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Book review: Bad Pharma

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#41

Post by shas3 »

pinaceae wrote: post #38

a bit of a weird review. mixes trial design, which is international, with inherent US issues like the ok to advertise prescription drugs. i postulate that pharma is actually working, better than a lot of other industries. pharma has a working patent system that balances the need for profit and expiration dates (see the recent patent cliff that wreaked havoc, in a good way, on the entire industry). it has to scientifi…

"you think X is easy?" is a pointless statement. Everything is easy or difficult to different extents to different people. Also, the difficulty of solving a problem is not the primary criterion for choosing whether to attempt or expect to solve the problem. More importantly, there are no excuses for unethical behavior and fraudulent research.

I haven't read the book but I have read a lot of Ben Goldacre's articles (http://www.badscience.net/). His arguments are typically about how quacks, kooks, and pharmas practice 'bad' and fraudulent 'science' and are dishonest in presenting the results of their 'research'.

A vast majority of the population is inept at understanding the kind of statistical language in which drug companies misrepresent results. In addition to innate human propensity for logical fallacies (e.g. Type 1 thinking- Kahneman, Tversky, etc.), our perception is tainted by the personal dimensions of issues related to health and suffering.

Ben Goldacre is a darn good science 'popularizer' and does a great job of explaining these things to a general audience.

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#42

Post by weavie »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #2

On the issue of efficiency of Prozac or similar drugs, sometimes the explanation is that they simply work and you know it if you have taken them. I found the effects of SSRIs very noticeable, and every doctor prescribing them knows of patients who suddenly were able to leave the bed, or deeply depressive patients switching into a manic episode. The latter might not sound like an improvement, but for the patients, qua…

> On the issue of efficiency of Prozac or similar drugs, sometimes the explanation is that they simply work and you know it if you have taken them.

This can often be down to the placebo effect. Chris Kresser talks about this [1], saying that even when given a placebo people will report feeling better.

[1] http://chriskresser.com/placebos-as-effective-as-antidepress...

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#43

Post by socialist_coder »

pinaceae wrote: post #38

a bit of a weird review. mixes trial design, which is international, with inherent US issues like the ok to advertise prescription drugs. i postulate that pharma is actually working, better than a lot of other industries. pharma has a working patent system that balances the need for profit and expiration dates (see the recent patent cliff that wreaked havoc, in a good way, on the entire industry). it has to scientifi…

No one is arguing that good things don't come out of big pharma.

The complaint is that trying to figure out if a drug is effective & safe (or not) is near impossible. The trial data you have access to is incomplete because drug companies selectively release results. Doctors are also financially motivated to prescribe the drugs, tainting the decision making process.

Those are major complaints.

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#44

Post by PM_Tech »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #40
PM_Tech wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best tl;dr I have ever read. You are totally accurate. That is exactly what Greenspun is claiming. :-)

As comment goes that sounds suspiciously like an ad-hominem attack rather than an actual criticism of the substance of the argument.

What argument? WTF are you talking about? Who is arguing?

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#45

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

PM_Tech wrote: post #44
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As comment goes that sounds suspiciously like an ad-hominem attack rather than an actual criticism of the substance of the argument.

What argument? WTF are you talking about? Who is arguing?

Piketty's argument - the one he puts forward over 700 pages in the book - as distinct from Piketty himself.

Saying Piketty is jealous may or may not be true, but it says nothing about whether what he says in his book is correct or not (and if not in what way he is incorrect).

If someone disagrees with what he says then saying things about Piketty himself is really rather by-the-by as it's his analysis that needs to be critiqued. He may be an idiot speaking truth or a genius speaking nonsense, but the truth or nonsense (rather than the idiot or genius) is the significant matter.

EDIT: I've not read either Piketty (life is too short - at least mine is) or Greenspun's analysis of it (would be rather pointless as I've not read what he's talking about).

I'm only saying that if something can be genuinely summarised as "Piketty is jealous" then that sounds like an attack on the author rather than the work.

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#46

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

PM_Tech wrote: post #33
jpatokal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try reading his blog then. He's not rebutting it word for word, of course, but he makes it fairly obvious there are some rather large and often fundamental holes in Piketty's arguments: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/06/17/book-review-pi...

No I am good thanks. I will just discount it. I don't consider a blog post a suitable way to analyse the magnum opus of an economist of the stature of Piketty. EDIT : Curiousity got the better of me. I read the review of Capital. I stopped at this line - "Here are some ideas, some taken from my 2009 economic recovery plan for the U.S." The author is a supremely talented electrical engineer. Stick to that instead of w…

As an analysis it's a little all over the place.

The first half says "this is why Piketty is (probably) wrong about there being a problem" and the second half saying "and he's wrong about what we should do about it, here's what we should do instead".

Surely if there is no problem, the there is nothing which needs to be done about it?

Re: Book review: Bad Pharma

#47

Post by PM_Tech »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #45
PM_Tech wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What argument? WTF are you talking about? Who is arguing?

Piketty's argument - the one he puts forward over 700 pages in the book - as distinct from Piketty himself. Saying Piketty is jealous may or may not be true, but it says nothing about whether what he says in his book is correct or not (and if not in what way he is incorrect). If someone disagrees with what he says then saying things about Piketty himself is really rather by-the-by as it's his analysis that needs to b…

Greenspun def attacks Piketty as an individual and has done numerous times it appears.

RSJW is right on the money with his TL;DR

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