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Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

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Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#131

Post by throwayEngineer »

dractori wrote: post #129
throwayEngineer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>often we rip on government agencies from our perch on...Hacker News, when we really have no idea what's going on. In a single department, we don't know. As a whole, it's been shown over and over that like any organization, government becomes corrupt. Between defense and universities, I've heard depressing ancedotes as well. It's lucky and temporary you had a good experience.

That seems like a pretty cynical perspective to me. Like if Edison had said "it's been shown over and over that electric light bulbs don't work" after the first couple hundred experiments didn't pan out.

In every country, in every world, in every decade of humanity, in every department.

But this time will be different.

Very interesting take.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#132

Post by nybble41 »

richardthered wrote: post #25
hirundo wrote: post #4

I think it's bad policy for the FDA to screen medicines not just for safety but also efficacy. From this study it appears to be frequently unjustified but it gives the drug a seal of approval that has a tendency to replace the judgement of doctors and patients. It's not that the FDA decision makers are corrupt or incompetent. These are wildly complex issues that nobody can get right consistently. Better not to concea…

Without some kind of efficacy standard, you could sell water as a cancer cure. That would be very bad for health outcomes. However, I do agree that it's a difficult topic, in general. Off-label drug uses is one example.

That would be plain false advertising. The FDA doesn't need to get involved in such trivia.

I have no problem with the FDA as a certification agency, whether they're certifying safety or efficacy or both. I do have a problem with their approval being mandatory in order for the product to be sold. If their stamp of approval means anything—if lack of FDA approval implies that a product is unsafe and/or ineffective—then doctors, insurers, and patients will all look for that approval and avoid products without it. The problem is that "safe and effective" is neither necessary nor sufficient to obtain FDA approval.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#133

Post by OldFatCactus »

reallydude wrote: post #15

Challenging chemo: https://www.icnr.com/articles/ischemotherapyeffective.html Australia has a study that's pretty damning. Is that one of these practices listed?

the website you linked reads like homeopathic conspiratorial junk. I would be wary of anything they cite

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#134

Post by pas »

nybble41 wrote: post #132
richardthered wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without some kind of efficacy standard, you could sell water as a cancer cure. That would be very bad for health outcomes. However, I do agree that it's a difficult topic, in general. Off-label drug uses is one example.

That would be plain false advertising. The FDA doesn't need to get involved in such trivia. I have no problem with the FDA as a certification agency, whether they're certifying safety or efficacy or both. I do have a problem with their approval being mandatory in order for the product to be sold. If their stamp of approval means anything—if lack of FDA approval implies that a product is unsafe and/or ineffective—then…

The lack of safety would affect those who can't afford the "approved" options. :/

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#135

Post by martindbp »

program_whiz wrote: post #65

The majority of every invention / attempt will be wrong in any human pursuit. Just think, 400 useless apps or pieces of software are probably released DAILY to the itunes store. The only difference is the impact, but its still understandable. What if you had to write software that did the following: * Fixed a bug in an existing "legacy system", deployed remotely without your knowledge. You have no logs or debug infor…

Have you ever thought that maybe not everything has to be seen through the lens of software? Not trying to be snarky, but it's something I see so often here on HN and it kind of bugs me.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#136

Post by magduf »

kanzure wrote: post #11
avar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not screening for efficacy will result in both legitimate cancer medication and homeopathic medicine having an FDA stamp of approval. Nothing is stopping decentralized decision making, you just need to market whatever non-effective but safe remedy you're selling as a food supplement, a tea or whatever. You just can't advertise that it's a drug.

> Nothing is stopping decentralized decision making, you just need to market whatever non-effective but safe remedy you're selling as a food supplement a tea or whatever. You just can't advertise that it's a drug. Unfortunately, this is false. The FDA will still intervene in situations where it doesn't like what you're doing even if you don't advertise your work as a drug, medical procedure, or as having any particul…

>Unfortunately, this is false. The FDA will still intervene in situations where it doesn't like what you're doing even if you don't advertise your work as a drug, medical procedure, or as having any particular efficacy.

This is completely false. Proof: homeopathy and chiropractic are very popular and still on the market.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#137

Post by cubano »

richardthered wrote: post #25
hirundo wrote: post #4

I think it's bad policy for the FDA to screen medicines not just for safety but also efficacy. From this study it appears to be frequently unjustified but it gives the drug a seal of approval that has a tendency to replace the judgement of doctors and patients. It's not that the FDA decision makers are corrupt or incompetent. These are wildly complex issues that nobody can get right consistently. Better not to concea…

Without some kind of efficacy standard, you could sell water as a cancer cure. That would be very bad for health outcomes. However, I do agree that it's a difficult topic, in general. Off-label drug uses is one example.

you could sell water as a cancer cure. That would be very bad for health outcomes.

Well, if all you have to do is compare the patient's health outcome of, say, 3 days with water vs. 3 days without, I am sure you could find a very positive correlation between the two treatment paths.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#138

Post by geggam »

dang wrote: post #125
geggam wrote: post #22

Frankly, Me and most of America think the FDA approves things according to the highest bidder. This is one of the biggest contributing factors to the anti vax movement. | The trust in our govt and all govt agencies is simply gone.

If you keep posting unsubstantive comments or flamebait to HN, we will ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Banning someone for expressing opinions you disagree with falls in line with some very bad history.

My comment wasnt unsubstantive by any definition of the word. There are countless examples of the govt doing things to lose trust and that is the root cause of many of societies issues.

Banning people from a forum for expressing that thought seems counter to the guidelines you post.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#139

Post by nybble41 »

pas wrote: post #134
nybble41 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be plain false advertising. The FDA doesn't need to get involved in such trivia. I have no problem with the FDA as a certification agency, whether they're certifying safety or efficacy or both. I do have a problem with their approval being mandatory in order for the product to be sold. If their stamp of approval means anything—if lack of FDA approval implies that a product is unsafe and/or ineffective—then…

The lack of safety would affect those who can't afford the "approved" options. :/

Which is more likely to cause an issue, a treatment with no FDA safety approval (but also no history of problems, and possibly safety approval from some other trusted organization) or going without treatment altogether because you can't afford the one with FDA approval and everything else is prohibited?

The existence of uncertified, or just differently certified, options should also put some downward pressure on the prices of the certified options compared to the current monopoly environment. When everyone has to obtain FDA approval there is no incentive to minimize the cost and plenty of reason for established incumbents to make approval as expensive as possible to lock out any potential competition. You can always push for "more safety" above and beyond the level of risk reasonable people would be willing to accept.

Re: Nearly 400 medical devices, procedures and practices found ineffective in study

#140

Post by Duladian »

martindbp wrote: post #135
program_whiz wrote: post #65

The majority of every invention / attempt will be wrong in any human pursuit. Just think, 400 useless apps or pieces of software are probably released DAILY to the itunes store. The only difference is the impact, but its still understandable. What if you had to write software that did the following: * Fixed a bug in an existing "legacy system", deployed remotely without your knowledge. You have no logs or debug infor…

Have you ever thought that maybe not everything has to be seen through the lens of software? Not trying to be snarky, but it's something I see so often here on HN and it kind of bugs me.

It is much easier to relate to a known quantity than an unknown. I would say the vast majority of people here are either programmers or at least have enough knowledge in programming to relate to it.
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