Live data from Hacker News

Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

highline.huffingtonpost.com

51–60 of 145 posts

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#51
post #6
post #5

> “All the big pharmas have lawsuits,” the analyst concluded, sipping an espresso. “It’s just not a big deal.” A list of the $13B in fines paid by pharma companies just in 2009 to 2014: http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/bigpharma

It looks like the majority are mental health drugs, that's really scary.

[deleted]

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#52
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the majority are mental health drugs, that's really scary.

That's because these drugs are the mad scientist experiments of a bunch of psychiatrists who are crazier than the patients they pretend to be "helping". If you also look at how many mass shooters were on these drugs which were prescribed off label and caused their violence, you start to realize the real cost on society of these so called "cures".

In particular, SSRIs have been linked to increased violence in men aged 15-24 (but not other demographics), yet we continue to prescribe them to people in that demographic.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#53
Reading through I found several diagrams in the articles were potentially misleading. Images are scaled based on height rather than area, making 2x increases look like 4x.

Thankfully the numbers are quoted which lets me form what I think is a better opinion.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#54
post #19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccination is not an onerous requirement and there is very good reason to believe it is beneficial to public health when widely administered . If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.

It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages. Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.

If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#55
post #18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following through the links to Dollars for Docs: https://projects.propublica.org/d4d-archive/companies/johnso... How is this legal? I'm ignorant of the details but for instance, if you click on California and look at Speaking, top of the list doc got $86,550!

It's legal in the way that celebrity/professional endorsement is legal in any other field. It's not inherently wrong, and you would expect that an ostensibly effective product would be touted by respected professionals. And just to be clear, when speaking for the product, the doctors generally must stick to the company's slides and official talking points -- though the doctors have final say over what they present [1…

After reading part 2 of the article, I was surprised by just how blatantly the financial relationship is predicated on the doctor's professional judgement:

"The government investigation of Risperdal sales later unearthed one email from a Johnson & Johnson salesperson that was typical of the approach. She told her supervisor that she was going to promise one doctor that if he raised his Risperdal market share from 16 percent to 50 percent in the coming 12 months he could become a paid speaker."

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#56
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages. Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.

If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?

Vaccines are not 100% effective. Some people are unable to take vaccinations. That's why we want to vaccinate as many people as possible - herd immunity protects the people who are unable to get vaccinated or people at that edge of efficacy.

And a child who is not vaccinated by their parent may want to get that vaccination when they're old enough to make that decision by themselves.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess that most of the anti and pro-vaxers are not scientifically trained, were not involved in the development or testing of these vaccines, probably have not read any of the original reports, don't know what influences could have effected those reports and are basically regurgitating info they saw on TV or the internet. I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points.

This is true of > 95% of any non-obscure public policy debate, is it not?

Non-scientific issues are understood quite well by those doing the debating. I would guess that a relatively small community truly knows what is going on in vaccinations. Besides "it prevents X", I doubt most doctors could tell you what is in this stuff.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#58
This article makes it hard to stomach drug manufacturers' claims that drug prices are so high due to regulatory burden.

J&J spent a lot of time and a ton of money to bring a new drug to market, sure, but the only apparent improvement over the previous generation is their own revenue. It's hard to believe this is an isolated incident.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#59
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Except that it's not your body. If you don't get vaccinated, and you get sick, then you infect everyone else. You don't have the right to choose to infect other people. Vaccination needs to be mandatory, and if the state has to send agents to burst into people's homes, tie people down, and forcibly administer the vaccinations, then I'm all for it.

I generally agree with LordKano, and in the same positions of having been vaccinated myself and my kids. At the same time I really don't like state-mandated vaccines. For philosophical reasons first of all ("Your body, your choice"). But also for practical, as it presents a great possibility of abuse; as an example impagine corrupt officials mandating unnecessary vaccination of BigPharma's profit. > If you don't get…

> it presents a great possibility of abuse;

I appreciate your concern, but this is a slippery slope fallacy. It's highly unlikely it would be abused without knowledge, because we currently have a net-good policy that is being "debated" at all levels today. I can't imagine a net-neutral or net-evil policy would slip by undetected.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#60
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things, I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Or why a simple waiver process wouldn't be sufficient to handle those who object. In general, I would argue that a state has the authority to compel someone into doing anything that has been sufficiently demonstrated to be a good decision, and so the onus is on the anti-vaxxer to sho…

Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple…

> Can the state compel everyone to be a vegan unless they can show proof of a medical condition that would make it unworkable?

Well, they can apparently compel everyone to give up eating horsemeat. If banning beef was politically viable, perhaps they could do that too.

Post reply on HN