was exhaustively proven.
How about this one? People are not willing to be, to some extent, experimental subjects, hardly deserve to benefit from the sacrifices of past human experimental subjects.
The same thing occurs in psychiatry, except there I've been told they're a good TWENTY years ahead of their treatments being "officially approved" by any self-appointed medical standards organization or the FDA. (The key, though, is make sure your psychiatrist is a psychopharmacologist. That means they're infinitely more versed in the pros and cons of each medication or mixture of medications, and keep up with every major new development that anybody reports anywhere. Your run-of-the-mill shrink or psychologist will generally just pick one of the big-name drugs at random and see if it works for you, and just keep bouncing you from drug to drug until one of them shows an effect. Or, worse, they may just prescribe for you whatever they have a ton of samples of in their closet.
Generally, such drugs continue to be marketed overseas, and I'm pretty sure it's legal for you to import any non-FDA-approved medication from another country as long as you're only ordering enough for your own use.
that throws the liberal "zero risk" conceit into a cocked hat
I'm glad to see here the idea that "zero risk" is a liberal concept. Although medicine should be evidence-based as much as possible, a doctor could not stay in business if he only said and did what was exhaustively proven to work.
How about this one? People unwilling to be, to some extent, experimental subjects, hardly deserve to benefit from the sacrifices of past human experimental subjects.
Thank you for the idea. However, my father-in-law, like me, would not act behind my physicians' backs. I know that it is common for patients to take drugs without telling their doctor, but it certainly is a bad business.
The thalidomide babies were not American. U.S. drug approval procedures were already then sufficient to protect us from this, and yet have become far more stringent over time.
To make a long story short, the thalidomide situation with morning sickness was unique. We now know that pregnant women with non-serious illnesses should not be very early adopters of new drugs which block formation of blood vessels. Overly broad lessons have been drawn from that tradegy.
American Conservatism conserves the American tradition of freedom to innovate--not the status quo. What is "zero risk" but the conceit of absolute protection in the herd?People unwilling to be, to some extent, experimental subjects, hardly deserve to benefit from the sacrifices of past human experimental subjects.
They are also pretty weird, in that there's no such thing as ultimate physical safety in this life--eventually we'll all reach the "desperate ill" stage.Those who think the status quo is safety, must think that there is a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. There isn't, you know--and it's far too common in octagenarians to merit complacency.
Yes. It is also good for a form of leprosy. And yet it was illegal in the U.S. until recently, on the ridiculous theory that it might be accidentally prescribed to a pregnant woman in face of all the publicity about the tragic side effect. In fact, ever since the thalidomide tragedy was decisively publicized, there have been zero additional thalidomide babies, even though some countries, including Israel, never took it off the market but rather trusted the good sense of their nation's physicians. Here is a good link:
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