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Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

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

#61

Post by tedunangst »

amyjess wrote: post #38
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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'm reminded of Typhoid Mary. "You can't tell me I'm not allowed to be a cook!"

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

#62

Post by Retra »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #34
agentgt wrote: post #20

My mother was a pharmaceutical sales rep for many years where she did rather well despite her age most likely because she was previously a RN. I say age because the pharma companies blatantly hire "sexy and young" to sell to doctors. Now I'm sure there are other companies that age and appearance discriminate but the pharma companies are especially egregious in that they really don't care if the sales person is qualif…

>doctors rarely have time to do research on the samples that they were given. Maybe back in the old days, but now with instant journal access, instant press access, etc its really not an excuse. Self-compliance and regualtion isn't all that terrible especially when the alternative is underfunded and politically controlled organizations like the FDA. We like to believe in this myth that they're above the fray when it…

Why do you attribute the US's success in this area to its economic system and not it's massive population, fertile & expansive territory, socio-political isolation, and worldwide military presence?

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

#63

Post by drzaiusapelord »

Retra wrote: post #62
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>doctors rarely have time to do research on the samples that they were given. Maybe back in the old days, but now with instant journal access, instant press access, etc its really not an excuse. Self-compliance and regualtion isn't all that terrible especially when the alternative is underfunded and politically controlled organizations like the FDA. We like to believe in this myth that they're above the fray when it…

Why do you attribute the US's success in this area to its economic system and not it's massive population, fertile & expansive territory, socio-political isolation, and worldwide military presence?

Russia has all this and its GDP per capita is one quarter ours. Not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union, etc. Yeah so "just having resources equals success" is asinine.

Not to mention all the academic research on the success of open markets, low regulation, etc.

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

#64

Post by refurb »

agentgt wrote: post #20

My mother was a pharmaceutical sales rep for many years where she did rather well despite her age most likely because she was previously a RN. I say age because the pharma companies blatantly hire "sexy and young" to sell to doctors. Now I'm sure there are other companies that age and appearance discriminate but the pharma companies are especially egregious in that they really don't care if the sales person is qualif…

Pharma sales have strict compliance but guess who enforces those compliances? The pharma companies. Not the FDA.

This isn't correct. Sales reps main role is promotion and the FDA has jurisdiction over drug promotion. There are been several examples of the FDA coming down hard on companies where drug reps fall outside of regulations.

In fact, most of the non-compliant behavior is reported to the FDA by other competitors? What better way to hammer your competition than to rat them out to the authorities?

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

#65

Post by cheepin »

cs702 wrote: post #13

"Tragic" is the only word that does justice to the events described by this article. The most interesting aspect of the story for me is how the company's culture has changed for the worst over time. Johnson & Johnson was started and for many decades was run by sincerely idealistic do-no-evil entrepreneurs, who wanted to focus on "patients first and profits last"... but now this business is run by executives who seem…

"This is a huge challenge for successful founders: how does one ensure that a company's culture and values don't degrade long after the original team is gone?"

More than just a founder problem. This has been a defining problem for empires throughout history: how to make sure the next guy doesn't mess it up.

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

#66

Post by sageikosa »

saulrh wrote: post #35
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?

By leaving yourself unvaccinated, you are bearing the risks of contamination. The risks that someone else takes leaving themselves unvaccinated is up to them.

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

#67

Post by GauntletWizard »

chadgeidel wrote: post #59
ygrechuk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Slippery slope is not automatically a fallacy. In fact, since this is a political (and more importantly, rhetorical) debate, slippery slope isn't a fallacy at all. It is an argument, carrying some weight or none at all, depending on how it is presented. In light of an article that is precisely about how "Big Pharma" overprescribed drugs to people who didn't need them, suggesting that allowing the government to enforce prescriptions will lead to more corruption and overprescription, this argument should hold a lot of weight.

More generally: Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. It, along with many of it's brothers [1], do nothing to prove a point in a logical debate. They do no represent MUSTs, they represent SHOULD, MAY, and OPTIONAL [2]. These are rhetorical devices that you should use when you are feeling out the scope of the problem and advocating for policy in a political debate. And it can be relevant to call them by name, but dismissing an argument because you can name it is actually illogical.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Informal_fal... [2] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

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

#68

Post by ghaff »

netcan wrote: post #49
aggie wrote: 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.

The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal…

As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly.

Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to home-school as a result, and 2.) keeps the children away from at least one of the locations (school) where they would interact with the largest population of other children.

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

#69

Post by LordKano »

tedunangst wrote: post #60
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is the consumption of horse meat forbidden by law or are they using the regulatory power of the USDA to prevent the commercial slaughter of horses?

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

#70

Post by saulrh »

sageikosa wrote: post #66
saulrh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?

By leaving yourself unvaccinated, you are bearing the risks of contamination. The risks that someone else takes leaving themselves unvaccinated is up to them.

There are people who can't be vaccinated, and instead depend on everybody near them being vaccinated so the disease can't spread to them, so leaving yourself unvaccinated is not a risk only to yourself. I, for example, have a family history that means I can't take the usual meningitis vaccine. I am depending on the people around me getting vaccinated, and if they don't, they push to me a risk of becoming infected, exactly like someone who doesn't wash their hands after using the restroom won't make themselves any sicker but can infect me. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
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