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Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
51–60 of 82 posts
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#52I'm so angry right now. I did a deep dive into this at one point after being prescribed some generic Vyvanse through Sun via Dillons/Kroger. The pills smell like fish and seem like they didn't work at all. I checked some records from the FDA and Sun wasn't listed. I brought it up to my doctor and they just brushed it off. I really hope another class action lawsuit is brought against Sun.
Isn't the new direction of capitalism in America Freedom from Regulation?
The US is long past the point where we need to stop talking about medical regulation generically. Some regulation and enforcement needs to be increased, and others need to be decreased or eliminated, at least in my opinion.
To me this sort of thing is fraud, and I feel like the FDA needs more resources and oversight to fight it. But with other things I think the FDA needs to back off completely, where it's overstepped its useful mission. I personally would like to see the FDA stop telling people what they can purchase or receive from whom, but spend more time guaranteeing that whatever is on the label is what it says it is and nothing else.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
A software developer is not required to do any continuing education at all.
Ok, but you are moving the goalposts relative to my original quote: “Their daily practice leaves little time or incentive for keeping up with studies.” My first point is that software developers (generally, more often than not) have the time and incentive to learn on an ongoing basis. Second point: if continuing education has to be mandated, it is likely a symptom of a system that lacks proper incentives. On the posi…
> if continuing education has to be mandated, it is likely a symptom of a system that lacks proper incentives
I’m a pilot and work in finance. They both have continuing-education requirements. The ones in the former are practical and helpful. The ones in the latter are mostly performative. (In some cases, arguably counterproductive.) The existence of continuing-education mandates per se tells you almost nothing about the system as a whole.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#54The report is horrifying, but in the current US political climate it is very hard to see how a government agency could undergo any positive cultural change. A quick search finds recent firings [1] and [2]... who would lead a change? [1]: https://floridianpress.com/2025/06/rep-wasserman-schultz-sla... [2]: https://fortune.com/2025/02/16/trump-cuts-fda-layoffs-food-s...
The issue I described existed before the administration change. Neither's parties people wants to be poisoned.
I’m pretty sure one party’s people does want to be poisoned, given the consistent advocacy for reduced pollution controls and such.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#55I have a pet theory about the medical industry in the USA. The US is the most pure-capitalist nation on the planet, and medical services are as bad a fit as it gets for a market economy: * interactions with the market are ideally as few as possible * there is massive information asymmetry * people can't "shop around" during medical emergencies * the externalities are orders of magnitude more potent than the forces di…
I completely agree with your points about medical services, but I think it’s important to point out the US does not have, and never really has had, a meaningful market economy when it comes to healthcare.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, but you are moving the goalposts relative to my original quote: “Their daily practice leaves little time or incentive for keeping up with studies.” My first point is that software developers (generally, more often than not) have the time and incentive to learn on an ongoing basis. Second point: if continuing education has to be mandated, it is likely a symptom of a system that lacks proper incentives. On the posi…
Mandated continuing education isn't a sign of missing incentives, it is the incentive. Being required to do something to keep working in the field seems like a pretty strong incentive to me. But I certainly won't dispute that doctors in most systems in the US are overworked starting at least in residency.
We both know there is a difference between intrinsic and extrinsic incentives. This difference underlies so many things, including: (i) justification for regulatory frameworks; (ii) individual motivation; and (iii) likelihood of follow-up / compliance.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, but you are moving the goalposts relative to my original quote: “Their daily practice leaves little time or incentive for keeping up with studies.” My first point is that software developers (generally, more often than not) have the time and incentive to learn on an ongoing basis. Second point: if continuing education has to be mandated, it is likely a symptom of a system that lacks proper incentives. On the posi…
> if continuing education has to be mandated, it is likely a symptom of a system that lacks proper incentives I’m a pilot and work in finance. They both have continuing-education requirements. The ones in the former are practical and helpful. The ones in the latter are mostly performative. (In some cases, arguably counterproductive.) The existence of continuing-education mandates per se tells you almost nothing about…
Point taken. Interesting example. Do you have some theories about why continuing education requirements are so different in aviation compared with finance? Some factors might include: individual skin in the game, observability, feasibility, and the temporal and causal distance from action to consequences.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Medicine is one of the most regulated and least capitalist markets.
Capitalism cannot exist without regulation. There is no such thing as a "free market". Capitalism relies upon regulation to enforce the enclosures it builds. Regulations are a direct product to protect profits. For example, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating prices with drug companies for most medications. A few exceptions were carved out with the IRA passed under Biden. The VA can it pays a lot less. Why is Med…
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Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Neither's parties people wants to be poisoned. Voters for one party keep taking horse medicine and we can't seem to stop them when they experience negative side effects, and we couldn't get them to get vaccines even as their friends and loved ones were dying begging for it at the last minute. There's definitely a party divide here.
I have no opinion on ivermectin. I don't think it's a miracle cure, but I also have no idea about the actual research in that space. But. My assistant at my last job was all in on it during COVID. It cures everything, according to her. The moment when her cognitive dissonance hit its peak was when she gave her husband ivermectin for a cold, and was absolutely astounded that he ended up in the emergency room with diar…
Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic. Since having parasites on top of another condition is generally worse than just having the condition, it's not uncommon to see a positive impact when taking ivermectin for a variety of conditions in places where parasitic infections are common, if only because the body no longer has to fight the parasites in addition to the condition.
Since anti-vaxxers during COVID were looking for anything to take the place of a vaccine, ivermectin was an easy thing to latch onto.
Re: Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA's Gamble on America's Drugs
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the new direction of capitalism in America Freedom from Regulation?
The US is long past the point where we need to stop talking about medical regulation generically. Some regulation and enforcement needs to be increased, and others need to be decreased or eliminated, at least in my opinion. To me this sort of thing is fraud, and I feel like the FDA needs more resources and oversight to fight it. But with other things I think the FDA needs to back off completely, where it's oversteppe…
To continue making a follow on point, also needing nuance - pharmaceutical manufacturing is exactly the type of industry that can and should be brought back to the US. First, through outright subsidies [0] to get the plants built. And then when domestic supply is high enough, through regulations prohibiting healthcare management plans from buying imported drugs.
[0] spending some of the surplus from having a reserve currency on deliberate policies rather than it being blindly given to asset holders