101–110 of 329 posts
Over and over people on HN come to the defense of advertising. Doctors tend to be Republican and free-market adherents. So why would they be against drug advertising? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair
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This is a good thing in one way. People should be free to buy chemicals at will. The disturbing part is that it's a forced tax paid to doctors to get RX's written each month. Even worse, this further kills equality. A worker desiring to boost performance can easily afford top-notch medicines -- speed's only $20 a month for a starting dose at a pharmacy. But the prescription alone can be 10x that, and sometimes may be…
> People should be free to buy chemicals at will. this would introduce a myriad of acute public health issues and do great harm to the public good, costing taxpayers billions of dollars for remediation. Edit: the DHHS's report on prescription medication abuse is good reading in this area: http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/hhs_prescription_drug_ab...
There are definitely more dangerous drugs than alcohol but legalization of all drugs isn't going to destroy society.
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because a free market gives its consumers what they want and even rational people will take opiates over a constructive life And? If that's their preference who are you (or I, etc.) to say otherwise?
People with addictions don't have preferences in the sense you mean. The nature of addiction is that it subverts and overrides the (delicate) mechanisms of rational choice. If the principle we live by is maximizing total individual freedom, then I think freedom from addiction has to be part of that. For that matter, much of the point of advertising is also to subvert one's preferences. So as a believer in individual…
It's an interesting point to discuss. Presumably they did (in most scenarios) have a choice when beginning the drug, but then once addicted, you have a good point. So should we argue that that initial choice was made freely, and that we have no right to use force to break you from that addiction (presuming you aren't hurting or posing a threat to anybody else)? Or should we say that since you aren't truly making willful decisions, then intervening isn't violating your personal notion of agency, and going "against your will"?
I'd have to give this one some more thought to be honest. It strikes me that it isn't a simple question. OTOH, I still have no problem saying that anyone who is free to make conscious, willful decisions (whether we consider than rational or not) should be free to make the choice to put anything in their body that they want.
Can't a free market sort out the problems with drug use?
Yes, the market works the buyers are the doctors (or organizations with medical expertise such as Surgeon general, Insurance company). They are informed enough to make a transaction with the producer of a drug. A patient will never be able to make a rational decision when buying a drug. So the market economy clearly breaks down if you ever consider patients to be the customers.
Nonsense.
These ads are one of the main reasons I became a cord cutter. I'm very happy they have not yet followed me onto any of the streaming services I use. They are the creepiest thing ever on television. The actors sit around dinner tables with family members speaking unnatural, FDA manipulated dialog ("Oh, I'm doing great, I've been taking Pradaxa for my afib, not caused by a heart valve problem!") Then you get the unendi…
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"I've never understood the logic behind prescription drug ads. The first rule of sales is to pitch the decision maker." Plenty of logic is there. Part of the purpose is to make the Doctor pay attention to the advertising that they see in a journal. [1] How? Patient goes in and "asks their doctor" about a drug. Then another patient. And another. So now when the doctor sees an ad (or the detail man comes in) the doctor…
Patient goes in and "asks their doctor" about a drug. I wonder if this really ever happens. I mean, for many of the ads, it's hard to tell even what the drug does, so going to your doctor and asking for that med would amount to a random question.
There are of course also the extreme cases of specifically asking for a given prescription, but like the parent mentioned, just having a few patients persistently ask the doc about X is enough of a motivator to get the doctor to pay [marginally] more attention to the doctor-facing literature/ads/sales force.
I've never understood the logic behind prescription drug ads. The first rule of sales is to pitch the decision maker. You can't buy prescription drugs without a doctor's authorization, so basically the ads are asking people to go beg their doctors for medicine they may, or may not, need. The doctor, in turn, may give in to the patient's emotional pleas, since they are, in effect, in a customer service business. This…
"I've never understood the logic behind prescription drug ads. The first rule of sales is to pitch the decision maker." Plenty of logic is there. Part of the purpose is to make the Doctor pay attention to the advertising that they see in a journal. [1] How? Patient goes in and "asks their doctor" about a drug. Then another patient. And another. So now when the doctor sees an ad (or the detail man comes in) the doctor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the market works the buyers are the doctors (or organizations with medical expertise such as Surgeon general, Insurance company). They are informed enough to make a transaction with the producer of a drug. A patient will never be able to make a rational decision when buying a drug. So the market economy clearly breaks down if you ever consider patients to be the customers.
"A patient will never be able to make a rational decision when buying a drug. " Nonsense.
These ads are one of the main reasons I became a cord cutter. I'm very happy they have not yet followed me onto any of the streaming services I use. They are the creepiest thing ever on television. The actors sit around dinner tables with family members speaking unnatural, FDA manipulated dialog ("Oh, I'm doing great, I've been taking Pradaxa for my afib, not caused by a heart valve problem!") Then you get the unendi…