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I'm talking about minor reactions as well as serious ones. I'm telling you that if you made the drug manufacturers responsible for all these the unpredictability that would create would cause many manufacturers to shut down completely. Those that remained in business would raise prices above and beyond the exorbitant levels they are right now.
And they should pay for it as they KNOW that this is a possible outcome of someone taking the drug.
If a car maker knowingly sold cars where breaks were defective 1% of the time and there was a risk of getting killed, how long would they remain in business?
Why is it OK for drugs to kill people Why do people just shrug it off, no big deal? I will never understand that mentality. It's like people are brainwashed. Car breaks may not work?!?!?!? Are they NUTS? Not buying that product, no way. This drug might KILL me? Meh, that's ok. No problem. /facepalm./
Drugs kill hundreds of thousands more than supplements ever did, yet pro-pharma people here rant about how unsafe supps are. Not even a close comparison.
Would you be willing to pay a surcharge on every drug and medical treatment you receive in order to fund a pool of money to compensate people who have adverse reactions?
Where your car brakes analogy fails is that adverse reactions to drugs are not due to defects. They are due to differences in the physiology of people who take them, such as how much of the enzymes you have that break down and eliminate them. For example, codeine makes me incredibly nauseated. Thanks to 23andMe I know that I make less of the enzyme that metabolizes that class of drugs. There are people who make a lot of that enzyme; they might need a higher dose of codeine to get pain relief.
For some drugs, the hazards of using them are inherent in the way the drug works and what it is used for. Cancer chemotherapy drugs are in that category. Yes, you could have a fatal complication from the medication, but without it your risk of dying may be very high. For my son's leukemia, that risk was 100%. We gave him the drugs and cringed when his platelet and white blood cell counts dropped dangerously low. If he had died from bleeding or an infection, should we have been able to sue the companies that made those drugs? We were given detailed information about the medications when we signed the consent forms for his treatment. We had him treated because there was no alternative except to watch him die.
No one says it is OK for drugs to kill people. They are not killing hundreds of thousands of people in the US, though. That is a faulty conclusion based on bad assumptions and poor statistical analysis.
There are some alternative treatments that can be dangerous, such as laetrile for cancer. Laetrile itself can kill by cyanide poisoning. It's use also kills if people choose it over standard therapy to treat their cancers, because it does not cure any cancer. No one is counting those deaths, because the people who sell laetrile are for sure not keeping track of them. If you take laetrile and die of your cancer because it did not work, your family will be told you did not start treatment "soon enough".
The bone I have to pick with most of alt med is that it does not work. It just separates people from their money. Provide the evidence that an "alternative" medicine works for what it is claimed to do, and I will use it myself. Of course, if it works, it's not "alternative" any more; it's just medicine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
No.
They would make safer drugs.
The implication of this post is that drug manufacturers are not doing anything to make drugs safer. That is not true.
However, if the adverse effect is due to some aspect of your personal physiology that the vast majority of people do not share with you, how is the drug company supposed to make that drug safe for you to use? The answer is that it cannot.
Would you be willing to pay a surcharge on every drug and medical treatment you receive in order to fund a pool of money to compensate people who have adverse reactions?
Where your car brakes analogy fails is that adverse reactions to drugs are not due to defects. They are due to differences in the physiology of people who take them, such as how much of the enzymes you have that break down and eliminate them. For example, codeine makes me incredibly nauseated. Thanks to 23andMe I know that I make less of the enzyme that metabolizes that class of drugs. There are people who make a lot of that enzyme; they might need a higher dose of codeine to get pain relief.
For some drugs, the hazards of using them are inherent in the way the drug works and what it is used for. Cancer chemotherapy drugs are in that category. Yes, you could have a fatal complication from the medication, but without it your risk of dying may be very high. For my son's leukemia, that risk was 100%. We gave him the drugs and cringed when his platelet and white blood cell counts dropped dangerously low. If he had died from bleeding or an infection, should we have been able to sue the companies that made those drugs? We were given detailed information about the medications when we signed the consent forms for his treatment. We had him treated because there was no alternative except to watch him die.
No one says it is OK for drugs to kill people. They are not killing hundreds of thousands of people in the US, though. That is a faulty conclusion based on bad assumptions and poor statistical analysis.
There are some alternative treatments that can be dangerous, such as laetrile for cancer. Laetrile itself can kill by cyanide poisoning. It's use also kills if people choose it over standard therapy to treat their cancers, because it does not cure any cancer. No one is counting those deaths, because the people who sell laetrile are for sure not keeping track of them. If you take laetrile and die of your cancer because it did not work, your family will be told you did not start treatment "soon enough".
The bone I have to pick with most of alt med is that it does not work. It just separates people from their money. Provide the evidence that an "alternative" medicine works for what it is claimed to do, and I will use it myself. Of course, if it works, it's not "alternative" any more; it's just medicine.
You have a bone to pick with alt med as "it does not work"...how do you know that? So you take them and they don't work. Which ones I wonder do you take. Most of the ones I take all work and save me from the doors of doctor's offices. And the drugs they sell...yes they sell, none of them are given away...maybe some samples to get one hooked.
You have a bone to pick with alt med as "it does not work"...how do you know that? So you take them and they don't work. Which ones I wonder do you take. Most of the ones I take all work and save me from the doors of doctor's offices. And the drugs they sell...yes they sell, none of them are given away...maybe some samples to get one hooked.
Alt medicine has sure grown for "not working" ..
I know that because a lot of alt med has been studied. Homeopathy is nothing but placebo. The entire thesis behind it is bogus. Chiropractic can help low back pain, but it works no better than standard physical therapy and the subluxation theory is also bogus. Herbal products may not even contain what the label says they do, or the quantity the label says it does, and may contain substances (including prescription drugs) that are not on the label at all.
You do not know that the supps you take are doing what you believe they do. Just because you take a supplement and you do not get a certain disease, say cancer, is not proof that the supplement prevented your cancer. To determine whether it prevents cancer would require taking a sufficiently large group of people and giving half the supplement while the other half do not get it. Neither the people participating in the study nor the people conducting it should know who is in which group. Then you follow them - with cancer, it would have to be for years - and see whether there are fewer people in the supplement group who get cancer. Supplement manufacturers should be required to do such testing, but they are not, and they will not do it on their own.
What you do not know is how many people who have used your favorite supp still develop cancers. Odds are about half of them will.
Yes, alt med is big business because there are people who want to believe in it. That does not mean it does anything useful.
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 08-04-2018 at 01:55 PM..
Hmmm.....I've been thinking about this. There is a concept in the law called "inherently dangerous". Let's take the case of aspirin. Aspirin has been around since before there was any regulation of drugs or pharmaceuticals. Its a terrific pain relieving drug. In addition, in small amounts, taken regularly, its very useful in terms of preventing heart disease. These same properties make aspirin very dangerous as well. You can bleed to death internally from it. It can cause ulcers.
So what should happen? Should the manufacturer of aspirin be responsible every time someone develops a stomach ulcer or, heaven forbid, bleeds to death? You'll find lots of warnings on an aspirin bottle or package.
Let's go further. Blood thinning medication like coumadin and heparin is very useful in preventing strokes and heart attacks. Yet, too much of these medications can cause a person to bleed to death as well.
Should the manufacturers of these extremely useful drugs be responsible every time someone bleeds to death? There are plenty of warnings given and only someone who is totally illiterate could miss them.
The nature of pharmaceuticals makes them different than other products. If you don't recognize that you are truly uninformed.
I know that because a lot of alt med has been studied. Homeopathy is nothing but placebo. The entire thesis behind it is bogus. Chiropractic can help low back pain, but it works no better than standard physical therapy and the subluxation theory is also bogus. Herbal products may not even contain what the label says they do, or the quantity the label says it does, and may contain substances (including prescription drugs) that are not on the label at all.
You do not know that the supps you take are doing what you believe they do. Just because you take a supplement and you do not get a certain disease, say cancer, is not proof that the supplement prevented your cancer. To determine whether it prevents cancer would require taking a sufficiently large group of people and giving half the supplement while the other half do not get it. Neither the people participating in the study nor the people conducting it should know who is in which group. Then you follow them - with cancer, it would have to be for years - and see whether there are fewer people in the supplement group who get cancer. Supplement manufacturers should be required to do such testing, but they are not, and they will not do it on their own.
What you do not know is how many people who have used your favorite supp still develop cancers. Odds are about half of them will.
Yes, alt med is big business because there are people who want to believe in it. That does not mean it does anything useful.
Yep. No one is forced to vaccinate. You may have to make alternative arrangements to educate your child, though. Your choice.
Yep. Your child may not get to attend school, though. Prepare to home school.
It's my hobby! I also work in DH's office. I am the (poorly paid) Office Manager, so I get to give myself permission to play on the computer on company time.
Why does it make a difference whether I choose to start threads or reply to them? See that little green badge by my name? That was awarded by CD for being a helpful poster.
I would be happy to support "natural" remedies if they worked. They mostly don't. Those "dubious links" provide supporting evidence to show they don't. Don't like what I write? Don't read it.
I am not the only one that has criticized Makary's article. It's junk. Bad statistics. It should never have been published. How it made it past peer review is totally beyond understanding. He should have looked at the number he generated and come to the same conclusion his critics have: it's not plausible. You should not draw the conclusion he did based on 35 deaths and by claiming every adverse event was due to a "mistake".
If you make posts that contain misinformation you need to expect it to be challenged. Note that I do not attack you personally, only the content of your posts. Many others have also done the same. At some point, you might want to step back and consider that if many other people are disagreeing with what you are saying, what you think is a fact is not a fact, it is just an opinion and based on bad sources.
Let me guess: Your husband is a doctor, pharmaceutical rep, pharmacist, chemist, mortician? I will bet dollars-to-donuts he is in some profession that is enriched by pharmaceutical drugs.
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