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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

#121

Post by duaneb »

Retra wrote: post #116
duaneb wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a nice slogan, but it isn't actually realized anywhere. It's always your choice when there's a clear advantage -- that is, when the state doesn't "know best" about your body. And it absolutely reserves the right control your body for the greater good. That's true legally, and in theory, but if someone tries to medicate me without my permission I'll leave the country. I can't trust the government with my heal…

Well, one might agree with you were they able to distinguish between paranoia and an actual problem. I highly suspect that your experiences with that drug weren't a result of a government mandate that you could not exclude yourself from. An adverse reaction to medication is exactly the kind of information that is needed to circumvent its use. Nobody is arguing against that.

No, but it's a sign that we need drug reform that it was on the market at all. If they can't even validate the psychiatric drugs we're giving to people, how can we expect them to make sweeping decisions for an entire population? It's not paranoia at that scale, it's just kicking the tires to see if our government actually has the wherewithal to make these kinds of decisions. It seems extremely obvious to me they don't, and we've only seen positive change on this front in the last ~seven years at the NIH, FDA, and DEA in terms of recognizing and resolving these past issues.

And it's not so much that there was a mandate to prescribe risperidone, more that they prescribed me a very, very shitty medication when I was a ward of the state. It's their responsibility to ensure the doctors and RNs have accurate, up to date knowledge of the medication they're educated to prescribe by the FDA. IMHO they failed with risperidone.

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

#122

Post by jack9 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
ghaff wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Yeah, but no significant group is arguing for that; its a strawman. > Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Its not really much of a compromise -- its pretty much the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination pr…

> the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination proponents actually seek

Vaccination proponents seek vaccine-preventable diseases to be largely prevented.

What do you mean by "mandatory vaccination proponents" if not the previous sentence you just dismissed as a straw man. Why are you trying so hard to be combative?

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

#123

Post by jack9 »

valarauca1 wrote: post #26
sp332 wrote: 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.

Appeal to fear is a logical fallacy not a rational argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear

Regardless of a fallacy or not, it's effective. So the argument works. Dealing with the populace, citing wikipedia doesn't get you very far.

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

#124

Post by EyeballKid »

deelowe wrote: post #21
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…

In a typical corporation, psycopaths are the cream that rises to the top. I've seen it happen time and time again.

Or, as Jarvis Cocker put it: "Shit floats" :-)

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

#125

Post by toothbrush »

LordKano wrote: post #28
Retra wrote: 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?

Consider that the state does compel you not to kill humans. If non-humans were accorded similar rights (which is a separate discussion) then yes, they most certainly could.

EDIT: wording

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

#126

Post by beagle3 »

wehadfun wrote: post #111
leoc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points. Would you expand on this?

Anti-vaccine points: 1. The people who control what vaccines the Government reccomends are "close" to the people that profit from the vaccines. For example Paul Offit, one of the louder pro-vaxies, voted to put a vaccine on the schedule and he had a patent to a similar vaccine. 3 years later he sold his patent for $182 million. 2. The Government has proven that it can be tricked (Volkswagen) and influenced by big mon…

(Pro-vaxxer here:) Another anti-vax point is a variation of the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect"[0]. You know that the government policy with respect to some drugs/medicine is completely unscientific - why would you assume they're right about other drugs?

[0] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

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

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

jack9 wrote: post #122
dragonwriter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yeah, but no significant group is arguing for that; its a strawman. > Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Its not really much of a compromise -- its pretty much the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination pr…

> the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination proponents actually seek Vaccination proponents seek vaccine-preventable diseases to be largely prevented. What do you mean by "mandatory vaccination proponents" if not the previous sentence you just dismissed as a straw man. Why are you trying so hard to be combative?

> What do you mean by "mandatory vaccination proponents"

People actually supporting the idea that government should mandate vaccination of children in some circumstances; the real people on the other side of the actual government policy debate from anti-vaxxers.

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

#128

Post by dang »

jonstokes wrote: post #9

The tragedy here goes far beyond the direct damage to the patents who were prescribed this vile stuff off-label. There's also the collateral damage to the medical establishment that supports this -- can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma? I myself am an anti-anti-vaxxer (a pro-vaxxer?) who actually supports state-mandated…

Please don't take HN threads on off-topic flamewar tangents.

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

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

mindslight wrote: post #117
DanBC wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why, categorically, should one be forcibly vaccinated in order to protect someone else ? Sure, it's the civilized thing to do, but why is the justification to compel it? (And yes, the "anti-vax" "movement" is disgusting - a fine example of the stupidity of crowds. Unfortunately, defending freedom often means defending scoundrels). There's a similar argument around fire coverage. The common argument against a more lib…

> But making coverage mandatory also ignores long term second-order effects whereby organization becomes completely disconnected from the people it serves

I don't see how you can argue that it ignores this in the case where people advocating for mandatory fire protection coverage advocate that the agency through which the fire protection is provided be democratically accountable to the people in the covered area, which pretty much excludes anyone advocating public coverage in the modern developed world; addressing that effect is a central purpose of democratic accountability.

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

#130

Post by mindslight »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
mindslight wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, categorically, should one be forcibly vaccinated in order to protect someone else ? Sure, it's the civilized thing to do, but why is the justification to compel it? (And yes, the "anti-vax" "movement" is disgusting - a fine example of the stupidity of crowds. Unfortunately, defending freedom often means defending scoundrels). There's a similar argument around fire coverage. The common argument against a more lib…

> But making coverage mandatory also ignores long term second-order effects whereby organization becomes completely disconnected from the people it serves I don't see how you can argue that it ignores this in the case where people advocating for mandatory fire protection coverage advocate that the agency through which the fire protection is provided be democratically accountable to the people in the covered area, whi…

I then elaborated:

> (which is usually then handwaved away with the wisdom-of-crowds fallacy).

If either markets were perfect or centralized control (in this case via democracy) were perfect, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

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