31–40 of 118 posts
Maybe the FDAs mandate could be changed to regulate drugs to maximise the benefit to society. That way things like Melatoin should be allowed and the shenanigans detailed in Bad Pharma (book by Ben Goldacre) should be dealt with. There seems a lot of stuff that is not entirely in the public interest at the moment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in. Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehen…
OP described exactly how the author began his article. Your apologetics are tendentious. I hate to break this to you, but the author you have gone out of your way to praise is a very shallow thinker who darts around to create the illusion of a solid argument. It's just sad that you find him thought-provoking. I suggest Critical Reasoning 101 for you.
The OP seems to have read something completely different than I (or somehow skipped every other paragraph). At this point it doesn't matter what the text is or who wrote it. It's a failure of reading.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in. Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehen…
There must be some ambiguity in the article, because GP's reading looks plausible to me. For example, "You can’t have one set of elements in Russia and another in the US, everyone would work together and compare notes. At the very least one side would have the common decency to at least steal from the other. No way anything like this could possibly go on. But as far as I can tell this is exactly the state of modern p…
Imagine that there were no FDA Iron Curtain and doctors prescribed afobazole because "the paper was good" (or more likely because the money was good). Then people taking this drug got hospitalized left and right (or - shudder - found dead) because of side effects. FDA could not do anything to protect her dear US citizens. She couldn't sue the manufacturer or ask them to do further research or impose black box warning…
You're right that the solution shouldn't be automatic US approval for any drug used in Russia. It's reasonable to have standards for drug testing and require that any drug used in the US is tested to those standards. The problem isn't (only) that US drug standards are strict. The problem is that the financial burden of testing a new drug, which is significant, lies solely on the manufacturer, who can only recoup thos…
You already have this. It's called Orphan Drugs in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug
> a free-market variant, in which the government just auctions off US patent rights for foreign drugs
This will probably work. But once the barrier is too low, a lot of "useless" drugs will show up (i.e. providing more choices to prescribers but in reality does not really give much benefit) - and you need to fund those too using the taxpayers' money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in. Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehen…
There must be some ambiguity in the article, because GP's reading looks plausible to me. For example, "You can’t have one set of elements in Russia and another in the US, everyone would work together and compare notes. At the very least one side would have the common decency to at least steal from the other. No way anything like this could possibly go on. But as far as I can tell this is exactly the state of modern p…
> Imagine if a chemist told you offhandedly that the Russians had different chemical elements than we did.
Make it clear that different elements being used in Russia is a hypothetical. He then uses it to show the absurd state of the state of psychopharmacology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the argument still stands, right? Who will be responsible if the "extremely well-understood drugs" have some problems in the US? They don't care about US population because it is such a small market for them. Let's say we lower teh barrier of entry by waiving these "extremely well-understood drugs" from proper research in US. There are instances of drugs that exhibit different side effect profile due to genetics…
I would be on the same page as you if the FDA and the American medical establishment had a great track record of protecting Americans from harm. As it is there's massive over-prescription of dangerous chemicals doing serious harm. Remember Vioxx? Remember estrogen hormone replacement therapy? There's currently massive, dangerous over-prescription of statins, amphetamines for kids, female hormones, and SSRIs. Conseque…
If you think you can find helpful chemicals on your own, you are either very confident to use your own body as a guinea pig or suffering from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect .
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in. Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehen…
OP described exactly how the author began his article. Your apologetics are tendentious. I hate to break this to you, but the author you have gone out of your way to praise is a very shallow thinker who darts around to create the illusion of a solid argument. It's just sad that you find him thought-provoking. I suggest Critical Reasoning 101 for you.
> If a chemist told you this, you would think they were crazy. Science, you would say, is science everywhere. You can’t have one set of elements in Russia and another in the US, everyone would work together and compare notes. At the very least one side would have the common decency to at least steal from the other. No way anything like this could possibly go on.
> But as far as I can tell this is exactly the state of modern psychopharmacology.
Which is telling us that the peculiar elements stuff was some weird hyperbolic example to make us realise just how strange it is that we ignore Russian pharmacology.
(I downvoted you for your needlessly aggressive tone.)
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> This article is junk science. The author opens by suggesting that Russians have discovered and use a different set of chemical elements than the ones we use in the United States, going so far as to suggest that one of them is a room temperature superconductor in ways that American scientists are uninterested in. Either I completely failed to see sarcasm in your comment, or you completely failed in Reading Comprehen…
> It doesn’t count if some foreign scientists already did a bunch of studies. It doesn’t count if millions of Russians have been using the drug for decades and are by and large still alive. Um, no, it doesn't. What's the FDA going to do if they have additional questions or want additional studies done? The FDA doesn't approve these drugs for the exact same reason the author doesn't prescribe them. Lament the situatio…
The author doesn't prescribe them because they don't want to get sued. The fda doesn't allow them because they are (argues the author) run by big pharma.
The author argues that "big pharma" doesn't seek the FDA approval because there's no way to recoup the expense.
To quote,
"Absent an extremely strong patent on the drug there’s no reason a drug company would want to go forward with all of this. I don’t know what the legalities of buying Russian drug rights from Russian companies are, but I expect they’re complicated and that pharmaceutical companies have made a reasoned decision not to bother."
Note the reasoned decision part. The author's actual point is summarized in the N-2th paragraph:
Everyone follows their own incentives perfectly, and as a result the system as a whole does something insane. Classic multipolar trap..
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I did not read the author suggesting this. Your example was part of a hypothetical analogy.
From the article:
> Imagine if a chemist told you offhandedly that the Russians had different chemical elements than we did.
I can interrupt this as the author setting up a hypothetical scenario to help illustrate the absurd state of psychopharmacology.