Debating on how to regulate drugs

[Zippyjuan]

Should drugs or drug companies be unregulated?

 

[sratiug]

So maybe we should get rid of the FDA and let pharma release whatever drugs they want to and rely on reports of bad side effects up to and including deaths be voulntarily reported by people who have to then try to go to court and sue to get any bad ones removed from the market. Fewer people should die that way than with the FDA around, right? A "free market solution" to regulations? Remember when companies were caught posing as customers and posting positive reviews of their own products on sites including Amazon? Surely that can't happen again! The people will have deep pockets to file and fight these lawsuits against those puny companies, right?

Sure the FDA, which is made up of people, is not perfect. No human enterprise is. But it would be scary to consider what things might be like without them out there.

Would any private testing company be any more or less susceptable to influence from drug companies than the FDA? What would prevent that? Would they have the resources to do reliable testing on drugs including blind studies? Where would they get the money to do the testing? Maybe from drug company contributions?

Without the FDA seal of approval no one would take all these untested drugs that kill so many people, more than 100,000 a year not counting mistakes and overdoses. They would try to find actual solutions to there problems, most of which involve food and exercise.

Civilization did manage to exist and expand before the FDA without everyone guzzling hemlock.

Zippy loves the FED too... [sarcasm] without the FED OMG how would we set interest rates??? [/sarcasm]

Actual science does not require Nazi government for enforcement.

 

[RBS51]

You don't need to be a scientist to know if something works for a condition.

Bull, even the doctors have to engage in trial and error, and if you want to be safe you get all your scrips filled at the same pharmacy and go over side effects with the pharmacist on each new prescription because they know more than the doctors.

Many conditions can not be controlled with diet and exercise - diabetes, asthma and COPD, some heart and blood pressure problems, many more.

This discussion puts the GROSS in gross over simplification.

 

[TCE]

So maybe we should get rid of the FDA and let pharma release whatever drugs they want to and rely on reports of bad side effects up to and including deaths be voulntarily reported by people who have to then try to go to court and sue to get any bad ones removed from the market. Fewer people should die that way than with the FDA around, right? A "free market solution" to regulations? Remember when companies were caught posing as customers and posting positive reviews of their own products on sites including Amazon? Surely that can't happen again! The people will have deep pockets to file and fight these lawsuits against those puny companies, right?

Sure the FDA, which is made up of people, is not perfect. No human enterprise is. But it would be scary to consider what things might be like without them out there.

Would any private testing company be any more or less susceptable to influence from drug companies than the FDA? What would prevent that? Would they have the resources to do reliable testing on drugs including blind studies? Where would they get the money to do the testing? Maybe from drug company contributions?

You're aware that drug companies do their own testing, right? Turn on the news, at least once a month you'll see all of these reports about how tests have been falsified by drug companies. It's not hard to do at all, especially when the FDA is in your pocket. The FDA has no place in a healthy society.

Drug companies still do this. They have different accounts and post positive reviews. They intimidate doctors, the whole nine yards. The FDA did a great job with Vioxx, with Accutane, and with psychiatric drugs, so I can see why everyone would trust them so much.

 

[TCE]

Bull, even the doctors have to engage in trial and error, and if you want to be safe you get all your scrips filled at the same pharmacy and go over side effects with the pharmacist on each new prescription because they know more than the doctors.

Many conditions can not be controlled with diet and exercise - diabetes, asthma and COPD, some heart and blood pressure problems, many more.

This discussion puts the GROSS in gross over simplification.

Diabetes: Lifestyle disease. Ever wonder why diabetics can't have sugar? Eating=diet.
Asthma: I had asthma, I was told there was no cure, years later, I have no asthma. No drugs required.
Heart and Blood Pressure Problems: My dad and Grandfather had these. My dad went off his medications and onto supplements and is showing better numbers than when he was on the drugs. For 1/12 of the price and none of the negative side effects. His father also had them and he laughed at all of the doctors suggestions. He lived 40 more years after that.

 

[dannno]

Bull, even the doctors have to engage in trial and error, and if you want to be safe you get all your scrips filled at the same pharmacy and go over side effects with the pharmacist on each new prescription because they know more than the doctors.

I don't have any desire for any 'scrips'

Most natural substances and supplements have little to no side effects and many of them work really well. In fact, better than the OTC and prescriptions that doctors recommend. So again, why am I going to rely on that system which I have seen fail over and over again? I prefer natural substitutes, which would be in higher demand if the manufactured crap wasn't being pushed onto doctors and onto the market by the FDA and their "know-it-all" scientists.

 

[RBS51]

Unfortunately your vision of the FDA is an unworkable fantasy. It will always be controlled by corporations by the very nature of its existence.

BTW, if the FDA "has a legitimate function in interstate commerce", what doesn't? The only legitimate functions of the federal government are expressly enumerated in the Constitution.

This is what removal of the FDA would result in:

History of quack medicine

http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/library/exhibits/patentmed/history/history.html

The Commerce Clause is an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the Commerce Clause referred to as "the Foreign Commerce Clause," "the Interstate Commerce Clause," and "the Indian Commerce Clause," each of which refers to a different application of the same single sentence in the Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause

Personally, I believe preventing toxic substances from being sold across state lines as "medicine" is a legitimate application of the commerce clause.

 

[TCE]

Personally, I believe preventing toxic substances from being sold across state lines as "medicine" is a legitimate application of the commerce clause.

Right, because when I purchase things at the store, I always head to another state to purchase stuff there and then come back to the state I live in.

 

[RBS51]

I don't have any desire for any 'scrips'

Most natural substances and supplements have little to no side effects and many of them work really well. In fact, better than the OTC and prescriptions that doctors recommend. So again, why am I going to rely on that system which I have seen fail over and over again? I prefer natural substitutes, which would be in higher demand if the manufactured crap wasn't being pushed onto doctors and onto the market by the FDA and their "know-it-all" scientists.

Well, I'm Hypo-thyroid and have serious asthma so I'd be dead without them. I f you want to rely on natural substances, fine, but don't take all the protection away from the drug market, some of us need them to live.

By the way, here's another good example of patent medicine from Wikipedia:

Towards the end of the period, a number of radioactive medicines, containing uranium or radium, were marketed. These apparently actually contained the ingredients promised, and there were a number of tragedies among their devotees. Most notoriously, steel heir Eben McBurney Byers was a supporter of the popular radium water Radithor, developed by the medical con artist William J. A. Bailey. Byers contracted fatal radium poisoning and had to have his jaw removed in an unsuccessful attempt to save him from bone cancer after drinking nearly 1400 bottles of Bailey's "radium water." Water irradiators were sold that promised to infuse water placed within them with radon, which was thought to be healthy at the time.

By the way, "radon" is a natural substance.

 

[Old Ducker]

You don't really want to go back to the era of the medicine show do you? The FDA has a legitimate function in interstate commerce. It's just a simple question - is it being run for the benefit of the people of the benefit of the corporations?

Start running the FDA on legitimate science for the benefit of the people and you won't see interference with experimental drugs in terminal or extreme cases, but you will see cheaper drugs because of lower development costs. The FDA is now controlled by corporations that don't want to see a new, lower cost drug come in until their patent runs out so they keep the hurdle high and the new drugs out.

A straw man argument. Back then the drug industry was in it's infancy. Yes the FDA has legitimate police functions that can easily be absorbed by private industry, supported by the leading industry associations. The drug industry has a vested interest in producing safe products that people have confidence and faith in. It would of course require a transitional period.

At a minimum, the FDA and the USDA should be merged. The overlap between these two as regards the food industry is absurd and their is little coordination between them.

 

[RBS51]

Right, because when I purchase things at the store, I always head to another state to purchase stuff there and then come back to the state I live in.

You know very well that these products are not produced intra state. They are produced in one location (perhaps even out of the country) and distributed nationally.

 

[someperson]

Remember everyone! With the advent of the internet, where a single incident can ruin a company's reputation overnight (the Dominos Pizza video (h ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBmWxQpedI) is a recent example), it most certainly serves a company's long-term interests to release potentially unsafe, untested, and damaging products. As we all know, killing off one's customers does wonders for that IPO

It's a good thing that the state is there to shield companies who release such products by providing their seal of approval. Let's not forget the other wonderful things the state helps the individual with, such as protecting companies from class-action suits when they are negligent in protecting passengers on airplanes, when they damage the environment by providing "pollution permits," and more! Domestic interventionism has just as many unintended consequences as foreign interventionism.

 

[dannno]

Well, I'm Hypo-thyroid and have serious asthma so I'd be dead without them. I f you want to rely on natural substances, fine, but don't take all the protection away from the drug market, some of us need them to live.

I used to have asmtha, then i started smoking high quality cannabis and it went away

Now i am in better shape and I have a really good lung capacity.

Turns out THC relaxes the bronchial tubes in your lungs. Asthma is the tightening of the bronchial tubes.

I would imagine cannabis would work great with your hypo-thyroid problems because various cannabinoids help to regulate hormones and other regulatory systems in our bodies.

but don't take all the protection away from the drug market, some of us need them to live.

Why don't YOU take the regulation off of my NATURAL medicines first

By the way, "radon" is a natural substance.

I think we can both agree that not all natural substances are good, and not all un-natural substances are inherently bad, but the fact is we have survived for thousands of years with trace radon throughout the planet, but the industrial revolution only began about 150 years ago.

We don't need to regulate nature, or "prevent" nature.. and if we didn't, we wouldn't have to rely on all these prescription medications. They could come onto the market slowly, as people are very cautious, and eventually if they work well the market will accept it.

Instead you want to rely on an FDA that is majorly flawed and bought by big pharma. It helps prevent people from using inexpensive natural medicines because big pharma funds it's research. It's really useless, to be honest, and it's killing people who need medicine that the FDA won't approve or is too expensive to get approval. They are preventing people from using these substances.

 

[dannno]

Apparently Canada has done some studies on the topic of hypothyroidism and cannabis.

Also there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence:

I, on the other hand, have hypothyroidism and have found it to be a wonderful cure (I was diagnosed a few years before I started smoking). Not only did the symptoms go away shortly after I started smoking daily, but I stopped taking the medicine I was prescribed and every blood test has shown my blood levels to be perfectly in range.

http://forum.grasscity.com/6876223-post4.html


Amazing.


You thought you'd be dead without the FDA, turns out they just have you taking a bunch of chemicals instead of ingesting a plant.

 

[RBS51]

Apparently Canada has done some studies on the topic of hypothyroidism and cannabis.

Also there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence:



http://forum.grasscity.com/6876223-post4.html


Amazing.


You thought you'd be dead without the FDA, turns out they just have you taking a bunch of chemicals instead of ingesting a plant.

Your "anectodotal evidence" is one isolated report, I found no "Canadian research" and the only research I found on cannabis and thyroid disease was with "HYPER-THYROIDISM".

The chemicals are hormone replacement - eating a plant would only work if it was hormone replacement. I have Hashimoto's, an inherited auto-immune thyroid disease. My thyroid gland is long gone.

And as for my asthma - I have scarred lung tissue.

I really dislike it when someone thinks their own "anecdotal experience" gives them the right to tell someone else what to do with their body.

Talk about a libertarian oxymoron......

 

[noxagol]

The reason people are so trusting of things on the shelves such as the creatin supplements is they think that just because its on the shelf it is proven to work good because they falsely believe that the government would not allow such things to be false.

The real solution? People need to start using their brains instead of relying on Uncle Sam to use his for them.

And yes, ABOLISH THE FDA. Let the market handle certifying drugs.

 

[Ninja Homer]

I really dislike it when someone thinks their own "anecdotal experience" gives them the right to tell someone else what to do with their body.

You must not like the FDA then, because that's EXACTLY what they do.

 

[sratiug]

Your "anectodotal evidence" is one isolated report, I found no "Canadian research" and the only research I found on cannabis and thyroid disease was with "HYPER-THYROIDISM".

The chemicals are hormone replacement - eating a plant would only work if it was hormone replacement. I have Hashimoto's, an inherited auto-immune thyroid disease. My thyroid gland is long gone.

And as for my asthma - I have scarred lung tissue.

I really dislike it when someone thinks their own "anecdotal experience" gives them the right to tell someone else what to do with their body.

Talk about a libertarian oxymoron......

Synthroid is the most prescribed brand of T4 in the United States. Synthroid was marketed in 1955, but was not FDA approved at that time as it was "generally regarded safe".[5] In the 1990s, in response to debate as to whether Synthroid was more effective than other levothyroxine preparations, (which ended up concluding that there was little difference between Synthroid and generic brands) all levothyroxine preparations were required to undergo the formal FDA approval process. Synthroid was approved by the FDA on 24 July 2002.[6]

It seems the "drug" you rely on was already popular long before the FDA got their hands on it.

Do you take anything for your thyroid or is it actually completely destroyed as in does not exist anymore?

 

[enjerth]

We don't need a government agency to certify food Kosher. Private dedicated groups perform this function with a much better record and higher efficiency than any government agency has. It is a model of what could be if we remove government control from product quality and put it in the hands of consumers.

The Kosher food industry is not anarchy, it's liberty, and it works wonderfully.

 

[Working Poor]

Since virtually everyone falsely believes the FDA is protecting them, while it is really a genocidal agency.

Drugs that have death and major organ failure as a known side effect and deemed safe is the only proof I need that the above statement is true.